Berkley Center

The Marais district of Paris, France has long been famous for its historic and rich Jewish culture and identity. Yet while tourists and locals alike continually and loyally return to this vibrant epicenter, the larger Jewish community of France itself recently celebrated remarkable milestone. Indeed, during the second week of April, France marked the 200-year anniversary of the first Jewish community in Europe. Indeed, commenting on this event outside of the Marais at the Grande synagogue de Paris in the ninth arrondissement, Prime Minister François Fillon proudly acknowledged the 600,000-member Jewish community that still resides in Paris.

Walking through the streets of Paris myself these last few months, I have been repeatedly reminded of a statement made by Georgetown Rabbi White last semester in his course on “interreligious dialogue.” Indeed, he described Judaism as a uniquely “evolving religious civilization.” This phrase had always reiterated for me the complexity of the Jewish faith and tradition. Yet living in France has made me realize the accuracy of this statement anew. In a recent article published by Le Monde, it was estimated that more than half of Paris'’ Jewish population (51 percent) live in the greater Paris community and that 40 percent of its populations consider themselves to less religious than their parents were. Indeed, it is impossible to deny that worries exist in Paris concerning the protection of the Jewish faith, even in this historically religious community. It has been my walks not just through the Marais, but through other less famous, internationally well-known communities, such as Paris’' more distant fourteenth arrondissement, that I’'ve realized, in fact, that the Jewish cultural identity and it’s close-knit sense of community remain vibrant alive nonetheless, though perhaps on a subtler level, in Paris today. Indeed, it is something I never would have imagined prior to living in Paris.