Great Bladeaux — Wikipedia

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The Big Synagogue in Bordeaux is the main place of Israelite worship in Bordeaux.

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Succeeding a first building destroyed by fire in 1873, it was raised between 1877 and 1882 under the direction of the architects Charles Burguet then Charles Durand and Paul Abadie.

Headquarters of the Sephardic community, it is among the largest synagogues in Europe and has been classified as a historic monument since 1998 [ first ] .

History [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The presence of a Jewish community has been attested for several centuries in the Aquitaine metropolis. This increases considerably after the promulgation of the Alhambra decree ( ) by which Catholic kings decide to expel the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula [ 2 ] . Fleeing the persecution of the Inquisition, many of them decide to settle beyond the Pyrenees, constituting often active and prosperous communities in the southwest of France. The Bordeaux Jewish community remains flourishing for several centuries, providing some big names in the fields of literature, arts, trade and politics (Gradis, Raba, Nénés Pereyra, Pereire or Mendès [ 3 ] ).

When Napoleon orders the formation of the Central Consistory, a regional consistory was created in Bordeaux in 1808. A large synagogue was founded under its impetus on rue Caususge. Designed by the architect Armand Corcelles, she is freely inspired by oriental architecture [ 4 ] . Nevergical center of the Jewish district, this monumental building was the victim of a fire during the year 1873.

This claim determines the representatives of the community to acquire a new sanctuary which is funded by the Pereire brothers, Rothschild and Iffla Osiris, Bordeaux by Bordeaux [ 5 ] . The realization is entrusted to the architect André Burguet, then, after the death of the latter, to architects Charles Durand and Paul Abadie. The work started officially in 1877 to end in 1882. The that same year [ 6 ] , the great synagogue of Bordeaux is inaugurated and open to worship [ 7 ] .

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Under the German occupation, the pillaged synagogue serves as a place of internment to the Jews who have failed to flee in time. Nearly 1,600 families are imprisoned there before being deported to the Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau camps [ 7 ] , [ 8 ] .

The [ 9 ] , Albert Lautman is locked up with seven hundred and two resistance fighters, including sixty two women, in the concrete wagons of the so -called “ghost train” convoy. The next day, the train, for Dachau, heads to Bordeaux, the line to Lyon having been destroyed [ 9 ] . Taken for a military convoy, he is bombed by British aviation at Parcoul-Médillac station [ 9 ] , near Angoulême. The locomotive destroyed, it remains parked five days [ 9 ] . The train returns to Bordeaux the [ 9 ] . The prisoners remain more than sixty hours at Saint-Jean station, locked up near the deposit of locomotives in the concrete wagons but supplied by the national aid.

On the night of 12 to 13 [ 9 ] , they are, after a large half hour of walking in rows, piled up in the synagogue of the city transformed by the German authorities in the insalubre annex of the Hâ. The national holiday is boldly celebrated there by a harangue of the activist Sfio Noël Peyrevidal [ ten ] perched on the tebah then a Marseillaise followed by a heckling. THE , ten prisoners, Christmas Peyrevidal, Inspector Robert Borios, Litman Nadler, an emigrant student of Romania, the Spanish refugee José Figueras, André Guillaumot, Marcel Jean-Louis, Emilio Perin, Joseph Uchsera, Albert Lautman and Meyer Rosner, a agent liaison of eighteen, are extracted and led to the fort of the Hâ [ 11 ] . They join a group of thirty six other detainees, maquisards who have been selected on file by the Kommando IV of the Sicherheitspolizei of Bordeaux, Kd , that directs Lieutenant S.S. Friedrich-Wilhem Dohse. They each receive a “Zum Tode Verurteilt” box. For German military justice, Lieutenant Albert Lautman is only a “terrorist” who cannot benefit from the rights granted by the laws of war to the Franks.

Today [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Nowadays, the great synagogue, which rises in an alley (rue du Grand-Rabbin-Joseph-Cohen) slightly behind the Sainte-Catherine Street, remains one of the lungs of the Bordeaux Jewish community. The morning and evening services are held there daily.

Architecture [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Fronton at the tympanum of the great synagogue in Bordeaux, photo Go69.

The architecture of the great synagogue is both from Gothic aesthetics and orientalist currents then in vogue in part of Europe.

Forming a 36 -meter -long vessel by 26 meters wide, it is preceded by a monumental facade confined to two towers [ 4 ] . The initial project provided that they were extended by two octagonal bulbs, but this party is not unanimous (some members of the community seeing it a too manifest Christian influence), the funds assigned to their completion were suppressed [ 7 ] .

The interior takes up the arrangements of the ancient basilical plane, and consists of a main vessel separated from the collaterals by a series of fourteen Corinthian columns (seven on each side). At the upper level are arranged from the stands ( Mekhitsa ), space traditionally reserved for women.

At the bottom of the sanctuary, the gaze carries towards the holy ark ( heckal ), spared in a large arcade in an overpassing arc. A velvet curtain ( Parokhet ) Garnet shades serve as a backdrop.

The central part of the synagogue is occupied by a platform ( bear ) where the ministers of worship come to officer. This is preceded by a monumental chandelier with seven branches ( menorah ) almost 4.50 m in height [ 7 ] .

The cover of the building is a metal structure carrying riveted sheet metal, a work of the workshops of Gustave Eiffel. The metal frame is hidden by a vault in basket handle lined with transverse cradles, the whole amounting to more than 16 meters. This arrangement makes it possible to identify a large -scale interior space, and accentuates the effect of monumentality of the building.

Interior of the synagogue with its escaped arc, photograph of 1900-20
  1. ↑ ‘ Ranking of the great synagogue of Bordeaux » , notice n O PA00083914, Base Mérimée, French Ministry of Culture . Accessed December 6, 2009
  2. ↑ See the story of the so -called Portuguese Jews
  3. ↑ See Pierre Mendès France
  4. ↑ a et b The heritage of the municipalities of the Gironde , ed. Flohic, volume I, p. 311.
  5. ↑ ‘ Daniel Iffla Oisiris, Jewish and patron to whom we owe the great synagogue of Tunis » , on Harissa.com (consulted the )
  6. ↑ Or the 21 Elloul 5642 of the Hebrew calendar
  7. ↑ A B C and D The Bordeaux synagogue
  8. ↑ See Boris Cyrulnik.
  9. ↑ a b c d e and f Dominique Mazon, Jean Lavie & All., The 256 of Souges. Shot from 1940 to 1944. , p. 197 , The water edge, Lormont, September 2014 (ISBN  9-782356-873408 ) .
  10. ↑ Dominique Mazon, Jean Lavie & All., The 256 of Souges. Shot from 1940 to 1944. , p. 203 , The water edge, Lormont, September 2014 (ISBN  9-782356-873408 ) .
  11. ↑ F. Nurti 8 horses 70 men , p. 79-81 , Chantal editions, Perpignan, April 1945.

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