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You are here: Home Leisure Arts & Culture Paris Jewish quarter fights commerce in battle for soul

28/03/2008Paris Jewish quarter fights commerce in battle for soul

Tourism and commerce are conspiring to turn what for centuries has been a thriving Jewish district into just another identikit shopping strip.

   Tourism and commerce are conspiring to turn what for centuries has been a thriving Jewish district -- a slice of downtown Tel Aviv in modern Paris -- into just another identikit shopping strip, locals say.
   The "To Rent" sign hanging over Jo Goldenberg's celebrated kosher
restaurant is a symbol of the rapid decline of the rue des Rosiers area.
   Goldenberg's, the target of a deadly 1982 bomb and machine gun attack
blamed on Palestinian extremists, for decades served up central European
Jewish dishes such as potato latkes, matzo ball soup or sauerkraut with corned
beef.
   But now, at a rent of 300,000 euros (470,000 dollars) a year, it's being
fought over by fashion outlets.
   A few metres down the road stands the former community hammam, or steam bath, which still houses a local Jewish radio station but which is about to
turn into yet another boutique of the international fashion retailer H & M.
   "We stopped McDonald's opening in the hammam building in 2000, and we'll
stop H & M," said Joseph Finkelstein, who has lived in the area all his life.
   He runs an association of concerned citizens who hold regular protests to
try to block the trendy boutiques that are rapidly replacing the Jewish
butchers, barbers, cafes and bookshops in an area called the "Pletzl," the
Yiddish word for "Little Square."
   The area, described as "the heart of Parisian Jewry, a thriving, busy slice
of downtown Tel Aviv in modern Paris" in a recent history of the French
capital by the British academic Andrew Hussey, is still distinctly Jewish.
   It is home to five synagogues, including an Art Nouveau one designed by

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