LONS-LE-SAUNIER

LONS-LE-SAUNIER, capital of the department of Jura, in Franche-Comté\>\> , E. France. A vicus Judeorum ("Jewish quarter") is mentioned in Lons in 1220; the establishment of the community therefore preceded this date. The Rue des Juifs (later the Rue de la Comédie and Rue de la Balerne) is mentioned down to the 14th century. The Jews of Lons owned a cemetery, but there is no record of a synagogue. During the 14th century, Jews from Lons are found in numerous other localities of Franche-Comté. During World War II, a large number of Jews from Alsace and Lorraine who took refuge in Lons established a community numbering approximately 1,300 members. Lons also became the seat of a regional rabbinate. There was no organized community in Lons by the 1960s. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Prost and S. Bougenot, Cartulaire de Hugues de Chalon… (1904), 496; L. Gauthier in: Mémoires de la société d'émulation du Jura, 3 (1914), passim; J. Brelot and G. Duhem, Histoire de Lons-le-Saunier (1957), 74; Z. Szajkowski, Analytical Franco-Jewish Gazetteer (1966), 208–9. (Bernhard Blumenkranz)