LODÈVE

LODÈVE, town in the department of Hérault, S. France. In 1092, Bernard III, bishop of Lodève, renewed the ancient canonical prohibition on mixed marriages. The Jewish community of Lodève, which a medieval document describes as having been flourishing and with many scholars (although no works from them have been preserved), appears to have dwindled away from the end of the 13th century; Jews originally from Lodève are subsequently found in Montpellier and later in Perpignan. During the 18th century, Jews from Avignon traded in Lodève. In June 1941, about 100 Jews were living there, according to the census of Jews carried out at that time. There is a Rue des Juifs in Lodève, and in the vicinity a grotto known as Pons des Jésiaous ("Well of the Jews"). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gross, Gal Jud, 273ff.; REJ, 14 (1887), 73; 22 (1891), 265; 43 (1901), 295; G. Paris, Histoire de Lodève (1851), passim; Z. Szajkowski, Analytical Franco-Jewish Gazetteer 1939–1945 (1966), 200. (Bernhard Blumenkranz)