SISTERON

SISTERON, town in the Basses-Alpes department, S.E. France. After marseilles , arles , and tarascon , Sisteron was the fourth place in Provence where Jews settled. At the beginning of the 13th century there was a popular uprising in which 80 Jews were among the victims. According to solomon ibn verga 's Shevet Yehudah, these events occurred in 1204 and 1205, but local sources date them around 1235. (The latter are more reliable because they are confirmed by an order of Charles I, count of Provence, who in 1257 was still penalizing those who had destroyed the castle of Sisteron and massacred Jews.) At the beginning of the 14th century Jews were also mentioned as living in at least five small localities of the bailiwick of Sisteron, namely, Bayons, Mison, Vaumeil, La-Motte-du-Caire, and Barles. Jews were last recorded in Sisteron in 1452. During World War II an internment camp situated in the town held many Jewish prisoners. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. de Laplane, Histoire de Sisteron, 1 (1843), 96, 461; idem, Essai sur l'Histoire Municipale de la Ville de Sisteron (1840), 111f., 84; Gross, Gal Jud, 665f.; B. Blumenkranz, in: Bulletin Philologique et Historique (1965), 612; Z. Szajkowski, Analytical Franco-Jewish Gazetteer, 1939–1945 (1966), 155. (Bernhard Blumenkranz)