CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE

CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, capital of the department of Marne, northern France. The Rue de la Petite Juiverie and the Rue des Juifs still exist in the town. The medieval community possessed a cemetery, which was disposed of by Philip IV after the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306. The custumal of the county of Châlons forbade Jews to sell articles they held in pawn without authorization from the seneschal. A stained-glass window in the cathedral from around 1150 depicts one of the oldest and most hostile representations of the allegorical "Synagoga." A new community was formed in Chalons-sur-Marne in the middle of the 19th century. In World War II, the prison there served as an assembly station for deportations carried out by the Germans. In 1968 there were 140 Jews living in Châlons-sur-Marne, and they had a synagogue. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gross, Gal Jud, 592; Blumenkranz, in: Mélanges… Crozet (1966), 1153; Z. Szajkowski, Analytical Franco-Jewish Gazetteer (1966), 224. (Bernhard Blumenkranz)