CHARTRES

CHARTRES (Heb. קרטוש), French town, about 52 mi. (85 km.) S.W. of Paris. The importance of the Jewish community in Chartres during the Middle Ages, whose existence is attested to as early as 1130, is illustrated by the numerous street names which still exist, such as Rue aux Juifs, Ruelle aux Juifs, Place aux Juifs, and Cul-de-sac des Juifs. The Saint-Hilaire Hospital is believed to have once been a synagogue. The remains of another synagogue still existed in 1736. Probably as a consequence of the general expulsions in 1306 and 1321, Jews from Chartres are found in Aouste-sur-Sye in 1331 and in Serre in 1349. The scholars of Chartres included Mattathias, a highly esteemed contemporary of Rashi, the liturgical poet Samuel b. Reuben of Chartres, and Joseph of Chartres, who wrote a biblical commentary and an elegy on the York martyrs of 1190. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gross, Gal Jud, 602ff.; P. Buisson and P. Bellier de la Chavignerie, Tableau de… Chartres (1896), 84–89. (Bernhard Blumenkranz)