Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The synagogue of Bayonne, built between 1836 and 1837 by the architect Capdeville, replaces a former 18th century oratory destroyed during the Revolution. It is erected Rue Maubec, in the Holy Spirit district, a suburb historically linked to the installation of Portuguese Jews fleeing the Iberian Inquisition after 1492. These "new Christians", officially Catholic but secretly practicing Judaism, obtain royal letters patent (Henri II, Louis XIV) granting them limited rights. Their economic prosperity, especially in international trade and the introduction of chocolate in France, enabled them to structure an autonomous community, with clandestine synagogues from the 16th century.

In the 18th century, the Jewish community of the Holy Spirit, with 3,500 souls in 1750, gained the right to practice its religion openly. Thirteen synagogues (called esnogas) coexist in 1755, including Brandon's most important one before 1837. The French Revolution and the edict of Versailles (1787) granted them citizenship, but the population then declined to 2,000 in the 19th century. The current synagogue, inaugurated in 1837, symbolizes this period of official recognition, with a sober but majestic architecture, including an 18th century Holy Arch and the stained glass windows of Mauméjean.

The synagogue is designed to accommodate 300 faithful, with an atypical orientation (Holy Ark in the west, unlike the Jerusalemite tradition). It integrates cultural elements such as a mikve ( ritual bath) and a bakery for matzot. Ranked a historic monument in 2012, it survived the Nazi requisitions during World War II, although sixty members of the community, including Grand Rabbi Ernest Ginsburger, were deported. Today, it remains an active place of worship, despite a small community, and preserves rare Judeo-Portuguese musical traditions, studied by researchers such as Hervé Roten.

The history of the synagogue is inseparable from that of his rabbis, including Abraham Andrade (1789–1808), who participates in the Napoleonic Great Sanhedrin, or Emile Levy (1892–1904), who inaugurated the synagogue of Biarritz in 1904. The Portuguese rite, characteristic of the community, was celebrated there until the 20th century, despite attempts at liturgical unification in 1874. Traditional songs, transcribed in the 19th century by Émile Jonas, are now preserved. The synagogue, owned by the Jewish Cultual Association of Bayonne-Biarritz, is accompanied by a 17th-century Jewish cemetery and a classified mikve, both protected as historical monuments.

The Bayonnaise Jewish community, after a golden age in the eighteenth century, declined demographically (240 members in 1945), but was partially renewed with the arrival of North African Jews in the 1960s. The synagogue, opened for the offices of the Shabbat and the feasts, today embodies a local and European heritage, linked to the history of the Sefarades and their progressive integration into French society. Its ranking in 2012 underscores its historic and architectural importance in the religious landscape of New Aquitaine.

External links