VIP JEWISH TOUR

Would you like to experience a special VIP treatment during your VIP Jewish tour?

VIP Tours will give you full satisfaction taking you on this unforgettable journey of 8 hours in the Jewish quarter. That will introduce you to the history of the Jewish in Paris through the centuries.

Your personal, licensed driver-guide who is a specialist of the history of the Jewish in Paris will pick you up at your hotel in a luxurious Mercedes minivan or car and tailor your tour to your specific wishes and needs.

Starting at Notre Dame de Paris, you will be surprised to see in the Cathedral the representation of the theological conflict between Christianity and Judaism and a church where King Philippe le Bel burned Jonathan at the stake.

You will discover the Place de l’ Ile de France where a small gate on the right side of the square leads to the Memorial to the Unknown Deportee, and the French words above the door speak volumes: “Forgive but do not forget!”

Close by was the spot in 1240, of the infamous trial of the Talmud where cartloads of Jewish books were burned in 1242. You will pass the Memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr where you will see a large bronze cylinder with the names of death camps inscribed on it.

We then walk toward the heart of the Jewish quarter that is called rue des Rosiers and its narrows streets and alleys. Here you will find numerous Jewish shops and restaurants. Jews have lived here since the middle ages. In the thirteenth century, it was known as La Juiverie (the Jewry) with its own synagogues, cemeteries and food manufacturers. Some of the street names from that earlier period survive, as we shall see. In 1394, Jews were expelled for a final time and they did not return officially to Paris for nearly four hundred years.

Then, you will visit Agudath Hakehilot, an orthodox synagogue designed by Art Nouveau King Hector Guimard, the Art Nouveau architect and decorator famous for the archways he made for the Paris metro. Guimard’s wife, an American, was Jewish and with the rise of Nazism, they left France for the United States. On Yum Kippur 1940, the synagogue was dynamited by the Germans but has been restored and is now a national monument.

You will continue your visit discovering “The Wall of the 76000 Names” (among them 11000 children, the Jews of France and Paris exterminated by the Nazis during the Second World War).

You will enter the Memorial and the Museum of the Shoah, the Jewish Contemporary Center of Documentation.

It is now time for a nice lunch (not included in the price).

After the lunch, your guide will take you through the Museum of Jewish and Art History, following the traces and evolution of the various French Jewish communities, from the Middle Ages to the 20^th Century.

You will visit the Nissim de Camondo Museum; the Camondos were one of the richest Sephardic bankers of the 19^th Century in Europe, the most amazing collection of the 18^th Century rare pieces of art and furniture in their luxurious private mansion.

Nearby is the old rue des Juifs where, in the rear of the courtyard of number 20, there is a sixteenth century Hotel Particulier known as the Hotel des Juifs. Now owned by an artist, it is a remnant of a Jewish community of the eighteenth century composed of Jews from Alsace, Lorraine and Germany.

A few-minutes walk and you will visit the Place des Vosges, the most famous Parisian square, where the actress Rachel lived in apartment house nine. Victor Hugo lived at apartment number six and a modest second-floor synagogue can be found at apartment number fourteen. You will finish your tour returning via rue des Rosiers to rue des Hospitalieres Saint Gervais. Here, at number six is a Jewish boys school. The plaque on the wall commemorates the 165 students who were sent to the internment camp at Drancy and then to Auschwitz where they were murdered.

This tour due to the VIP treatment that we provide will leave you without doubt outstanding memories of your stay in Paris.