The Pletzl is the Jewish quarter in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. The Place Saint-Paul and the surrounding area were, unofficially, named the Pletzl when the neighborhood became predominantly Jewish because of an influx of immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The area hosts a diverse Jewish community, assembling traditional Jewish families as well as many more who arrived through immigration from Eastern Europe and North Africa through the past centuries. The area is now characterised by its synagogues, butchers, Jewish delicatessens, and falafel vendors, which provide a social and cultural fabric for its inhabitants. The darkest days for this community came during the Second World War, when Vichy collaboration with the Nazis resulted in the raids in which many residents were abducted and sent off to death camps. Today, the community is an Orthodox one, extremely religious, and most citizens belong to one of the three local synagogues; one located at 17, rue des Rosiers, another at 25, rue des Rosiers and the one at 10, rue Pavée, an art nouveau temple designed by Hector Guimard, famous for his work on the Paris Métro.
Why Pletzl?
Some time ago, the City of Paris installed a plaque at the corner of the Rue des Rosiers and the Rue Ferdinand Duval that explains why the Jewish quarter is known as the "Pletzl". Translated, it reads:
Fleeing persecution, Ashkenazi Jews flooded into Paris beginning in 1881. They found places living among their co-religionists already established in the Marais. By 1900, about 6,000 had arrived from Rumania, Russia and Austria-Hungary; 18,000 more arrived in the years preceding the First World War. Installed in considerable numbers in the Rue des Écouffes, the Rue Ferdinand Duval, and the Rue des Rosiers, they constituted a new community, the "Pletzl", the "little place" in Yiddish, and they created the École Israelite du Travail at 4B, Rue des Rosiers. The life of this community was evoked in the Roger Ikor novel, Les Eaux Mêlées, . More than half of them perished in the Nazi concentration camps.
