No 126 - Summer 2016

Bernard Lyon-Caen
Their ancestor cured Empress Josephine.The chiropodist Tobia Koën and his lines of descent
A little known picturesque figure, Tobias Koën was the surgeon-chiropodist of Napoleon Bonaparte and Joséphine de Beauharnais. After referring to family memories, we recall the bulk of what is known of his biography and present a four generation list.

Anne-Marie Fribourg
Illegitimate births and manifold identities : the Laufer sisters (Foussemagne, Paris)
This paper about the Laufer family reports the peculiarity of the birth certificates of illegitimate children.

Martine Puig-Moreno
Conversions and returns : the case of the Jews in Barcelona (1846-1947)
Between 1846 and 1947 about 250 foreigners of Jewish origin who had immigrated to Barcelona or were born there decided to convert to Catholicism. The majority of them did so between 1939 and 1945, in a difficult Spanish situation. Several of them came back to Judaism later on. In this paper we focus : first on the sociological outline of these people ; secondly on the  European and Spanish politic context ; and thirdly on the cases of return to Judaism.

Eliane Roos Schuhl
The Dambach mohelbuch written in Alsace (1669-1727)
The adventures of a book of prayers published in Italy and recovered after long years of search. In the centre of it 14 pages register 293 circumcisions accomplished by David Levi in Dambach – near Scherwiller – in middle Alsace at a little known period for the Jews.

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