OUR SOCIETY'S LIFE _______________________________________________________ FAMILIES About the Dreyfus family During the European Day of Jewish Culture, Sept. 3, 2006, an exhibition in Soultz (Haut-Rhin) displayed a tax register of 1612 where the name Moÿses Dreÿfues appears and the picture of a nameless gravestone of 1624 from the Jungholtz (Haut-Rhin) cemetery recognized as Moïse Dreyfus' (viz. reproductions or analyses). Denis INGOLD seizes the opportunity to study the Dreyfus family name, whose origin is still being debated and according to the author could be Troyes (France) rather than Trier (Germany). In Le grand Départ (The great Voyage), taking as example the Aboulker family, Philippe DANAN describes how older Jews would travel to Jerusalem to end their life there. This custom seems to have been widespread among Algerian Jews in the 19th century. The article shows tombs of ancestors buried in the Josaphat Valley, a painting by the British artist William Wyld (1807-1889) showing the departure from Algiers and a limited family tree of the author. Charles BENITAH’s ancestors Ayache originate in Ain Kial, a village near Tlemcen (Algeria). The author has researched them in the marriage records deposited at the Center of Overseas Archives (Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer) in Aix-en-Provence. The discoveries he has made are published here, in order to benefit possible «cousins». How a Jew hires a French language teacher (Metz, 1719) During his search in the Notary archives Pascal Faustini has discovered a surprising Notary document : on Jan. 2, 1719 , a young Jew, Mayer Salomon Schwaube hires a French language teacher. After having been kindly sent the contract, Pierre-André MEYER ponders about the possible meanings of such a deed with reference to its cultural and social context. It is also an opportunity to depict the history and the genealogy of the Schwaube (also Schwabe) family, one of the most important lines of notabilities of the ancient Metz Jewish community.
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MISCELLANEOUS Bernard LYON-CAEN synthesizes the comments received from our readers on his article published in Issue 87 of this Revue about the historian Marc Bloch (1889-1944) and his ancestors.
In How two hands join, Peter STEIN analyzes the Hebrew texts engraved on two yadim (the instrument used to follow the text on the Torah). Their comparison contributes to the understanding of who were their donators/owners, both related to the author, and especially to the genealogy of the Guggenheim family (Revue du CGJ # 72 and Maajan-Die Quelle # 69). Ernest KALLMANN has discovered the wealth of information contained in the German indemnification files to reconstruct the detailed history of people who have suffered physically, mentally, professionally or financially under the Nazi era. The claims and attests filed just after WWII provide details often ignored by present researchers as exemplified in a personal occurrence. _______________________________________________________ ANALYSIS OF BOOKS Gilbert Roos gives a presentation of History of the Thionville Jewish Community, by Pierre Roos ______________________________________________________ QUESTIONS and ANSWERS ______________________________________________________ PRESS REVIEW |