Jewish Quarter: rue des Rosiers

From Paris Hotels Reviews

One block south of the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, the area around narrow, pedestrianized rue des Rosiers has traditionally been the Jewish quarter of the city ever since the twelfth century. Although the hammam is now a design shop, and many of the little grocers, bakers, bookshops and cafés are under pressure to follow suit, the area just about manages to retain its Jewish identity, with a number of kosher food shops and Hebrew bookstores. There’s also distinctly Mediterranean flavor to the quartier, testimony to the influence of the North African Sephardim, who, since the end of the World War II, have sought refuge here from the uncertainties of life in the French ex-colonies. They have replenished Paris’s Jewish population, depleted when its Ashkenazim, having escaped the pogroms of Eastern Europe, were rounded up by the Nazis and the French police and transported back east to concentration camps.