The Synagogue of Rue de la Tacherie was one of the medieval Jewish houses of worship of Paris. It stood in the area of today’s Rue de la Tacherie, in the 4th arrondissement, close to the present Hôtel de Ville and not far from the Tour Saint-Jacques.

In the Middle Ages, this area was known through names such as Rue de la Juiverie, Rue de la Juiverie-Saint-Bon and later Rue de la Vieille-Juiverie. These names preserve the memory of Jewish residence in this part of the Right Bank.

The Tacherie Jewish quarter

The Jewish presence in the Tacherie area is documented from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. By the end of the thirteenth century, fiscal records show Jewish households living in several nearby streets, including Rue de la Tacherie, Rue du Franc-Mourier and Rue de la Cour-Robert-de-Paris.

This was not a marginal memory preserved only by later tradition. The area appears through street names, tax records and documents connected to Jewish communal institutions before the expulsion of 1306.

Synagogue of Rue de la Tacherie

The Synagogue of Rue de la Tacherie was one of the central institutions of this Jewish quarter. In 1253, Jews paid a rent to the Temple for the use of a synagogue. Later documentation connected to the confiscations after 1306 refers to a house where Jews had been accustomed to hold their schools, a phrase generally understood in relation to synagogue and study functions.

The synagogue was still remembered at the time of the expulsion ordered by King Philip IV in 1306. In 1307, after Jewish property had been confiscated, the king granted the building associated with the Jewish school or synagogue to Jean de Provins, one of his servants.

The medieval building no longer survives. The present Rue de la Tacherie was also altered in the nineteenth century, especially during the transformations linked to Rue de Rivoli, Avenue Victoria and the redevelopment of central Paris.

Hebrew fragment and material memory

A material trace has been connected to this lost synagogue. In 2004, a stone fragment with Hebrew inscriptions was discovered by chance in Parc Monceau. The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme records that the fragment may come from the synagogue of Rue de la Tacherie, identified as the only synagogue securely attested on the Right Bank in the twelfth century.

The fragment has been interpreted as possibly connected to the re-consecration of the synagogue after the Jews were recalled to Paris by Philip Augustus in 1198 and recovered the building around 1199-1200.

For the history of medieval Jewish Paris, the Synagogue of Rue de la Tacherie is documented through medieval street names, fiscal records, royal confiscation and a possible Hebrew-inscribed architectural fragment.