Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme Review

This excellent museum traces the tempestuous history of French and European Jews through art and history. Opened in 1998 in the refined 17th-century Hôtel St-Aignan, exhibits have good explanatory texts in English, and the free English audioguide is a must; guided tours in English are also available on request. Highlights include 13th-century tombstones excavated in Paris; a wooden model of a destroyed Eastern European synagogue; a roomful of early paintings by Marc Chagall; and Christian Boltanski's stark, two-part tribute to Shoah (Holocaust) victims in the form of plaques on an outer wall naming the (mainly Jewish) inhabitants of the Hôtel St-Aignan in 1939, and canvas hangings with the personal data of the 13 residents who were deported and died in concentration camps. The rear-facing windows offer a view of the Jardin Anne Frank. To visit it, use the entrance on the Impasse Berthaud, off Rue Beaubourg, just north of Rue Rambuteau.