Rachel and the Rabbi: In Paris's Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Two Very Different Representatives of 19th-Century French Judaism Come Together in Nearby Tombs

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Main entrance on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Avenue Rachel. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Rachel Felix. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Rachel and the Rabbi: In Paris's Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Two Very Different Representatives  of 19th-Century French Judaism Come Together in Nearby Tombs

by Samuel D. Gruber

A few weeks ago I wrote about statues of Jews in Paris and mentioned in passing the Jewish section in Père Lachaise Cemetery and the tremendous 19th-century celebrity Rachel Felix (1821–1858), who is buried there beneath an impressive funerary monument.

Though there is no statue erected to her memory, in her day Rachel (as she was universally known) was one of the most famous people in the world; and perhaps the most famous Jewish person. Celebrated as an actor, she also had romantic relations with some of the most powerful men of her time, including her lover and longtime friend Louis Napoleon (1808–1873), who became Emperor Napoleon III in 1852. Rachel's  fame was eclipsed in the next generation by another Jewish actor--Sarah Bernhardt--and she is little remembered today. Unlike Bernhardt, Rachel Felix was proud and forthright about her Jewish identity, though she did have her two illegitimate sons (by Count Alexandre-Colonne Walewski, himself the illegitimate son of Napoleon I, and general Arthur Bertrand), baptized. Both became distinguished diplomats.

I do think Rachel Felix would be a great subject for a movie or mini-series. Everyone who was anyone in mid-century Europe might show up for a cameo.  You can read more about her life at the Jewish Women's Archive.

Portrait of Mlle Rachel (Eliza Rachel Felix) by William Etty, 1841-1845. Photo: York Museums Trust.

For anyone discovering Jewish Paris--or just Paris--multiple visits to Pere Lachaise Cemetery are a requirement. The 44 hectare (110 acres) site is overwhelming. Its tens of thousands of tombs comprise an intensive episodic and ad hoc design and construction project, and thousands of architects, sculptors, designers, and stone masons and others  contributed to individual tombs to create the cemetery's overall appearance.

Located in the 20th arrondissement on Boulevard de Ménilmontant, Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris. It opened in 1804 and takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise (1624–1709), who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt during 1682 on the site of the chapel.

In 1804, the year he was declared emperor, Napoleon affirmed  that "every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion,”  and he put in place a new law that addressed the question of cemetery organization relating to religious beliefs. It was required that when an entire large cemetery be built, that a section should be dedicated to a specific religion (such as Judaism). Thus, the first Jewish section in Père Lachaise opened on February 18, 1810 in the 7th division. It was enclosed by a wall, and included a purification room and a pavilion for the caretaker. Subsequently, from 1865 to 1887, the 87th division also served as the Jewish section. In 1881, when formal segregation within cemeteries by religion was revoked, the walls of the Jewish enclosures were destroyed. New Jewish dead were then buried in the 96th division.

The cemetery is also the location of many memorials for soldiers of three wars, and for victims of concentration camps and other national calamities. I wrote in detail about some of these after a visit in 2018.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Rachel Felix. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Rachel Felix died on January 4, 1858 of tuberculosis. She was given a lavish state funeral where Grand Rabbi of Paris Lazare Isidor officiated. Her funeral, like her life, was a public spectacle that attracted the widest spectrum imaginable of Parisian society, including poor Jews from the Marais district (where she had lived as a child), famous journalists, actors, military leaders, and the Emperor himself. More than 100,00 people attended.

Rabbi Lazare Isidor, Rachel's contemporary, was born on July 13, 1813 in Lixheim, Lorraine. He came from a long line of rabbis, and was himself named Chief Rabbi of Paris in 1847 at the young age of 33. In 1867, he was installed as Chief Rabbi of France, a position he held until his death in 1888. But even in death, the world of Paris's Jewish elite was small, so it is not surprising to find  Rabbi Isidor's is separated by only one other grave from that of Rachel Felix. 

I can only imagine their eternal colloquy, and if it is only their physical remains that lie on the Avenue Rachel at Pere Lachaise, then we the visitors can at least imagine their conversations. In her life Rachel resisted many attempts at her conversion to Christianity. Did she discuss this with Rabbi Isidor? Did the Rabbi ever comment on Rachel's love life? Did they discuss the limits of assimilation and acculturation for Jews in France in the first half-century after emancipation, in which both had played such a major role?

What did they gain and what did they give up? Rachel rose from being the daughter of itinerant peddlers to the highest levels of politics and culture, and the rabbi was among the most celebrated religious figures of his day.

Rabbi Lazar Isidor (1813-1888)
Photo: Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, gift of Melle Fribourg.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Lazare Isidor (1813-1888), Chief Rabbi of France. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Lazare Isidor, Chief Rabbi of France. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Installation of Lazar Isisdor as Grant Rabbi of France, 1867. Detail of Wood engraving by Charles Maurand Le Monde illustré (March 30, 1867). Photo: Addleston Library, College of Charleston.

Information about Rabbi Isidor is found in the exhibition Life of the Synagogue, which I curated a few years for the College of Charleston. Quoting from the exhibition text:

Despite the presence of state officials and lauding of the government’s protection at this event, earlier in his rabbinical career, Rabbi Isidor had confronted the government, refusing in 1838 to take the “more Judaico” oath required of all state-appointed rabbis. Versions of this oath existed across Europe and were rooted in anti-Semitism, and Isidor considered the oath an insult to his co-religionists. He was subsequently arraigned before the court, where he was represented by French Jewish lawyer Adolph Crémieux and eventually acquitted. In 1846, the oath was declared unconstitutional in France...Rabbi Isidor was a supporter of a united Jewish religion and therefore opposed the Reform movement. During his time as Chief Rabbi, he worked on unifying the Jewish community in France and assimilating Algerian Jews and Jewish institutions into the French consistory system.

Installation of Lazare Isidor as Grant Rabbi of France at the Synagogue Nazareth, 1867. Wood engraving by Charles Maurand Le Monde illustré (March 30, 1867). Photo: Addleston Library, College of Charleston.

The shape of the rabbi's tomb recalls in a general way the arrangement of the ark wall of Paris's synagogue on the rue de Notre-Dame de Nazareth (Synagogue Nazareth), dedicated in 1852, and where Isidor was installed as chief rabbi in 1867. Rachel Felix was a member of the congregation. It remained the chief synagogue of the city until the opening of the new larger synagogue on the rue de la Victoire in 1875, construction of which also took place during Isidor's Chief Rabbinate. To a lesser extant, Rabbi Isidor's tomb also recalls the ark of the rue de la Victoire synagogue, too.

Paris, France. Synagogue on the rue de la Victoire. Photo: Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906.

In his capacity as religious leader and state functionary Isidor encouraged and oversaw the construction of a large number of new synagogues across France. This was a period in which adjustments were still being made to the acceptance of the public expression of Judaism and the recognition of synagogues as a branch of civic architecture.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Lazare Isidor (1813-1888), Chief Rabbi of France. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

One notable features of Rabbi Isidor's tomb is the inclusion of the Magen David or Jewish star.  This is a very early example of the use of the Magen David as a symbol of Judaism, though just a few years later, after Theodore's Herzl's publication of Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews) in 1895 launched the Zionist Movement, the symbol was adopted by Zionists at their Congress in 1897. It also was soon more commonly used in Jewish religious decoration, and included more in the intricate decoration of that small number of Moorish synagogues still being built. In France and elsewhere through the late 19th-century, however, the preferred Jewish symbols were still the Menorah and the Decalogue (Tablets of the Law).

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Lazare Isidor (1813-1888), Chief Rabbi of France. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Paris, France. Père Lachaise Cemetery. Tomb of Lazare Isidor (1813-1888), Chief Rabbi of France. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.