No 138 - June 2019

ABSTRACTS

Rémy Chicheportiche
Four genealogical notes about the Algerian Sasportes (ששפורטיש), 1391–1830
The Sasportes (ששפורטיש) form a family of Sefardi Jews whose presence in Africa lasted for almost six centuries, from their landing in central Maghreb in ca 1391 until their final exile from Algeria in 1962. This paper unwinds their genealogy through four illustrating trajectories corresponding to various periods and places: Mallorca 1229-1391, Tlemcen 1391-1492, Oran 1492-1669, and Algiers 1671-1830.

Anne-Marie Fribourg
Isaac Auguste Blum, a character full of mysteries
Born in 1812, in a family of ironmasters from Hagenthal-le- Haut (Upper Rhine), Isaac Blum is an unusual figure: a student of the Ecole Polytechnique and renowned mathematician, close to Saint-Simonian circles, vice-president of the workers’ delegates to a commission aiming to “organize the work” after the revolution of 1848, one finds him in Russia, in the construction of the railways, towards 1860. But his personal life is full of mysteries. And how to explain that a newspaper announced his assassination in the streets of San Francisco in 1867, when his death, duly attested by the official records, occurred in Paris on January 6, 1878?

Mireille Provansal
Elisabeth Lippmann’s personal accounts. A testimony about the daily life of a Jewish family in Sarrebourg, Lorraine, 1847-1871

Elisabeth Lippmann, born Levy, kept the daily accounts of her home. One can find here the everyday domestic details of the life of a wealthy Jewish family living in Sarrebourg, in the French region of Lorraine. Elisabeth has an active role in the community, of which her husband is the community leader, although she is open to her times, seeking integration and respectability. The debt incurred by the weddings of the 5 daughters of the couple weighs heavily on the family budget during the years leading up to bankruptcy and exile.

Anne-Marie Faraggi
The Jewish families of Salonika and their migration to France

In the thread of a recent exhibition, the author evokes various aspects of the Jewish life of ancient Salonika, mainly through the advertisements of local newspapers. It shows the changes that affected the Jewish community of the city from the end of the 19th century, its modernization under the effect of the attraction of the West and, in particular, France, country of privileged emigration. Almost completely exterminated in the Nazi camps in 1943, the Jewish community of Thessaloniki now has only about 900 members and it is in France that the old society of Salonika is today the most represented, through the emigrants’ descendants.

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