Dreyfus

Friday afternoon was a pleasant day here in Paris. Susan had some chores to do and late in the morning I headed out to Pere Lachaise to get in a few hours of shooting. (Man I wish I had a euro for every time someone approaches me and asks where Jim Morrison is buried -- talk about globalization!)

Anyway Susan and I linked up later in the afternoon, meeting at the metro stop next to the Pompidou Center, and then walked a block down to the Rue du Temple and turned into the Museum of Jewish Art and History.

Ever since we arrived in Paris the first of August we had planned to see the Museum’s Dreyfus exhibition: “The fight for Justice.” Since it was extended to October 22, naturally we procrastinated but at last we got there. (photo: statue of Dreyfus, in the courtyard of the Museum of Jewish Art and History.)

We paid our admission, picked up our audio guides and headed into the museum. This place is really a stop worth making. The museum is a fascinating exploration into the Jewish experience in France told chronologically using a wonderful array of artifacts, paintings and photographs. Along the way one can get a full sense of France’s ambivalence to its Jewish population over the centuries, an attitude never more apparent than in the Dreyfus affair in the 1890s; and sadder still in France’s even shabbier treatment of the Jews during the Nazi occupation. The exhibition itself is mostly in French – although there is some very good interpretative signage in English. It would be of some help if you came prepared but the care and attention to detail in the layout and sheer volume of visual materials facilitates ease of understanding. This was one very moving and powerful exhibition.

After we left the museum we headed home, stopping to pick up some fresh bread for dinner along the way and called it a day. It was time for champagne! And why not?! I can’t believe how much different champagne there is here, everywhere – and all of it very inexpensive. Anyway, a few weeks back I discovered “Fontaines”, a little family place on the Rue Mouffetard crammed with bottles of wine, where they only buy from producers they know – and believe me these people know their wines. This evening we had a delicious sparkler from Wanner-Bouge. With frozen raspberries in the glasses it’s exactly what an aperitif should be.

Wish you were here,

Steve