LUNÉVILLE

LUNÉVILLE , town in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department, N.E. France. Several Jews were mentioned in Lunéville in 1470–72, just before the expulsion from the duchy of Lorraine. From 1702 Lunéville was the seat of the ducal court of Lorraine; Samuel Lévy took charge of the court's commercial interests in 1705. Two Jewish families were authorized to live in the town by an edict of 1753; there were 16 families residing there when the synagogue was constructed in 1785. A cemetery was not consecrated until 1791. The community numbered 315 persons in 1808 and 400 in 1855; from 1870 it was augmented by a number of manufacturers from Alsace. Among the Hebrew printing presses established in France in the latter part of the 18^th century and early in the 19^th was one belonging to Abraham Brisach, who produced in Lunéville a maḥzor with Judeo-German translation in 1797 and a Likkutei Ẓevi in 1798. A hospital, established in 1857, was in use until 1944. Alfred *Lévy, later chief rabbi of France and a native of Lunéville, was rabbi there from 1869 to 1880. During World War i the incumbent minister, S. Weill, and several other Jews were among the civilians slaughtered at Lunéville (1914); 18 other Jews from Lunéville fell in battle in this war and six in World War ii. One hundred and ninety-four Jews (including the patients in the hospital and 65 refugees) were deported from Lunéville during the German occupation; only nine survived. In 1969 there were about 200 Jews in Lunéville, half of them from North Africa.

bibliography:

H. Baumont, Histoire de Lunéville (1901), 210, 299–301, 559–61; P. Lang, in: Revue Juive de Lorraine, 11–14 (1935–38), passim; N. Gruss, in: rej, 125 (1966), 90.

[Gilbert Cahen]