Rue des Rosiers

A village inside the Marais

Rue des Rosiers is the emblematic street of the Pletzl, the historic Jewish quarter of the Marais. It is short — 303 metres of cobbles — yet within a few house numbers it holds much of what defines the area: synagogues, a bakery trading since 1865, bookshops, food shops and restaurants. According to Wikipedia, some 20,000 Eastern European Jews settled there between 1881 and 1914, and from the 1980s fashion and luxury shops — clothing, perfume, accessories — gradually replaced the traditional businesses. The Sunday pedestrian street and the light weekday traffic come from the same entry. For the wider history and the streets around, see our guide to the Jewish quarter of Paris.

Street map and landmarks

• From 13 rue Malher to 40 rue Vieille-du-Temple. That is the whole street. Walking it takes minutes, though Sunday queues stretch the outing considerably.
• Numbers 17 and 25. Two Orthodox synagogues.
• Number 27. The Finkelsztajn bakery, open since 1865.
• Number 10. The gate to the Jardin des Rosiers–Joseph-Migneret, a hidden garden in the middle of the block.

Photo: Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Falafel, shops and the weekly rhythm

Falafel has been tied to the street since 1979. L’As du Fallafel, the restaurant that claims to have brought falafel to France, is kosher and shuts for Shabbat, so on a Friday evening or a Saturday it is wiser to aim for another address or another day. The fashion boutiques keep Saturday hours, and the area lies inside the « Le Marais » international tourist zone, where shops may open on Sundays and in the evening. For wider choice at the table, see our restaurants in Le Marais and the page on falafel in Le Marais.

Photo: Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why the quarter is called the Pletzl

The word comes from Yiddish and means “little square”. According to Wikipedia, the quarter is organised around the place Saint-Paul, and a Jewish presence is recorded there from the thirteenth century. Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution began arriving in France in 1881: about 6,000 by 1900, then 13,000 more between 1900 and 1914, from Romania, Russia and Austria-Hungary, most of them Yiddish speakers. The synagogue on the rue Pavée, a few steps from the rue des Rosiers, is an Art Nouveau work by Hector Guimard and a listed monument.

The side streets

Two short streets run off the rue des Rosiers and carry the same history. The rue Ferdinand-Duval, 135 metres long, runs from the rue Pierre-Seel to the rue des Rosiers. According to Wikipedia, it was called the rue des Juifs from the fifteenth century until 7 December 1900, when it took the name of Ferdinand Duval (1827-1896), préfet de la Seine, after a petition by traders in 1898, in the wake of the Dreyfus affair. At no. 20 stood the “hôtel des Juifs”, of the sixteenth century, and the offices of the Œuvre de secours aux enfants were at no. 11.

The rue des Écouffes is 164 metres long and 12 metres wide, from the passage Walter-Benjamin to the rue des Rosiers. Its name, documented in 1233 as “rue de l’Écofle”, has a disputed origin: a bird-of-prey sign, the “escoufle”, or an old French word for a leather garment. The street was formed in 1854-1856 from two streets. At no. 25 stands the Hôtel Brulart, a listed monument, and at no. 18 are the Fleischman oratory (1930-1931) and the Beit Yossef synagogue.

The street in numbers

According to Wikipedia, the street is 303 metres long and between 4.5 and 11 metres wide, running from 13 rue Mahler to 42 rue Vieille-du-Temple. It already bore its name in 1230, because of the rose bushes that grew in the neighbouring gardens. In the Middle Ages it ran along the rampart of Philippe Auguste, and a remnant of that wall can be seen in the Jardin des Rosiers–Joseph-Migneret, entered at no. 10.

Memory on the street

The former hammam Saint-Paul stood at no. 4 from 1863 to 1990. At no. 7, the restaurant Jo Goldenberg, closed in 2006, was the target of the attack of 9 August 1982, which killed six people and wounded twenty-two; responsibility was attributed in 2011 to the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, according to Wikipedia. The street is a place of memory as much as of food and shopping, and the Shoah Memorial stands 346 metres away in a straight line.

Choosing your moment

The street is pedestrianised on Sundays, under the Paris Respire programme since 2006, and crowds follow; on other days traffic is light and the limit is 30 km/h. Many kosher shops and restaurants close from late Friday afternoon to Saturday evening and reopen on Sunday, while the fashion boutiques stay open on Saturday. On Sunday at midday, expect queues at the falafel counters.

Getting there

Saint-Paul (line 1) is the nearest station, about 239 metres from the middle of the street in a straight line. Pont Marie (line 7) is about 434 metres away, Hôtel de Ville (lines 1 and 11) about 580 metres and Rambuteau (line 11) about 628 metres.

Combining the visit with a walk

Measured from the street itself, the distances below are straight lines taken from our coordinates, and the walking times use the 1.3 factor at 80 metres a minute.

• Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, in the Hôtel de Lamoignon, 162 m away, about 3 min on foot.
• Musée Cognacq-Jay, 185 m away, about 4 min on foot.
• Carnavalet Museum, 246 m away, about 4 min on foot.
• Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis church, 314 m away, about 6 min on foot.
• Shoah Memorial, 346 m away, about 6 min on foot.
• Picasso Museum, 350 m away, about 6 min on foot.
• Museum of Hunting and Nature, 486 m away, about 8 min on foot.

Where to sleep nearby

The closest of our hotels is Hôtel Dupond-Smith, 184 m from the middle of the street, then Grand Hôtel Malher at 200 m and Hôtel Caron de Beaumarchais at 207 m. The full list, ranked by distance, is in our hotels near rue des Rosiers.

Photo: Mbzt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons