Photos: Jewish Life and History in Aix-les-Bains

Lubavitcher photographer Mordechai Lubecki recently spent a day in Aix-les-Bains, France, visiting the city’s Jewish institutions and exploring its rich history of Torah life.

Among the stops was the famed Yeshivas Chachmei Tzarfat, commonly known as the Aix-les-Bains Yeshiva, which became one of the most important centers of Torah learning in postwar France.

The visit also included several local shuls and mikvaos. Rabbi Doron and Rachel Nagar, who direct Chabad activities in Aix-les-Bains, hosted Lubecki and his wife, Iscah Sarah Lubecki, during their visit.

Beyond the Jewish sites, the pair toured the mountains surrounding the city and Lake Bourget and explored the area by bicycle.

The history of the Aix-les-Bains Yeshiva stretches back to Strasbourg in 1933, when Chief Rabbi Ernest Weill established a yeshiva in the Neudorf district, the first major yeshiva established in France since the Napoleonic era. Its first rosh yeshiva was Rabbi Simcha Wasserman, son of Harav Elchonon Wasserman.

When Rabbi Wasserman left for the United States in 1938, leadership passed to Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Chajkin, a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim and Harav Elchonon Wasserman. The yeshiva was forced to close the following year with the outbreak of World War II.

Following the liberation of France, Rabbi Moshe Leybel and Rabbi Ernest Weill reestablished the yeshiva in Aix-les-Bains in June 1945. It provided a Torah environment for young Holocaust survivors who had arrived in the region, including survivors of Dachau and Buchenwald and children who had survived the war in hiding.

Rabbi Leybel brought Rabbi Chajkin back to lead the yeshiva, and he remained at its helm for nearly 48 years, from 1945 until 1993. During those decades, thousands of talmidim from France, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere passed through its doors.

Aix-les-Bains became an important center in the rebuilding of Torah life in France after the war. Among the yeshiva’s talmidim was Rabbi Aharon Monsonego, who later served as Chief Rabbi of Morocco.

Over the years, the yeshiva was also attended or visited by numerous prominent rabbonim and gedolei Torah, including the Baba Sali, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri, Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman and several generations of the Pshevorsk Rebbes.

In 1976, Rabbi Chajkin and Rabbi Gershon Cahen established the Aix-les-Bains Kollel, which began with two avreichim under the leadership of Rabbi Yitzchak Brand.

Since 1993, Yeshivas Chachmei Tzarfat has been headed by Rabbi Yitzchak Weil, a former talmid of Rabbi Chajkin. Today, its institutions include a yeshiva ketana, high school, kodesh division and kollel.

Photos and video: Morde’hai Lubecki