Intégration et disparition d’une communauté

Paradoxically, the cemetery is a community and a bond of identity; its autonomy is a major survival issue. It is also a place of remembrance, but sometimes in a precarious way, under the pressure of both social integration processes and French legislation on burials. Chaumont’s “Israelite cemetery”, a section of the communal cemetery known as “Clamart” that began operating in the 1870s, has largely disappeared. By combining historical, sociological, legal, and funerary art analyses, this Jewish section of the Chaumont cemetery provides an insight into the issues surrounding Jewish burial in French society between 1880 and 1930. It reveals the integration and forms of dejudaization, and even the diminishing visibility of this place where the community has faded to the point of obliteration, since the application of the law on the repossession of graves substituted Catholic deceased in the sections initially conceived as forming an “Israelite cemetery”. A few notables’ vaults - including those of three mayors of Chaumont - are now the only evidence left of this community

Political science · Death, Funerary Practices, and Mourning · Diverse Cultural and Historical Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis