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Chief rabbi on French stamp

Updated: 29/Nov/2005 17:54

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The French postal service have paid tribute to one of the country’s greatest chief rabbis, Jacob Kaplan, by producing a stamp bearing his image.

The stamp was made available in all French post offices on 15 November.

Kaplan was born on 5 November, 1895 in Paris to an Orthodox family from Latvia. Both his father and grand-father were rabbis.

Kaplan decided to become a rabbi when he was a teenager, but the outbreak of WWI forced him to stop his studies. In 1915, he was offered the position of army chaplain but refused because he did not want to be seen as someone fearful of fighting during the war.

Following the end of WWI Kaplan continued his rabbinical studies and in 1921 obtained his rabbinical diploma. Just a year later, he became rabbi in the French city of Mulhouse and in 1933 in Paris in the "Rue de la Victoire" synagogue.

War work

The start of the WWII and the arrival of Nazism in France moved Kaplan to reassess his position.

Mobilized in 1939, as chaplain, he joined the chief rabbi of France in Vichy in 1940, despite having 5 children.

The same year, he published “Racisme et judaisme” (Racism and Judaism) which was placed on the Otto list of publications which were forbidden because they “irritate the occupiers”.

During WWII, he helped war wounded and was given the coveted Legion of Honour, France’s most important distinction, just before the new Jewish status was enforced which would refuse Jews the LOH.

Rabbi Kaplan in 1922

In 1942, Kaplan was ousted from Vichy and settled in Lyon. He spoke to the resistant Cardinal Gerlier and asked him to encourage the Vichy government to stop the arrests of Jews.

At the time he tried to publish another book, entitled “Quelques temoignages d’auteurs francais sur la religion juive et les juifs” (Some testimonies of French authors on Jewish religion and on Jews” but the book was censored.

In 1944 he stood in as chief rabbi of France for an interim period, and the same year he was arrested and finally but set free in exchange of a ransom.

Inter-faith relations

After the war, Kaplan embarked on a new journey – trying to build bridges between Jews and Christians.

In 1948, he founded the Judeo-Christian Friendship association. And in 1953 he intervened in the Finaly affair where two Jewish children hidden with a Christian woman were Christened without the permission of the parents who died in the Holocaust.

The affair went to court and Kaplan managed to reach an agreement with the Catholic Church.

In 1955 Kaplan was elected chief rabbi of France, a position he held for 25 years.

Amongst his many honours, Kaplan was the first Jewish member elected in 1967 as a member of the respected “Academy of Moral and Political Science” which belongs to the Institute of France.

In 1980, he became chief rabbi of the Central Consistoire, the main Jewish organisation in France.

In 1988, Kaplan was again awarded the Legion of Honour after his first was cancelled. He died on 5 December 1994.