This past summer was not a particularly good one for the Jews of Europe. The Gaza war heightened tensions and left Jews of France, for example, scared and troubled.

As it turned out, my wife Karyn and I were in France during this time meeting the new mishpachah prior to our daughter’s wedding. We were, however, far from the troubled spots around Paris. Our new French family lived in the southwest of the country along the Spanish border by the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Picturesque towns like Cucuron, Monein and Pau dotted the French countryside in this area where quaint vineyards and small farms are aplenty. 

The nearest large city is Biarritz, located along the banks of the Atlantic. It is today a tourist mecca where once Napoléon Bonaparte built a lovely palace for his Queen. Today, Lacoste, Alain Figaret and Rolex stores are more the order, although it is rumoured that Vladimir Putin built a small vacation fortress somewhere nearby.

We spent a good few days in Biarritz where our daughter’s new family resides. A town of about 75,000 it doubles its population during vacation times. Its spotless and beautifully appointed beaches are full, rain or shine.

On our first day in town Karyn and I decided to reconnoiter the area of town where we were located. Our real goal was to find the beach on our own. As is usually the case when in a strange and unfamiliar place we got thoroughly lost. 

As we turned a corner there it was; light blue in construction, tall though nowhere near the size of the Greek Orthodox church across the street, stood the Biarritz synagogue.

 There were no gendarmes in front; the gate was unlocked with tables and chairs in the courtyard. And the front door of the synagogue was wide open.

When Jews travel, anything Jewish, especially a synagogue becomes irresistible. We wandered through the front door to be greeted by a young woman who was selling challah and other goods to a few customers preparing for Shabbat.

Introducing ourselves in our pig-Latin French, the young woman smiled broadly and asked, “Are you Canadian?” Turns out Rebbetzin Shayna Melonev was originally from Winnipeg. She and her husband, Reb Mendy, who hailed from Toulouse, was the Chabad couple assigned to the small community of Jewish worshippers in Biarritz.

As we talked and played Jewish geography, we discovered that the rebbetzin had, a number of years ago, lived on our street in Thornhill, Ont., and we knew many people in common. This type of thing happens to us often and continues to reinforce in me that we Jews are indeed a close, if not widespread, family.

The synagogue was originally built in 1902 and had undergone a reconstruction with a new dedication held early in July of this year. There was, as to be expected, a small Jewish population in Biarritz but during vacation months, especially in the summer the synagogue sees 70 to 100 Jewish vacationers from around the world.

While Biarritz was located in Vichy France during the war, the city’s Jews fared no better than most. The Nazis murdered virtually the entire pre-war Jewish population. However Biarritz did play a unique and vital role where possibly thousands of Jews were saved.

Given its proximity to the Spanish border, in 1940, then-Portuguese vice-counsel Aristides de Sousa Mendes found himself in this town after being ordered back by his government for signing hundreds of travel documents for fleeing Jewish refugees trying to make it into neutral Spain.

On his journey home, Mendes had a stopover in Biarritz where Jewish refugees, having heard the news of this righteous man, scurried to his train. It was here from his train window that Mendes signed many more travel documents that saved so many lives.

We Jews are a small family. It is such finds as the Biarritz synagogue that continues to be the glue that binds us.