Cadenet

French commune
nomcommune=Cadenet
View of Cadenet from the East
région=Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
département=Vaucluse
arrondissement=Apt
canton=Cadenet (chief town)
insee=84026
cp=84160
maire=Fernand Perez
mandat=2001-2008
intercomm=Communauté de communes des Portes du Luberon
longitude=5.376091
latitude=43.743321
alt moy=234 m
alt mini=147 m
alt maxi=376 m
hectares=2,508
km²=25
sans=3,883
date-sans=1999
dens=155
date-dens=1999

Cadenet is a small village and commune in the "département" of Vaucluse in southern France.

Jewish community

Like all places situated along the river Durance, Cadenet had a Jewish community in the Middle Ages. A document of the year 1283 states that this community, together with those of Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Maximin, Lambesc, Pertuis, Istres, Trets, and Lanson, was permitted to have a synagogue and a cemetery on paying an annual tax of two pounds of pepper to the archbishop of Aix.

In 1385 a remarkable lawsuit arose in Arles, relating to an alleged marriage. The plaintiff was Maestro Duran of Cadenet. In order to be revenged on Meirona, daughter of En Salves Cassin of Arles, who had refused him, Duran declared that he had married her in the presence of two witnesses, Vidal Abraham of Bourrin and Bonfilh or Bonfils Crégud. These witnesses were later convicted of perjury.

The case was taken in turn before the rabbinical colleges of Arles, Nîmes, Montpellier, and Perpignan, and in the last instance, upon the demand of Don Salemias Nasi of Valence, was submitted to R. Isaac ben Sheshet, who pronounced severe judgment against Duran and his fellow-conspirators, and bitterly reproached the community of Arles that it had not done its utmost to prevent such a scandal from becoming public. A Jew, Mosson of Cadenet by name, lived at Carpentras in 1404; and two others, Salvet of Cadenet and Vidalon of Cadenet, were sheriffs of that community in 1460.

References

*JewishEncyclopedia