Picture a small stage in the Latin Quarter, sometime during the German occupation. The room smells of mint tea. A young man sings in Arabic and the audience claps, officers in uniform included. What they don't know is that the singer is Jewish, and that the mosque next door is keeping his secret. That, at least, is how the story is told. His name was Salim Halali.
Why was a mosque built in the middle of Paris?
To say thank you. Tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers died for France in the First World War, and the Grande Mosquée de Paris was built between 1922 and 1926 in their memory. It opened on 15 July 1926: a 33-metre minaret, cedar carved by hand and zellige tiles set by Moroccan craftsmen. Its first rector, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, was an Algerian-born diplomat with perfect manners and a very cool head. Keep him in mind.
Did the Paris Mosque really save Jews during World War II?
Yes, and it isn't just legend. According to the City of Paris, the archives show that the mosque handed out false certificates of Muslim faith to North African Jews during the war, with Benghabrit's encouragement. The mosque itself talks about its cellars and their access to the Bièvre, the little river that once ran under this part of Paris, and some accounts say Jewish children were hidden down there during the round-ups.
How many people were saved? Nobody knows. Some writers say over a thousand, others a few dozen, and historians still debate it. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what a secret operation should leave behind: very little paper.
Who was Salim Halali, the Jewish singer saved by the mosque?
Born in 1920 in Bône, today Annaba, in Algeria, Salim Halali reached Paris in 1937 as a teenager with a voice that could fill any room. Within a few years he was a name in the flamenco clubs, and he also sang at the mosque's Moorish café.
Then the anti-Jewish laws closed in. A Jewish singer with a famous face had nowhere to hide. So Benghabrit did two things. He had papers made saying Halali was Muslim. And to make the lie hold, he had the name of Halali's late father carved on a tombstone in the Muslim cemetery of Bobigny, just outside Paris. If anyone came to check, there was the grave. Try faking that with Photoshop.
Halali survived. After the war he opened his own cabarets in Paris, then in Casablanca, and became one of the great voices of North African music. He died in 2005, and his story inspired the French film Les Hommes libres (Free Men, 2011).
What should you look for when you visit?
Look up at the arcades: horseshoe arches, plaster carved like lace and green-tiled roofs, straight out of Fez and Andalusia. Look down at the zellige, thousands of hand-cut tiles fitted together like a puzzle. Then stand by the fountain and listen. You're ten minutes from the Seine, and you can't hear Paris at all. Can you think of a better place to hide?
Where can you have mint tea at the Paris Mosque?
Right behind it, at the tea room (entrance at 39 rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire). Waiters weave between the tables with trays of mint tea poured from high, plus plates of cornes de gazelle, baklava and makrout. Pick a pastry straight from the tray, sit in the shade of the courtyard, and good luck getting up again. Our tip: go after the visit, when the afternoon light warms the tiles.
The mosque is closed to visitors on Fridays and on Muslim holidays, so check grandemosqueedeparis.fr before you go.
[[CTA|Hear the whole story inside the mosque with a licensed guide|Book the Grande Mosquée tour|Ask a Question|/tours/grande-mosquee-de-paris]]
Photos: LPLT and Zairon (CC BY-SA 4.0), Guilhem Vellut (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.