Strolling through the tight, cobblestone streets of the Marais district, in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, one gets the sense that there are two faces of Judaism in this city. The first is a public culture, the second a private one. One attracts attention, the other resists it.

Paris’s public Judaism is curated for the tourist who uses his guidebook like a compass. “Hollywood Bagel,” shouts the fuschia lettering on the facade of a bakery on the Rue des Rosiers, in the heart of the pletzl, as the former Marais ghetto is called. “Kosher Pizza,” reads another. The motto of L’as des Fallafel, just a few doors down, is “Recommended by Lenny Kravitz,” written in English. Diasporama, a Judaica store, has for sale oversized ceramic mezzuzim, watches whose hands tick past Hebrew numbers, all manner of Chanuka menorahs, klezmer CDs, and a small plastic rabbi action figure mounted on a base that, when flipped on, davens (or bows in prayer) frantically. Call it Epcot Judaism.

It’s not all kitsch. For some classic Ashkenazic (German/Eastern European) food, head to Chez Jo Goldenberg (7 Rue des Rosiers, 01-48-87-20-16, www.restaurantgoldenberg.com). Imagine crossbreeding New York’s Second Avenue Deli with Russ & Daughters: a kosher restaurant where you can also buy your deli foodstuffs.

Try the stuffed carp or the beef goulash. There’s also a tasty eggplant moussaka. Main courses cost around $20. The well-stocked delicatessen in the front offers tall bottles of Russian vodka, thick loaves of challah, poppy-seed cakes, boxes of matzo, pastrami-cured salmon, and jars of nonpareile capers.

Not long ago, the Marais was an outpost for poor Jewish immigrants from both Eastern Europe and North Africa. Today, it is Paris’s NoLiTa, a bustling breeding ground for chic retail chains (Camper, Diesel, Muji) that has also become the center of gay culture.

While Jews have lived in Gaul since Roman times, there were only 40,000 left during the French Revolution – and only about 500 in Paris, not one of which was granted citizenship. While Napoleon was somewhat hostile to French Jews, it was under his nephew, Napoleon III, and the Third Republic, that institutionalized secularism led to greater freedoms – even if that meant greater assimilation – for French Jews.

During World War II, 13,000 people from the Marais were sent to concentration camps. During the 1950s and 1960s, it was Sephardim – Jews from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia – that helped revivify the ranks in Paris.

Today, of the roughly 600,000 Jews in France, about 450,000 live in Paris, 75% of which are Sephardim. Hard numbers are difficult to come by because the French state, which is today struggling with its tradition of laicity, is prohibited from recognizing religion.

One of the city’s most beautiful Jewish buildings is the Synagogue de la rue Pavee (10, Rue Pavee, 01-48-87-21-54), designed by Hector Guimard, whose Metropolitaines typeface marks the metalwork on many Metro entrances. The four-story Art Nouveau facade, completed in 1913, is shaped like a chalk-gray wave frozen in mid-ebb.

Around the corner is Murciano-Benguigui Boulangerie and Patisserie (14-16 rue de Rosiers, 01-48-87-48-88), where there are trays full of babka, halvah, and rugalach, among other confections. A large photograph of Menachem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe, who died in 1994, hangs above the cash register. The increase of fervently Orthodox Jews in Paris over the past few decades is due in large part to the outreach of American Lubavitchers.

While much of the public face of Parisian Judaism is Orthodox and Sephardic, there is a thriving non-Orthodox community. French Jews do not carve themselves into as many denominations as Americans do. (There is only one Conservative synagogue in town, imported from America.)

For a taste of the less devout, drop by a Shabbat service at the Liberal (French for Reform) Synagogue Copernic (24, Rue Copernic, 01-47-04-37-27), just a few blocks south of the Arc de Triomphe. It is one of the largest non-Orthodox congregations in Paris.

There is, in fact, a growing cultural Jewish movement among young Liberal Parisian Jews. Many prefer private study groups – such as those at New York’s Jewish Community Center or Makor, for example – to public prayer. (To learn more, visit www.mjlf.col.fr.)

In contrast to the Synagogue Copernic is the Synagogue de la Victoire (44, Rue de la Victoire, 01-40-82-26-26, www.lavictoire.org), a beautiful Orthodox synagogue built in 1874 and attended by the Rothschilds. It is set in the northern Faubourg-Montmartre district, which is also a center of Jewish life with many kosher restaurants and headquarters of various Jewish organizations. Marked by a 90-foot-tall neoclassical facade and obscured on a narrow street, it has seats on the bimah for the chief rabbis of Paris and France. The rabbis still wear Napoleanic-era costumes when leading services.

Don’t leave Paris without visiting the Museum of Jewish Art and History (71 Rue du Temple, 01-53-01-86-60, www.mahj.org;a dmission, about $9), in the Marais. Housed in a palatial 17th-century building, the museum offers contemporary and medieval religious objects and Hebrew manuscripts as well as modern painting, sculpture, and jewelry – all within the French domain. There is also a heavy schedule of concerts, conferences, and film screenings.