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Esther Benbassa

Esther Benbassa is a French historian of Jews and other minorities who served as a French senator from 2011 to 2023.

born 1950History of Jews and minoritiesFrench senator, 2011 to 2023Jewish and Muslim dialogue

Born: 27 March 1950, Istanbul
Occupation: historian, politician, university teacher, Judaic scholar
Party: The Ecologists – Europe Écologie Les Verts
Education: Tel Aviv University, Paris 8 University, Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3

Esther Benbassa was born in 1950 in Istanbul

Esther Benbassa was born in Istanbul on 27 March 1950. Her family descends from Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 who settled in the Ottoman Empire. She moved to Israel with her family at 15 and attended the Saint-Joseph school in Jaffa.

She earned a BA from Tel Aviv University in 1972 and moved to France that year. She received a master's degree in 1973 and a doctorate in 1987 from Paris 8 University, with a dissertation on Haim Nahum Efendi. She did postdoctoral work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1988 to 1989.

She worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research from 1989 to 2000 and then at the Practical School of High Studies. In 2002 she founded the Alberto Benveniste Centre for Sephardi studies. With her husband Jean-Christophe Attias, she founded a group that opposes discrimination, and she has written on Jewish and Muslim relations.

She was elected to the French Senate for Val-de-Marne in 2011 for Europe Ecology, The Greens, and represented Paris from 2017 to 2023. In September 2021 she was expelled from the party's parliamentary group after allegations of workplace bullying by former assistants, and she then left the party.