Léon Ashkenazi

Léon Ashkenazi was born in 1922 in Oran

Ashkenazi was born on June 21, 1922 in Oran, Algeria. His father, Rabbi David Ashkenazi, was the last Chief Rabbi of Algeria, and his mother was Rachel Touboul.

In Oran he studied at a yeshiva and a French high school at the same time, and he studied Kabbalah in Marrakesh. He studied philosophy and psychology at the University of Algiers. Later he studied philosophy, ethnology and anthropology at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1943 he joined the French Foreign Legion and was wounded. After the war he moved to France and joined the Jewish Scouts, where he got the nickname Manitou. In 1946 he joined the Orsay school for Jewish leadership, met his teacher Jacob Gordin, and became its principal in 1951.

He headed the Jewish Students Union of France from 1950 to 1955 and the Jewish Scouts from 1955 to 1956. With Emmanuel Levinas and André Neher he was among the heads of the Paris School of Jewish Thought. Meeting Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook in 1955 shaped his views on the Land of Israel.

In 1968, after the Six-Day War, he moved to Jerusalem and founded the Ma'ayanot Institute and the Yair Center. He held interfaith dialogue and received the Knesset Speaker's award in 1990. He died in 1996 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.