Lucien Lazare

Lucien Lazare was born in 1924 in Strasbourg

Lazare was born in Strasbourg in 1924 to Maurice Lazare, a textile merchant, and René Weil. He grew up in Metz in a traditional family and lost his father in 1938. In 1939 the family moved to Lyon, where he finished high school and joined the Jewish Scouts of France.

From 1942 to 1944 he was active in the Jewish underground, forging documents and taking Jewish children into hiding. He later fought with the French army into Germany. After 1945 he studied at the yeshiva in Aix-les-Bains and then history and geography at the University of Lyon.

In 1949 he married Janine Hemmendinger and taught in Paris, then ran a Jewish high school in Brussels. In Strasbourg he founded a Jewish community center in 1955 and served as secretary general of the Jewish community from 1957 to 1968. He earned a doctorate in history from the University of Strasbourg in 1967.

In 1968 he moved with his family to Israel and founded the Lycée René-Cassin in Jerusalem. He worked with Simone Veil to have the Righteous Among the Nations honored at the Panthéon. He died in Jerusalem in 2026.