Shlomo Yitzchaki, commonly known by the acronym Rashi, was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible.
The Talmud is, after the Hebrew Bible, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews.
Levi ben Gershon, better known by his Graecized name as Gersonides, or by his Latinized name Magister Leo Hebraeus, or in Hebrew by the abbreviation of first letters as RaLBaG, was a medieval French Jewish philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, physician and astronomer/astrologer. He was born at Bagnols in Languedoc, France. According to Abraham Zacuto and others, he was the son of Gerson ben Solomon Catalan.
Emmanuel Levinas was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to metaphysics and ontology.
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
Maurice Blanchot was a French writer, philosopher and literary theorist. His work, exploring a philosophy of death alongside poetic theories of meaning and sense, bore significant influence on post-structuralist philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy.
Edmond Jabès was a French writer and poet of Egyptian origin, and one of the best known literary figures writing in French after World War II. The work he produced when living in France in the late 1950s until his death in 1991 is highly original in form and breadth.
Jean André Wahl was a French philosopher.
Benny Lévy was a philosopher, political activist and author. A political figure of May 1968 in France, he was the disciple and last personal secretary of Jean-Paul Sartre from 1974 to 1980. Along with him, he helped founding the French newspaper Libération in 1972.
Monsieur Chouchani, also spelled Shushani and Shoshani, is the nickname of an otherwise anonymous and enigmatic Jewish teacher. His students – found in Israel, South America, post-World War II Europe, and elsewhere – included Emmanuel Levinas and Elie Wiesel.
Elijah Benamozegh, sometimes Elia or Eliyahu, was an Italian Sephardic Orthodox rabbi and renowned Jewish Kabbalist, highly respected in his day as one of Italy's most eminent Jewish scholars. He served for half a century as rabbi of the important Jewish community of Livorno, where the "Piazza Benamozegh" now commemorates his name and distinction. His major work is Israel and Humanity (1863), which was translated into English by Dr. Mordechai Luria in 1995.
Ethan Kleinberg works on the acrobatics of modern thought. He is Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of History and Letters at Wesleyan University, Editor-in-Chief of History and Theory and was Director of Wesleyan University's Center for the Humanities. Kleinberg's research interests include European intellectual history with special interest in France and Germany, critical theory, educational structures, and the philosophy of history. Together with Joan Wallach Scott and Gary Wilder he is a member of the Wild On Collective who co-authored the "Theses on Theory and History" and started the #TheoryRevolt movement. He is the author of Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (SUP); Haunting History: for a deconstructive approach to the past (SUP); Generation Existential: Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy in France, 1927-61 (CUP) which was awarded the 2006 Morris D. Forkosch prize for the best book in intellectual history by the Journal of the History of Ideas and co-editor of the volume Presence: Philosophy, History, and Cultural Theory for the Twenty-First Century (CUP). He is completing a book length project titled The Surge: a new compass of history for the end-time of truth.
The Disputation of Paris, also known as the Trial of the Talmud, took place in 1240 at the court of King Louis IX of France. It followed the work of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who translated the Talmud and pressed 35 charges against it to Pope Gregory IX by quoting what appeared to be a series of blasphemous passages about Jesus, Mary, or Christianity. Four rabbis defended the Talmud against Donin's accusations.
Schneour Zalman Schneersohn (1898–1980) was a Lubavitch Hasidic Chief Rabbi who was active in France during World War II. During the Nazi occupation of France, he ran homes for children who had been separated from their families, providing them with food, shelter, and a Jewish education. Later, as the situation in France worsened, he smuggled many of them to safety.
Jean-Michel Emmanuel Salanskis is a French philosopher and mathematician, professor of science and philosophy at the University of Paris X Nanterre.
Eliyahu Rahamim Zini is the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Or Vishua, which he founded in Haifa in 2001. In the past, he has served as the rabbi of the Technion, as a lecturer in its Faculty of Mathematics, and in the Department of Humanities and Arts.
Danielle Cohen-Levinas is a French philosopher, musicologist, and a specialist of Jewish philosophy.
Aryeh Cohen is an American rabbi and scholar who serves as a professor of Rabbinic Literature at American Jewish University. His scholarship focuses on the Talmud, Jewish ethics, and social justice.
Hillel Bakis, born in 1949 Bône (Algérie) is an author, an editor and a publisher.
The Israelite Seminary of France also known as the Central Rabbinical School of France , is a Rabbinical school that trains Orthodox rabbis in France. Founded in Metz in 1829 as the Central Rabbinical School of Metz, it moved to Paris in 1859, where it is based in the city's 5th arrondissement. The school is connected with the Israelite Central Consistory of France, one of the major bodies of Orthodox Judaism in France.
