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List of French Jews
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Encyclopedia
Jews have lived in France since Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 times, with a rich and complex history
History of the Jews in France
The history of the Jews of France dates back over 2,000 years. In the early Middle Ages, France was a center of Jewish learning, but persecution increased as the Middle Ages wore on...

. In the Middle Ages, French kings expelled most of the original Askhenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

 Jewish population to Germany. Since the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 (and Emancipation
Jewish Emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...

), Jews have been able to contribute to all aspects of French culture and society. Moreover, the Cremieux decree gave in 1870 the full French citizenship to Jews, mostly Sephardi Jews, living in Maghreb under French colonization. During World War II, a significant number of Jews living in Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France is the part of France located in Europe. It can also be described as mainland France or as the French mainland and the island of Corsica...

 perished in the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

, deported to Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 death camps by the French Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

 government. After 1945, France served as a haven for Askhenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

 refugees, then after the independence of Morocco, Tunisia and the end of Algerian War, an influx of immigration of Sephardi Jews saw the Jewish population triple to around 600,000, making it the largest Jewish community in Western Europe. Behind the United States and Israel, France ranks 3rd by Jewish population. In 2008, the Jewish Agency evaluated the Jewish population in France to be 488,000, not mentioning French citizens with only one Jewish parent or grandparent.

The following is a list of some prominent Jews and people of Jewish origins, among others, (not all of them practice, or practiced, the Jewish religion) who were born in, or are very strongly associated with, France. The French nationality law
French nationality law
French nationality law is historically based on the principles of jus soli , according to Ernest Renan's definition, in opposition to the German's definition of nationality, Jus sanguinis , formalized by Fichte.The 1993 Méhaignerie Law required children born in France of foreign parents to request...

 itself, strongly secular, forbides any statistics or lists based on ethnic membership.

Activists

  • René Cassin
    René Cassin
    René Samuel Cassin was a French jurist, law professor and judge. A soldier in World War I, he later went on to form the Union Fédérale, a leftist, pacifist Veterans organisation...

     (1887–1976) drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
    Universal Declaration of Human Rights
    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...

    , won Nobel Peace Prize (1968)
  • Daniel Cohn-Bendit
    Daniel Cohn-Bendit
    Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit is a Franco-German politician, active in both countries. He was a student leader during the unrest of May 1968 in France and he was also known during that time as Dany le Rouge...

     (1945 –) student leader and German Green MEP
  • Lewis Goldsmith
    Lewis Goldsmith
    Lewis Goldsmith was an Anglo-French publicist of Portuguese-Jewish extraction.-Allied with Napoleon:...

     (c1763–1846), journalist and political writer
  • Alain Krivine
    Alain Krivine
    Alain Krivine is a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France. He is a member of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire , which is the French section of the reunified Fourth International. He was a member of the LCR's political bureau until March 2006, when he resigned from that committee...

     (1941 –) student leader and Trotskyist MEPhttp://www.acpr.org.il/NATIV/2000-2/stavxs.htm
  • André Spire
    André Spire
    André Spire was a French poet, writer, and Zionist activist.-Biography:Born in 1868 in Nancy to a Jewish family of the middle bourgeoisie, long established in the Lorraine, Spire studied literature, then law...

     (1868–1966) lawyer, journalist, poet, Jewish society and French Zionism leaderhttp://library.ucsc.edu/exhibits/1996.html

Clergymen

  • Gilles Bernheim
    Gilles Bernheim
    Gilles Bernheim is a French philosopher and rabbi, currently Chief Rabbi of France. On June 22, 2008, he was elected chief rabbi of France but his seven year mandate began on January 1, 2009. Until then, he had been rabbi of synagogue de la Victoire, the main synagogue in Paris, since May 1,...

     (1952 –) chief rabbi
    Chief Rabbi
    Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...

     of France since 2009http://www.forward.com/articles/13660/
  • Jean-Marie Lustiger (1926–2007) former Catholic archbishop of Paris
    Archbishop of Paris
    The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...

     and cardinal
    Cardinal (Catholicism)
    A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

    . He converted to Catholicism when he was 13.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/06/religion.france
  • Rashi
    Rashi
    Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...

     (1040–1105) a medieval rabbi based in Troyes
    Troyes
    Troyes is a commune and the capital of the Aube department in north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about southeast of Paris. Many half-timbered houses survive in the old town...

    ,famed as the author of the first comprehensive commentary on the Talmud
    Talmud
    The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

    , as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)
    Jewish commentaries on the Bible
    This article describes the first printing of the Hebrew Bible with major Jewish commentaries, notes concerning translations into Aramaic and English, lists some universally accepted Jewish commentaries with notes on their method of approach and lists modern translations into English with notes.-...

    http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111831/jewish/Rashi.htm
  • Joseph Sitruk
    Joseph Sitruk
    Rabbi Joseph Haïm Sitruk is a former Chief Rabbi of France, a position he held from June 1987 to June 22, 2008. Born Joseph Sitruk in Tunis, after suffering a stroke in 2001 and recovering he added the name "Haim" to his name in line with Jewish tradition....

     (1944 –) Tunisian-born former Chief Rabbi of France from 1987-2008http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/international/reaching_out_battle_against_hate

Military

  • Denise Bloch
    Denise Bloch
    Denise Madeleine Bloch was a French secret agent working with the British Special Operations Executive in World War II.- Early life :...

     (1915–1945) World War II SOE
    Special Operations Executive
    The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...

     spyhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/sugar2.html
  • Nissim de Camondo
    Nissim de Camondo
    Nissim de Camondo was a French banker. Named for his grandfather, he was born into the Camondo family of Paris, the son of the prominent and wealthy Jewish banker, Moïse de Camondo. As the only son of two children, Nissim de Camondo was expected to take over the family business...

     (1892–1917) pilot in World War Ihttp://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/gb/04museecamondo/index.html
  • Alfred Dreyfus
    Alfred Dreyfus
    Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...

     (1859–1935) military officerhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Dreyfus.html
  • Robert Gamzon, French resistant, commanding the 2nd company of Maquis de Vabre
    Maquis de Vabre
    The Maquis de Vabre were an organisation of French Resistance fighters in the east of the Tarn department during the Second World War, which was gradually built up by local militants. They were officially recognised in December 1943, affiliated to the Armée secrète under the name Maquis Pol Roux...

  • Alter Mojze Goldman
    Alter Mojze Goldman
    Alter Mojze Goldman was a Polish Jew who was active in the French Résistance during World War II.He was born in Lublin after the death of his father. He fled to France at the age of fifteen because of anti-Semitism. However, he was disappointed with reality in France and tried Germany...

     (1909–1988) Active during the French Résistance
    Resistance
    - Physics :* Electrical resistance, a measure of the degree to which an object opposes an electric current through it* Friction, the force that opposes motion** Drag , fluid or gas forces opposing motion and flow...

    . Father of Jean-Jacques Goldman
    Jean-Jacques Goldman
    Jean-Jacques Goldman is a Grammy Awards-winning French singer-songwriter. He is hugely popular in the French-speaking world, and since 2003 was the second-highest-grossing French living pop singer, after Johnny Hallyday.- Biography :...

    , Robert Goldman and Pierre Goldman
    Pierre Goldman
    Pierre Goldman, was a French left-wing intellectual who was convicted of several robberies and mysteriously assassinated. It has been suspected that the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación death squad was involved in his murder...

    .http://search.intelius.com/Alter-Mojze-Goldman

Nobles

  • Cahen d'Anvers  Papal title of 1867
  • d'Estienne  One of the early Franco/Jewish ennoblements in 16th century Provence, after the family converted to Catholicism and changed their name from Cohen to Estienne in 1501.
  • Maurice Ephrussi
    Maurice Ephrussi
    Maurice Ephrussi was a French banker who also bred and raced Thoroughbreds.A member of the Ephrussi family, Maurice Ephrussi was born in the free port of Odessa where his father founded the Ephrussi Bank and was involved in the business of exporting wheat...

    , husband of Beatrice de Rothschild
  • de Fould-Springer  Baron Eugène Fould-Springer
  • Koenigswarter
    Koenigswarter
    Koenigswarter is a surname, derived from the name Kohen, and may refer to the Barons:* Baron Jules de Koenigswarter* Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, known as the "Jazz Baroness"* Baron Louis de Koenigswarter...

  • de Rothschild

Philanthropists

  • Angelo Donati
    Angelo Donati
    Angelo Donati was a Jewish Italian banker and philanthropist, and a diplomat of San Marino Republic in Paris.- Biography :Donati was born in Modena...

     (Modena
    Modena
    Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

     1885 - Paris 1960) lived in Paris from 1919 to 1960, saved the Jews from Nazi persecution in the Italian-occupied France
    Italian-occupied France
    Italian-occupied France was an area of south-eastern France occupied by Fascist Italy in two stages during World War II. The occupation lasted from June 1940 until the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces on September 8, 1943, when Italian troops on French soil retreated under pressure...

     between 1942 and 1943 while staying in Nice
    Nice
    Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

    .http://www.fotomuseo.it/mostre/archivio/2004/donati.asp

Politicians

  • Jacques Attali
    Jacques Attali
    Jacques Attali is a French economist, writer and senior civil servant.Former adviser to President François Mitterrand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance and was nominated President of the Commission for...

     (1943 –) advisor to President François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991.http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/article.php?id_article=4582
  • Robert Badinter
    Robert Badinter
    Robert Badinter is a high-profile French criminal lawyer, university professor and politician mainly known for his struggle against the death penalty, the abolition of which he successfully sponsored in Parliament in 1981...

     (1928 –) Justice minister, 1981-6; abolished the death penalty in Francehttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_n2_v42/ai_13977172
  • Patrick Balkany
    Patrick Balkany
    Patrick Balkany is a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Hauts-de-Seine department, and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement. He is of Hungarian origin.-Political career:Electoral mandates...

     (1948 –) member of the National Assembly of France.http://actu.orange.fr/le-talk/20100118/1681-interview-patrick-balkany.html
  • Jacques Bigart (1855–1934), Secretary general of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, 1892–1934
  • Léon Blum
    Léon Blum
    André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...

     (1872–1950) Prime Minister 1936-7, 1938, 1946-7http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/travel/
  • Daniel Cohn-Bendit
    Daniel Cohn-Bendit
    Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit is a Franco-German politician, active in both countries. He was a student leader during the unrest of May 1968 in France and he was also known during that time as Dany le Rouge...

     (1945–) French-born German politician, active in both countries, best known as leader of the 1968 student uprising in France; more recently a leader of the European Greens.http://www.cohn-bendit.com/fr/dany/lebenslauf/index.html
  • Jean-François Copé
    Jean-François Copé
    Jean-François Copé , is a French politician. He is currently Mayor of Meaux, Deputy for the 6th constituency of Seine-et-Marne, and acts as President of the Union for a Popular Movement Group in the French National Assembly...

    , President of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) Group in the French National Assembly.http://www.jeanfrancoiscope.fr/site/index.php
  • Adolphe Crémieux
    Adolphe Crémieux
    Adolphe Crémieux was a French-Jewish lawyer and statesman, and a staunch defender of the human rights of the Jews of France. - Biography :...

     (1796–1880) Justice minister, 1848, 1870-1http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Cremieux.html
  • Julien Dray
    Julien Dray
    Julien Dray was born on 5 March 1955 in Oran, French Algeria. He is currently a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Essonne department, and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche.-Works:...

     (1955 –) member of the National Assembly of France.
  • Roger Karoutchi
    Roger Karoutchi
    Roger Karoutchi is the French Ambassador to the OECD. He is a former Secretary of State to the French Prime Minister, with responsibility for Relations with Parliament.-Early life:...

     (1951 –) Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, with responsibility for Relations with Parliament
  • Louis-Lucien Klotz
    Louis-Lucien Klotz
    Louis-Lucien Klotz was a French journalist and politician. He was the French Minister of Finance during World War I.-Early life:...

     (1868–1930) journalist and politician; Minister of Finance during World War Ihttp://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/history_of_political_economy/v032/32.4reder.html
  • Bernard Kouchner
    Bernard Kouchner
    Bernard Kouchner is a French politician, diplomat, and doctor. He is co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and Médecins du Monde...

     (1939 –) Minister of Foreign Affairs (2007–2010) and physicianhttp://www.zeek.net/605finkiel/
  • Henri Krasucki
    Henri Krasucki
    Henri Krasucki was a French trade-unionist, former secretary general of the Confédération générale du travail from 1982 to 1992.-Early life :...

     (1924–2003) former secretary general of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) from 1982 to 1992.
  • Jack Lang
    Jack Lang (French politician)
    Jack Mathieu Émile Lang is a French politician. A member of the Socialist Party, he served as France's Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and 1988 to 1992, and as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993 and 2000 to 2002. He was also the Mayor of Blois from 1989 to 2000...

     (1939 –) Tunian-born Minister of Culture (1981–1986, 1988–1993) & Minister of Education (1992–1993, 2000–2002)http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/urban-disaster-brews-in-french-slum-the-gaullist-pierre-lellouche-wants-the-votes-of-the-ethnic-groups-in-sarcelles-julian-nundy-saw-him-woo-them-1496342.html
  • Pierre Lellouche
    Pierre Lellouche
    Pierre Lellouche is a French politician and a member of the Union for a Popular Movement party. He is Secretary of State for Foreign Trade under the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, Christine Lagarde. He was also the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from November 2004 to 17...

     (1951 –) member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party
  • Georges Mandel
    Georges Mandel
    Georges Mandel was a French politician, journalist, and French Resistance leader.-Biography:Born Louis George Rothschild in Chatou, Yvelines, was the son of a tailor...

     (1885–1944) Interior minister, 1939http://worldatwar.net/biography/m/mandel/index.html
  • Pierre Mendès France (1907–1982) Prime Minister, 1954-5; withdrew from Indochina
    French Indochina
    French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....

    http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=8163
  • Jules Moch
    Jules Moch
    Jules Salvador Moch was a French politician.-Biography:...

     (1893–1985) Transport minister, 1945-7; Interior minister, 1947–50; Defense minister, 1950-1http://www.jewishhistory.org.il/1870.htm
  • Pierre Moscovici
    Pierre Moscovici
    Pierre Moscovici is a French politician, a member of the Departmental Council of Doubs and a Member of the French Parliament. He is a member of the French Socialist Party ; part of the Party of European Socialists...

     (1957 –), French politician, member of French Socialist Party (PS) and a member of the French Parliament.http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww1.alliancefr.com%2Fpierre-moscovici-desir-d-avenir-news0%2C39%2C3729.html
  • Alexandre Stavisky
    Alexandre Stavisky
    Serge Alexandre Stavisky was a French financier and embezzler whose actions created a political scandal that became known as the Stavisky Affair....

     (1886–1934) Ukrainian-born financier & embezzler Stavisky Affair
    Stavisky Affair
    The Stavisky Affair was a 1934 financial scandal generated by the actions of embezzler Alexandre Stavisky. It had political ramifications for the French Radical Socialist moderate government of the day...

    [Paul Webster (2001) Petain's Crime. London, Pan: pp 36–43]
  • Dominique Strauss-Kahn
    Dominique Strauss-Kahn
    Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn , often referred to in the media, and by himself, as DSK, is a French economist, lawyer, politician, and member of the French Socialist Party...

     (1949 –) Finance minister, 1997-9http://ejpress.org/article/news/5698President of the International Monetary Fund
    International Monetary Fund
    The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

     2007-11
  • Simone Veil
    Simone Veil
    Simone Veil, DBE is a French lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Health under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of the European Parliament and member of the Constitutional Council of France....

     (1927 –) Health minister, 1974-6; legalized abortion, President of the European Parliament 1979-82http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-VeilSimon.html

Journalists

  • Guy Birenbaum, journalist for BFM TV,
  • Jonathan-Simon Sellem
    Jonathan-Simon Sellem
    Jonathan-Simon Sellem is a French journalist born on February 25, 1983.After having worked for 3 years for the French Jewish Television , in 2008 he moved to Israel where he founded JSSNews , an Israeli French speaking webzine specializing in news about Israel, Middle East and the Jewish world....

    , journalist for TFJ, founder and chief editor of JSSNews
  • Nicolas Demorand, journalist for Europe 1
    Europe 1
    Europe 1, formerly known as Europe n° 1, is a privately owned radio network created in 1955. It is one of the leading French radio broadcasters and heard throughout France...

  • Michel Drucker
    Michel Drucker
    Michel Drucker, CQ is a popular French journalist and TV host.Michel Drucker was born in Vire, Calvados, in Normandy. Jacques Drucker, a doctor, is Michel's younger brother, and Jean Drucker, a TV top executive, is Michel's older brother. He started a journalistic career in 1965 at the ORTF as...

    , journalist and TV host
  • Jean-François Kahn
    Jean-François Kahn
    -Biography:Born in Viroflay, Yvelines, he is the brother of scientist Axel Kahn, and son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Having obtained a degree in history, he started work at a postal sorting office, then at a printing works. He soon moved into journalism and was sent to cover the war...

     (1938 –) founder of Marianne (magazine)
    Marianne (magazine)
    Marianne is a weekly Paris-based French news magazine created in 1997 by Jean-François Kahn with Maurice Szafran as editorialist. The main shareholder of the company is Robert Assaraf with 49.4% of the shares .-Overview:...

  • Robert Namias, journalist for TF1
  • Colombe Schneck, journalist for i>télé
  • Ariel Wizman
    Ariel Wizman
    Ariel Wizman is a French musician, DJ, and journalist born in Casablanca, Morocco.-Biography:His family, as many Sephardic Jews North-African families, left Morocco after the Six-Day War and settled in France. In Paris, Wizman met the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas and thanks to him, he attended the...

     (1962 –) TV journalist, DJ, musician and stage actor.

Scientists

  • Hippolyte Bernheim
    Hippolyte Bernheim
    Hippolyte Bernheim was a French physician and neurologist, born at Mülhausen, Alsace. He received his education in his native town and at the University of Strasbourg, where he was graduated as doctor of medicine in 1867...

     (1840–1919) hypnosis pioneerhttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_n2_v65/ai_20964259
  • Maurice Block
    Maurice Block
    Maurice Block was a German-French statistician and economist.He was born in Berlin of Jewish parents. He studied at Bonn and Giessen, but settled in Paris, becoming naturalized there. In 1844 he entered the French ministry of agriculture, becoming in 1852 one of the heads of the statistical...

     (1816–1901) statistician
  • Georges Charpak
    Georges Charpak
    Georges Charpak was a French physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992.-Life:Georges Charpak was born to Jewish family in the village of Dąbrowica in Poland . Charpak's family moved from Poland to Paris when he was seven years old...

    , Nobel Prize
    Nobel Prize
    The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

     in physics in 1992
  • Francois Jacob
    François Jacob
    François Jacob is a French biologist who, together with Jacques Monod, originated the idea that control of enzyme levels in all cells occurs through feedback on transcription. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Jacques Monod and André Lwoff.-Childhood and education:François Jacob is...

    , Nobel Prize
    Nobel Prize
    The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

     in medicine in 1965
  • Gabriel Lippmann
    Gabriel Lippmann
    Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann was a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference....

     (1845–1921) physicist, Nobel Prize (1908)http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=449&letter=L
  • Andre Michael Lwoff (1902–1994) microbiologist, Nobel Prize (1965)http://www.bookrags.com/Andre_Michael_Lwoff
  • Laurent Schwartz
    Laurent Schwartz
    Laurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...

     (1915–2002) mathematicianhttp://www.ams.org/notices/199809/chandra.pdf
  • Olinde Rodrigues
    Olinde Rodrigues
    Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues , more commonly known as Olinde Rodrigues, was a French banker, mathematician, and social reformer.Rodrigues was born into a well-to-do Sephardi Jewish family in Bordeaux....

     (1795–1851) mathematician & social reformerhttp://www.maa.org/reviews/SocialUtopias.html

Social scientists


Artists


Film and stage


Musicians

  • Charles-Valentin Alkan
    Charles-Valentin Alkan
    Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...

     (1813–1888) composer & pianisthttp://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=22127
  • Patrick Bruel
    Patrick Bruel
    Patrick Bruel is a French singer, actor, and professional poker player of Algerian Jewish descent.-Biography:...

     (born Patrick Benguigui) (1959 –) singer, actorhttp://www.a7fr.com/Default.aspx?tabid=52&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=34906
  • Joe Dassin
    Joe Dassin
    Joseph Ira Dassin , more commonly known as Joe Dassin, was an American singer-songwriter best known for his French songs of the 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:...

     (1938–1980) singer, son of Jules Dassin
    Jules Dassin
    Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...

    http://www.ejpress.org/article/culture/5893
  • Natalie Dessay
    Natalie Dessay
    Natalie Dessay is a French coloratura soprano. She dropped the silent "h" in her first name in honor of Natalie Wood when she was in grade school and subsequently simplified the spelling of her surname outside France...

     (1965 –) soprano (Convert to Judaism)http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm10-8/Natalie-Dessay.htm.
  • Sacha Distel
    Sacha Distel
    Sacha Distel was a French singer and guitarist who had hits with a cover version of the Academy Award-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" , "Scoubidou", and "The Good Life". He was born in Paris.-Career:Sacha Distel, born Alexandre Distel, was a son of Russian White émigré Leonid Distel...

     (1933–2004) singerhttp://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/1099_death_of_distel.htm
  • Paul Dukas
    Paul Dukas
    Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

     (1865–1935) composerhttp://www.jstor.org/view/00274666/ap031114/03a00020/0
  • Serge Gainsbourg
    Serge Gainsbourg
    Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg was a French singer-songwriter, actor and director. Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize...

     (1928–1991) singer-songwriter, actor, film director, writer. Father of Charlotte Gainsbourg
    Charlotte Gainsbourg
    Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg is an Anglo-French actress and singer. After releasing an album with her father at the age of fifteen, more than twenty years passed before she released two albums as an adult to commercial and critical success...

    http://www.wfmu.org/~bart/sg.html
  • Jean-Jacques Goldman
    Jean-Jacques Goldman
    Jean-Jacques Goldman is a Grammy Awards-winning French singer-songwriter. He is hugely popular in the French-speaking world, and since 2003 was the second-highest-grossing French living pop singer, after Johnny Hallyday.- Biography :...

     (1951 –) singer and songwriter. Son of Alter Mojze Goldman
    Alter Mojze Goldman
    Alter Mojze Goldman was a Polish Jew who was active in the French Résistance during World War II.He was born in Lublin after the death of his father. He fled to France at the age of fifteen because of anti-Semitism. However, he was disappointed with reality in France and tried Germany...

    , brother to Robert Goldman and half-brother to Pierre Goldman
    Pierre Goldman
    Pierre Goldman, was a French left-wing intellectual who was convicted of several robberies and mysteriously assassinated. It has been suspected that the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación death squad was involved in his murder...

    .http://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_6307.asp
  • Fromental Halévy
    Fromental Halévy
    Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...

     (1799–1862) composerhttp://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001132.php
  • Ludovic Halevy
    Ludovic Halévy
    Ludovic Halévy was a French author and playwright. He was half Jewish : his Jewish father had converted to Christianity prior to his birth, to marry his mother, née Alexandrine Lebas.-Biography:Ludovic Halévy was born in Paris...

     (1834–1908), librettisthttp://www.kol-ami.org/news/archive/2004/06/index.html
  • Joseph Kosma
    Joseph Kosma
    Joseph Kosma was a Hungarian-French composer, of Jewish background.-Biography:Kosma was born József Kozma in Budapest, where his parents taught stenography and typing. He had a brother, Akos. A maternal relative was the photographer László Moholy-Nagy, and another relative was the conductor Georg...

     (1905–1969) film composerhttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004TL0K
  • Jacques Lanzmann
    Jacques Lanzmann
    Jacques Lanzmann was a French writer, scriptwriter and lyric writer.-Biography:...

     (1927–2006) lyricist; brother of Claude Lanzmann
    Claude Lanzmann
    Claude Lanzmann is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Biography:Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne...

    http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/9236
  • Isidore de Lara
    Isidore de Lara
    Isidore de Lara, born Isidore Cohen , was an English composer and singer. After studying in Italy and France, he returned to England where he taught for several years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and became a well known singer and composer of art songs...

     (1858–1930) composer http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=73&letter=L&search=de%20lara
  • René Leibowitz
    René Leibowitz
    René Leibowitz was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher born in Warsaw, Poland.-Career:...

     (1913–1972) composerhttp://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-2982(197912)2%3A131%3C6%3ARL(%3E2.0.CO%3B2-%23
  • Daniel Levi
    Daniel Lévi
    Daniel Lévi , is a French singer-songwriter, composer and pianist.-Biography:Daniel Lévi was born in Constantine, French Algeria. He spent his childhood in Lyon, where he was preparing for his job as a musician studying piano for a decade at the conservatory in the city. In 1983, he composed and...

     (1961 –) singer, composerhttp://www.col.fr/article-1.html
  • Enrico Macias
    Enrico Macias
    Gaston Ghrenassia, known by his stage name Enrico Macias, is an Algerian French Pied noir singer and musician...

     (1938 –) Algerian-born singerhttp://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_6206.asp
  • Emmanuelle Haïm
    Emmanuelle Haïm
    Emmanuelle Haïm is a French harpsichordist and conductor with a particular interest in early music and Baroque music....

     (1967 –) harpsichordist
    Harpsichordist
    A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...

     and conductor
    Conducting
    Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

     (half Jewish)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3619044/Out-of-the-niche.html
  • Darius Milhaud
    Darius Milhaud
    Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

     (1892–1974) composerhttp://www.milkenarchive.org/articles/articles.taf?function=detail&ID=35, member of the Groupe des six
  • Pierre Monteux
    Pierre Monteux
    Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...

     (1875–1964) conductorhttp://daniellathompson.com/Texts/Le_Boeuf/milhaud_at_mills.htm
  • Georges Moustaki
    Georges Moustaki
    Giuseppe Mustacchi, known as Georges Moustaki , is a French singer and songwriter of Italo-Greek Jewish origin, best known for his poetic rhythm, eloquent simplicity and his hundreds of romantic songs...

     (1934 –) composer, singerhttp://www.rfimusique.com/siteEn/biographie/biographie_6170.asp
  • Yael Naim
    Yael Naim
    Yael Naïm , is a French-Israeli singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in 2008 in the US after her hit single "New Soul" was used by Apple in an advertising campaign for its MacBook Air. The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.-Biography:Yael Naïm was born in Paris, France to Tunisian Jewish...

     (1978 –) singer-songwriter, guitaristhttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3574064,00.html
  • Jacques Offenbach
    Jacques Offenbach
    Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

     (1819–1880) composerhttp://www.americansymphony.org/dialogues_extensions/94_95season/1st_concert/offenbach.cfm
  • Catherine Ringer
    Catherine Ringer
    Catherine Ringer is a French singer, musician, songwriter, dancer, choreographer, and actress.Ringer started her professional career on stage in the late 1970s in productions with Michael Lonsdale's Théâtre de Recherche Musicale as well as musical and dance productions...

     (1957 –) Singer, Songwriter, actress.http://www.deezer.com/fr/music/catherine-ringer
  • Sapho
    Sapho (singer)
    Sapho is a French singer of Moroccan-Jewish descent. Her real name is Danielle Ebguy.-Biography:Born in Marrakech , Sapho emigrated to France when she was 16. By 18, she was living on her own in Paris, taking acting lessons, playing guitar and singing on the streets...

     (1950 –) singerhttp://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/000511/2000051131.html
  • Martial Solal
    Martial Solal
    Martial Solal is a French jazz pianist and composer, who is probably most widely known for the music he wrote for Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature film À bout de souffle .-Biography:...

     (1927 –) jazz pianist & composerhttp://jazztimes.com/columns_and_features/table_of_contents/article_excerpts/index.cfm?article_id=17666
  • Alexandre Tansman
    Alexandre Tansman
    Alexandre Tansman was a Polish-born composer and virtuoso pianist. He spent his early years in his native Poland, but lived in France for most of his life...

     (1897–1986) composer, pianisthttp://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-1543860_ITM
  • Émile Waldteufel
    Émile Waldteufel
    Émile Waldteufel was a French composer of dance music.-Life:Émile Waldteufel was born in Strasbourg to a Jewish Alsatian family of musicians....

     (1837–1915) composerhttp://www.leedsconcertseason.com/MODULES/NEWS/LICS_NEWSmoduleASP/NEWSMOD_newsitem.asp?type=explore%20and%20learn&itemid=87

Writers and poets

  • Tristan Bernard
    Tristan Bernard
    Tristan Bernard was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer.-Life:Born Paul Bernard into a Jewish family in Besançon, Doubs, Franche-Comté, France, he was the son of an architect...

     (1866–1947) playwright & novelist, father of Raymond Bernard
    Raymond Bernard
    Raymond Bernard was a French filmmaker and related to French playwright father Tristan Bernard and brother to Jean-Jacques Bernard...

     and Jean-Jacques Bernard
    Jean-Jacques Bernard
    Jean-Jacques Bernard was born in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise and died in Paris.French playwright and chief representative of what became known as l’école du silence or, as some critics called it, the art of the unexpressed, in which the dialogue does not express the characters’ real attitudes...

    http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005215
  • Jean-Jacques Bernard
    Jean-Jacques Bernard
    Jean-Jacques Bernard was born in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise and died in Paris.French playwright and chief representative of what became known as l’école du silence or, as some critics called it, the art of the unexpressed, in which the dialogue does not express the characters’ real attitudes...

     (1888–1974) playwright, Son of Tristan Bernard
    Tristan Bernard
    Tristan Bernard was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer.-Life:Born Paul Bernard into a Jewish family in Besançon, Doubs, Franche-Comté, France, he was the son of an architect...

     & brother of Raymond Bernard
    Raymond Bernard
    Raymond Bernard was a French filmmaker and related to French playwright father Tristan Bernard and brother to Jean-Jacques Bernard...

    http://books.google.com/books?id=xrZRbC0vCPAC&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&dq=%22Jean-Jacques+Bernard%22+jewish#v=onepage&q=%22Jean-Jacques%20Bernard%22%20jewish&f=false
  • Henri Bernstein
    Henri Bernstein
    Henri-Léon-Gustave-Charles Bernstein was a French playwright associated with Boulevard theatre.The far-right royalist Camelots du Roi youth organization of the Action française organized an anti-Semitic riot against a production of one of his plays in 1911...

     (1876–1953) playwrighthttp://www.schwarzreport.org/Essays/wvdestruction.htm
  • Henri Blowitz
    Henri Blowitz
    Henri Georges Stephane Adolphe Opper de Blowitz was a Bohemian journalist.He was born to a family of Jewish ancestry at Blovice in Bohemia, and left home at the age of fifteen to travel, acquiring a wide range of languages in the process. When financial constraints led him to plan emigration to...

    , journalist
  • Paul Celan
    Paul Celan
    Paul Celan was a poet and translator...

     (1920–1970) poethttp://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/celan.htm
  • Romain Gary
    Romain Gary
    Romain Gary was a French diplomat, novelist, film director, World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice .- Early life :Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew...

     (1914–1980) novelisthttp://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele/vol5.021
  • Max Jacob
    Max Jacob
    Max Jacob was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic.-Life and career:After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, France, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic career...

     (1876–1944) poethttp://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=1514
  • Edmond Jabès
    Edmond Jabes
    ----Edmond Jabès was a Jewish writer and poet, and one of the best known literary figures to write in French after World War II.- Life :...

     (1912–1991) poethttp://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ISBN/1900755718/Location/DBBC
  • Joseph Joffo
    Joseph Joffo
    Joseph Joffo is a French author who is perhaps best known for his memoirs Un sac de billes , which has been translated into eighteen languages.-Career:Joffo was born in Paris in the 18th arrondissement...

     (1931–) writer
  • Gabriel Josipovici
    Gabriel Josipovici
    Gabriel David Josipovici FBA, FRSL is a British novelist, short story writer, critic, literary theorist, and playwright.-Biography:...

     (1940–) novelist
  • Gustave Kahn
    Gustave Kahn
    Gustave Kahn was a French Symbolist poet and art critic.Kahn was born in Metz.He claimed to have invented the term vers libre, or free verse; he was in any case one of the first European exponents of the form. His principal publications include Les Palais nomades, 1887, Domaine de fée, 1895, and...

     (1859–1936) poet & art critichttp://mushecht.haifa.ac.il/hecht/art/GhezCollection_eng.aspx?id=14
  • Joseph Kessel
    Joseph Kessel
    Joseph Kessel was a French journalist and novelist.He was born in Villa Clara, Entre Ríos, Argentina, because of the constant journeys of his father, a Lithuanian doctor of Jewish origin. Joseph Kessel lived the first years of his childhood in Orenburg, Russia, before the family moved to France...

     (1898–1979) novelist & journalisthttp://www.jstor.org/view/0016111x/ap020261/02a00720/0
  • Justine Lévy
    Justine Lévy
    Justine-Juliette Lévy is a French is a book editor and author.Lévy is the eldest daughter of Isabelle Doutreluigne and French philosopher, writer, and intellectual, Bernard-Henri Lévy...

     (1974–) novelist, daughter of Bernard-Henri Lévy
    Bernard-Henri Lévy
    Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French public intellectual, philosopher and journalist. Often referred to today, in France, simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" movement in 1976.-Early life:...

    http://www.lire.fr/enquete.asp/idC=31236&idTC=15&idR=200&idG=3
  • André Maurois
    André Maurois
    André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog was a French author.-Life:Maurois was born in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. Maurois was the son of Ernest Herzog, a Jewish textile manufacturer, and Alice Herzog...

     (1885–1967)authorhttp://www.jstor.org/view/0016111x/ap020256/02a00280/0
  • Albert Memmi
    Albert Memmi
    Albert Memmi is a Tunisian Jewish writer and essayist who migrated to France.- Biography :Born in colonial Tunisia,from a Tunisian Jewish mother and a Tunisian-Italian Jewish father, he speaks Hebrew and Tunisian-Arabic...

     (1921–) novelist & sociologisthttp://www.rdg.ac.uk/french/memmistatue.htm
  • Patrick Modiano
    Patrick Modiano
    Patrick Modiano is a French novelist born 30 July 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt of a father of Jewish Italian origins and a Belgian mother, Louisa Colpijn . He is a winner of the Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1972, the Prix Goncourt in 1978 for his novel Rue des boutiques obscures...

     (1945–) writer (half Jewish)https://www.bu.edu/agni/essays-reviews/print/1999/50-charbonneau.html
  • Nine Moati
    Nine Moati
    Nine Moati , is a French novelist, with Tunisian-Jewish origins. Nine Moati is the sister of the French film director Serge Moati.Her greatest book success was the novel Les Belles de Tunis which was published in 1983....

     (1938–) Tunisian-born novelist Les Belles de Tunis
    Les Belles de Tunis
    Les Belles de Tunis is a novel by Nine Moati, first published in 1983 by Éditions du Seuil.The book retraces the live of a Tunisian Jewish family in Tunis from 1856 to the Tunisian independence. It is also a description of 100 years of Jewish life in Tunisia. Furthermore in the book, you find...

     & screenwriter. Sister of Serge Moati
    Serge Moati
    Serge Moati is a French artist, journalist, film director and writer. Serge Moati is the brother of Nine Moati, author of the novel Les Belles de Tunis...

    .http://researchfrontiers.uark.edu/13638.php
  • Irène Némirovsky
    Irène Némirovsky
    Irène Némirovsky was a French novelist who died at the age of 39 in Auschwitz, Nazi Germany occupied Poland. She was killed by the Nazis for being classified as a Jew under the racial laws, which did not take into account her conversion to Roman Catholicism.-Biography:Irène Némirovsky was born in...

     (1903–1942) writerhttp://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=5481
  • Georges Perec
    Georges Perec
    Georges Perec was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist and essayist. He is a member of the Oulipo group...

     (1936–1982) novelisthttp://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/perec.html
  • Marcel Proust
    Marcel Proust
    Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...

     (1871–1922) (half Jewish) writer http://www.adherents.com/people/pp/Marcel_Proust.html
  • Yasmina Reza
    Yasmina Reza
    Yasmina Reza is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter. Her parents were both of Jewish origin, her father Iranian, her mother Hungarian.-Career:...

     (1959–) playwrighthttp://www.alleytheatre.org/Alley/Life_x_3_Information_Page_EN.asp?SnID=88975
  • Nathalie Sarraute
    Nathalie Sarraute
    Nathalie Sarraute was a French lawyer and writer of Russian Jewish origin.-Life:Sarraute was born Natalia/Natacha Tcherniak in Ivanovo , 300 km north-east of Moscow in 1900 , and, following...

     (1900–1999) writerhttp://www.kirjasto.sci.fi
  • Claude Sarraute, journalist, writerhttp://www.parismatch.com/rubriques/lire_article.php?article_id=1106
  • Jean-Jacques Schuhl
    Jean-Jacques Schuhl
    Jean-Jacques Schuhl is a French author, recipient of the 2000 Prix Goncourt literary award for his novel Ingrid Caven. The book is named for the German actress and singer Ingrid Caven, whom Schuhl lives with. Despite appearances, the novel is not her biography...

     (1941–) writerhttp://www.nhanvan.com/thuvien/authors/jean-jacques_schuhl.htm
  • Anne Sinclair
    Anne Sinclair
    Anne Sinclair is a French television and radio interviewer who hosted one of the most popular political shows for more than thirteen years on TF1, the largest European private TV channel. She is heiress to much of the fortune of her maternal grandfather, Paul Rosenberg...

     (1948–) political journalist; wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn
    Dominique Strauss-Kahn
    Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn , often referred to in the media, and by himself, as DSK, is a French economist, lawyer, politician, and member of the French Socialist Party...

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,690114,00.html
  • André Suarès
    André Suarès
    André Suarès was one of the pseudonyms used by Félix-André-Yves Scantrel a French poet and critic....

     (1868–1948) poethttp://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/Marseilles.asp
  • Tristan Tzara
    Tristan Tzara
    Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...

     (1896–1963) poethttp://www.peak.org/~dadaist/English/Graphics/art_dada_1.html
  • Ilarie Voronca
    Ilarie Voronca
    Ilarie Voronca was a Romanian-French avant-garde poet and essayist.Voronca was of Jewish ethnicity...

     (1903–1946) poet & essayisthttp://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=D78C773F-3268-424D-A254-FDAC0148D8CF
  • Bernard Werber
    Bernard Werber
    Bernard Werber is a French science fiction writer active since the 1990s.-Novels:His style of writing mixes different literary genres, notably the saga, the science fiction of the inter-war years, and tracts of philosophy.In most of his novels, Bernard Werber uses the same form of construction,...

     (1961–) best-selling authorhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=318715&contrassID=2&subContrassID=8&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Business figures

  • Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet
    Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet
    Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet was a ground-breaking French advertising magnate best known as the founder of Publicis Groupe, currently the third largest communications group worldwide...

     (1906–1996) founder and head of Publicis Groupe
    Publicis
    Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and communications company, headquartered in Paris, France. It is one of the world's three largest advertising holding companies . Its current president is Maurice Lévy. Publicis Groupe S.A...

    http://www.cedost.it/testi/UK/1974_inglese.htm
  • Moïse de Camondo
    Moïse de Camondo
    Count Moïse de Camondo was an Ottoman Empire born Italian origin French banker. As a child, Camondo moved with his family, from their home in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, to Paris where he grew up and continued his father's career as a banker...

     (1860–1935) bankerhttp://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/gb/04museecamondo/index.html
  • Isaac
    Isaac Carasso
    The Carasso family was a prominent Sephardic Jewish family in Ottoman Selanik...

     & Daniel Carasso, founders of Danonehttp://www.public-histoire.com/saga/yaourt/yaourt7.html
  • André Citroën
    André Citroën
    André-Gustave Citroën was a French industrialist. He is remembered chiefly for the make of car named after him, but also for his application of double helical gears.- Life and career :...

     (1878–1935) founder of Citroën
    Citroën
    Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...

    http://www.citroen.mb.ca/cItROeNeT/resources/books/biblio7.html
  • Marcel Dassault
    Marcel Dassault
    Marcel Dassault, born Marcel Bloch was a French aircraft industrialist.-Biography:Dassault was born in Paris. After graduating from the lycée Condorcet, Breguet School and Supaero, he invented a type of aircraft propeller used by the French army during World War I and founded the Société des...

     (1892–1986) aerospace industrialisthttp://p2.www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9029419
  • Achille Fould
    Achille Fould
    Achille Fould was a French financier and politician.Born in Paris, the son of a successful Jewish banker, he was associated with and afterwards succeeded his father in the management of the business. As early as 1842 he entered political life, having been elected in that year as a deputy for the...

     (1800–1867) financierhttp://www.xs4all.nl/~androom/index.htm?biography/p024349.htm
  • Maurice Girodias
    Maurice Girodias
    Maurice Girodias was the founder of the Olympia Press. At one time he was the owner of his father's Obelisk Press, and spent most of his productive years in Paris.-Early life:...

     (1919–1990) founder of Olympia Press
    Olympia Press
    Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane...

     (half Jewish)http://www.reading.ac.uk/library/colls/special/girodias.html
  • Maurice de Hirsch
    Maurice de Hirsch
    Maurice de Hirsch was a German-Jewish philanthropist who set up charitable foundations to promote Jewish education and improve the lot of oppressed European Jewry. He was the founder of the Jewish Colonization Association which sponsored large-scale Jewish immigration to Argentina...

     (1831–1896), banker
  • Philippe Kahn
    Philippe Kahn
    Philippe Kahn is a technology innovator and entrepreneur, who is credited with creating the first camera phone solution sharing pictures instantly on public networks. Kahn's first publicly shared picture is unique in that no other teams making the claim have any pictures. Kahn shot the first camera...

     (1962–), founder of Borland
    Borland
    Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...

    http://www.fullpower.com/?Page=Vision&Side=Blog&View=1996-1998&ID=1996-February-22
  • Gérard Louis-Dreyfus
    Gérard Louis-Dreyfus
    William Louis-Dreyfus is a French-born American businessman. With his family's net worth estimated at $2.9 billion by Forbes, he is one of the richest men in the world. He is the chairman of Louis Dreyfus Energy Services and the great grandson of Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, founder of Louis Dreyfus Group...

     (1932–), owner of Louis-Dreyfus & Co. (half Jewish)http://www.superiorpics.com/julia_louis_dreyfus/
  • Alexandre, Simon & Elie Lazard, founders of Lazard Frères
  • Michel Adam Lisowski
    Michel Adam Lisowski
    Michel Adam Lisowski, is the founder and sole owner of Fashion TV.Michel Adam Lisowski was born on April 16th, 1950 in Warsaw. His family is of Jewish descent and moved to Vienna in 1958, as his father served the Polish government as a diplomat at the International Atomic Energy Agency...

    , founder and president of Fashion TV
    Fashion TV
    Fashion TV is an international fashion and lifestyle broadcasting television channel. It was founded in France in 1997 by its Polish-born president Michel Adam Lisowski, Fashion TV is the only 24/7 international TV network exclusively dedicated to fashion, beauty, glamour and style and has become...

    http://www.col.fr/article-259.html
  • André Meyer
    André Meyer
    André Benoit Mathieu Meyer was a French-born American Wall Street investment banker.Meyer was born in Paris to a low-income family. As a boy, he began following the workings of the stock market and out of necessity left school at age sixteen to work as a messenger at the Paris Bourse...

     (1898–1979) French/American financierhttp://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_judaism/v018/18.1goodwin.html
  • Jean-Charles Naouri, financierhttp://www.zlabia.com/commentaires43.htm
  • Emile and Isaac Péreire
    Péreire brothers
    The Péreire brothers were prominent 19th century financiers in Paris, France who were rivals of the Rothschilds. Like the Rothschilds, they were Jews, but unlike them the Péreire brothers were Sephardi Jews of Portuguese origin....

    , bankers
  • Rothschild banking & wine growing family of France
    Rothschild banking family of France
    The Rothschild banking family of France was founded in 1812 in Paris by James Mayer Rothschild . James was sent there from his home in Frankfurt, Germany by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild...

    http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=445&letter=R#1289

Sport figures

  • Sarah Abitbol
    Sarah Abitbol
    Sarah Abitbol is a French pair skater. Abitbol started skating when she was six, when she had a choice of swimming or ice skating for physical education. She won the bronze medal in pairs at the 2000 World Figure Skating Championships with partner Stéphane Bernadis. She missed six months for the...

    , figure skater, World Figure Skating Championship bronze
  • Jonathan Assous
    Jonathan Assous
    Jonathan Victor Gerard Assous is a French-Israeli football player who is currently contracted to Hapoel Ramat Gan in Israel. In France, Assous was widely known for his temper and rough play.- Playing career :...

    , France/Israel, soccer defensive midfielder (Hapoel Ramat Gan)
  • Fabrice Benichou
    Fabrice Benichou
    -Amateur career:In 1984 Benichou made it to the finals for the French National Bantamweight championship, but lost.-Pro Boxing career:Benichou won the IBF World Super Bantamweight championship in 1989. He lost it the following year to Welcome Ncita....

    , boxer, world champion super bantamweight
    Super Bantamweight
    Super bantamweight is a weight division in professional boxing. The maximum weight for this division is 122 pounds, or roughly 55.34 kilograms....

  • Ossip Bernstein
    Ossip Bernstein
    Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein was a Russian chess grandmaster and a financial lawyer.-Biography:...

     (1882–1962), Russia
    Russia
    Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

    n-born chess grandmaster
  • Jean Bloch, soccer, Olympic silver
  • Alain Calmat
    Alain Calmat
    Alain Calmat is a French former competitive figure skater, surgeon, and politician. He is the 1964 Olympic silver medalist, the 1965 World Champion, the 1962–1964 European Champion, and the 1958 & 1962–1965 French national champion.-Career:Calmat started skating at the age of nine...

    , figure skater, Olympic silver, World Championship gold, silver, 2x bronze
  • François Cevert
    François Cevert
    Albert François Cevert Goldenberg was a French racing driver who took part in the Formula One World Championship.-Family background:...

     ((born "François Goldenberg"; 1944–1973) racing driver (half Jewish)http://www.research-racing.de/tyrrell73-3.htm
  • Robert Cohen
    Robert Cohen (boxer)
    Robert Cohen was a French boxer. Cohen was world bantamweight champion from 1954 to 1956.-Boxing career:...

     (1930–) boxer: World Bantamweight Championhttp://www.jewishsports.com/jewsin/history/boxinghistory.htm
  • Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro
    Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro
    Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro is a former French female professional tennis player.Her highest singles ranking was #61, achieved on October 5, 2003...

    , tennis player
  • Pierre Darmon
    Pierre Darmon
    Pierre Darmon was a French tennis player.In 1963, he reached his highest world ranking, # 8. He was also ranked in the top 10 worldwide in 1958 and 1964.-Tennis career:...

     (1934–) tennis player, highest world ranking # 8http://www.jewishsports.net/biopages/PierreDarmon.htm
  • René Dreyfus
    René Dreyfus
    René Dreyfus was a French driver who raced automobiles for 14 years in the 1920s and 1930s, the Golden Era of Grand Prix motor racing.-Early life:...

     (1905–1993) racing driverhttp://www.jewishsports.com/jewsin/history/a2mhistory.htm
  • Yves Dreyfus
    Yves Dreyfus
    Yves Dreyfus is a Jewish French epee fencer.A 3-time member of the French Olympic épée team, Dreyfus won two medals during his Olympic career.-World Championships:...

    , épée fencer, Olympic bronze, French champion
  • Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi
    Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi
    Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi is a French slalom canoer who competed from the 1980s to the late 1990s.-Career:She is Jewish...

    , slalom canoer, Olympic bronze (K-1 slalom), 5 golds at ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships
    ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships
    The ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships are an international event in canoeing organized by the International Canoe Federation. The World Championships have taken place every year in non-Summer Olympic years since 2002. From 1949 to 1999, they had taken place in odd-numbered years...

     (2x K-1, 3x K-1 team)
  • Stéphane Haccoun
    Stéphane Haccoun
    Stéphane Haccoun was a southpaw French boxer.He fought as a featherweight, a super featherweight, and a junior lightweight.He compiled a record of 35 wins , 4 losses, and 1 draw.-Link:...

    , boxer, featherweight, super featherweight, and junior lightweight
  • Rudy Haddad
    Rudy Haddad
    Rudy Haddad is a French footballer of Jewish Tunisian descent, currently with AJ Auxerre.Rudy, a previously highly touted young player, came up through the youth system at Paris St. Germain. On January 21, 2009, he was loaned out to Valenciennes FC.He was unable to hold down a regular first team...

    , soccer midfielder (LB Châteauroux
    LB Châteauroux
    La Berrichonne de Châteauroux is a French association football club based in Châteauroux. The football team is a part of a sports club that consists of several other sports and was founded in 1883. The team currently plays in Ligue 2, the second division of French football, having finished 16th in...

     & U21 national team)
  • Alphonse Halimi
    Alphonse Halimi
    Alphonse Halimi was a French boxer. He was nicknamed "la Petite Terreur."Time wrote of him: "Alphonse went to work with a street fighter's will. A grown-up guttersnipe from the back alleys of Algeria...

     (1932–2006) boxer: World Bantamweight Championhttp://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/AlphonseHalimi.htm
  • Maurice Herzog
    Maurice Herzog
    Maurice Herzog is a French mountaineer and sports administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition...

     (1919–), mountaineer : first 8000 m : mountain Annapurna (1950); later a politician
  • Alexandre Lippmann
    Alexandre Lippmann
    Alexandre Lippmann was a French Olympic epee fencer.-Olympics:He competed in 3 Olympiads for France, winning 5 medals, including 2 golds....

    , épée fencer, 2x Olympic champion, 2x silver, bronze
  • Armand Mouyal
    Armand Mouyal
    Armand Mouyal was a French epee fencer.-Fencing career:Born in Oran, Algeria , Mouyal began fencing in the early 1950s, and was as skilled with the foil as with the épée .-National Championships:Mouyal, a French police officer, captured French national Individual Épée titles in 1952,...

    , épée fencer, Olympic bronze, world champion
  • Alfred "Artem" Nakache
    Alfred Nakache
    Alfred Nakache was a French swimmer and water polo player. Nakache was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1993...

    , swimmer; world record (200-m breaststroke), one-third of French 2x world record (3x100 relay team); imprisoned by Nazis in Auschwitz, where his wife and daughter were killed
  • Claude Netter
    Claude Netter
    Claude Netter was a French foil fencer.Netter was one of France's top fencers in the 1950s, and competed in three Olympiads for the French foil team, winning two medals...

    , foil fencer, Olympic champion, silver
  • François Rozenthal
    François Rozenthal
    François Rozenthal is a French ice hockey player.-Personal:Rozenthal is Jewish, and is the identical twin brother of Maurice Rozenthal, who is also a French ice hockey player.-Ice hockey career:...

    , ice hockey, France national team
  • Maurice Rozenthal
    Maurice Rozenthal
    Maurice Rozenthal is a French ice hockey player.-Personal:Rozenthal is Jewish, and is the identical twin brother of François Rozenthal, who is also a French ice hockey player.-Ice hockey career:...

    , ice hockey, right wing, France national team
  • Jean Stern
    Jean Stern
    Jean Stern, born in France, was a French épée fencer.-Olympic fencing career:Stern was a member of the French fencing team at the 1908 London Olympics, and competed in both the team and individual épée events. During the Games, the French team defeated Denmark , Great Britain , and Belgium to...

    , épée fencer, Olympic champion
  • Daniel Wildenstein
    Daniel Wildenstein
    Daniel Leopold Wildenstein was a French art dealer and scholar, as well as a leading thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder....

     (1917–2001), racehorse owner

Other

  • Ilan Halimi
    Ilan Halimi
    Ilan Halimi was a young French Jewish man kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a gang called "the Gang of Barbarians" and subsequently tortured, over a period of three weeks, resulting in his death...

     (1982–2006), Salesman, who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by an anti-semitic gang thinking he was a wealthy man.http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3708128,00.html

See also

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