Chapters of My Autobiography

Yehuda Léon Ashkenazi (Manitou) was born in Oran, Algeria, and was the son of Algeria’s chief rabbi, David Askénazi, and his wife, Rachel Touboul, whose family included scholars of Spanish Kabbalah. Ashkenazi studied in yeshiva and secular academies in Algeria and Morocco; he served in the French Foreign Legion during World War II and then settled in Paris, where he earned the nickname “Manitou” in the Jewish Scouts. He taught at the École de pensée juive de Paris with Emmanuel Levinas and André Neher, integrating traditional Judaism with modern philosophical values.