Vision
Like the sparks that escape from the rock of tradition to illuminate the public with knowledge, we wanted to bring into this anthology the countless renewals of meaning that “Manitou” (Rabbi Léon Askenazi) let loose from the hammer blows of his wisdom that shook the “massoret”.
Activity
Since the creation of the Elkana publishing house in 2003, Alain Michel has published around sixty books, most of which have focused on Judaism, Israel, Jewish history, and French Judaism. Take, for example, the book “A Place to Rebuild,” published in 2009 and reissued in 2022, which told the story of the Gilbert Bloch School in Orsay, launched in 1946 by the Jewish Scouts of France to restore a framework for French Judaism, and which helped launch the Jewish School of Paris, notably through the presence of Manitou, Rabbi Léon Askenazi. The School in Orsay was also a meeting place between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, in the spirit of openness and plurality of Elkana. In the Judaism collection, we have disseminated the thought of several of the great voices of French-speaking Judaism, such as André Neher and André Chouraqui. We had already published two small books devoted to the thought of Manitou. It is in this extension that we are now publishing, with the support of Matanel, a two-volume book, Etincelles, a veritable anthology of the teachings of Rabbi Léon Askenazi.