Nathan André Chouraqui (Aïn Temouchent, Algeria 1917-Jerusalem 2007) was a scholar, a prolific writer, and a man of action. Born in a Sephardic family with a long Jewish tradition, he grew up in a French School in Oran where he received a secular education. He rediscovered the Bible, first in the Christian tradition, when recovering from surgery in France (1934). But Hitlerian anti-Semitism brought him back to his Jewish roots. Active in the French Resistance (1942-1945), he became judge in Algeria (1945-1947), State Doctor of Law (Paris 1948), first secretary, then Emissary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle (1947-1982). Settled in Jerusalem in 1958, he was adviser to Prime Minister Ben Gurion, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem (1965-69)...etc
But André Chouraqui will be remembered as the first translator in the world who ever translated (into French), ["himself, but not alone", as he used to say], the sacred books of the three monotheist religions.