Board of Directors

Board of Directors

 Members of the Executive Committee:

Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, President of Association

David de Rothschild, President of Fund

Serge Klarsfeld, Vice-President

Fatiha Benatsou, Secretary-General

Hakim El Karoui, Treasurer

André Azoulay, Member

Jacques Andréani, Member

Committee Chairs*:

Committee on Conscience: Jacques Andréani

Book Committee: Jean Mouttapa

Academic Committee: Abdou Filali-Ansary

Interfaith Committee:  Aly Elsamman

Hon.president of the Interfaith Committee: René Samuel Sirat

*Committee chairs are ex officio members of the Executive Committee

Executive Director: Abe Radkin 

Legal Counsel: Marc Levy

The Aladdin Project’s Board of Directors

 
Jacques Andreani, veteran French diplomat, former ambassador to Egypt, Italy and the United States. He has been sent to various countries, particularly in the Middle East, as a special emissary of the President of the Republic. He is the author of several books, including America and Us and The Trap: Helsinki and the fall of communism.

Andre Azoulay, Advisor to His Majesty the King of Morocco, President of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, President of the Executive Committee of the Foundation for the Three Cultures and the Three Religions, based in Seville, Spain, and a founding member of the C-100 Davos Forum for the Dialogue of Civilizations and religions.

Fatiha Benatsou, a member of the Economic and Social, Prefect for equal opportunities in the Val d'Oise region, author of Djamila’s Dream.

Marie-Hélène Bérard, Chairman of MHB SA, treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of the Chirac Foundation, for fifteen years a senior official in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, an adviser to Prime Minister Jacques Chirac for employment and social affairs, an excutive at Credit Commercial de France, with extensive expertise and experience in investment banking in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia.

Chahla Chafiq, sociologist, essayist and women's rights activist from Iran, author of several books on extremism and radical Islam, including Women under the Veil and Road and Fog. She has recently authored a European report on radicalization of youth in urban areas.

Anny Dayan Rosenman teaches literature at the University of Paris VII-Denis Diderot. She has written about the Jews of Morocco and has coauthored books. She is the author of The Alphabet of the Holocaust.

Hakim El Karoui, founder and chairman of XXI Century Club. Partner,Roland Berger Strategy consultants, he was formerly adviser and speechwriter for Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and senior aide to Finance Minister Thierry Breton.

Aly Elsamman, Adviser to the late President Sadat, President of the International Union For Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue and Peace Education (ADIC), Chairman of the Committee for Interfaith Dialogue at the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Egypt, Dr. Elsamman is a veteran of intercultural rapprochement. After studying law at the University of Alexandria, he obtained a PhD in Law and Political Sciences from the University of Paris. He is Secretary General of the Association for Economic Information “Europe-Egypt” and a member of the Cairo Bar. He is a former Director of Middle East News Agency (MENA) and former Vice-President of the Permanent Committee of Al Azhar for Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions.

Abdou Filali-Ansary, philosopher and Islamic scholar from Morocco, his focus of research has been the relationship between Islam and democracy. Two of his books, Reforming Islam and Is Islam hostile to secularism? have become a reference for Islamic studies.

Nilüfer Göle, Turkish anthropologist, director of research at EHESS, France’s erstwhile center for social science research. Previously Professor of Sociology at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, former Fellow of Wissenschaftkolleg Berlin, and since 2000 member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Muslim societies in the world (IISMM), Prof. Göle’s work is devoted to studying new configurations between modernity and Islam, particularly the emergence of new Muslim figures in the public space, in a comparative perspective (Turkey, Iran, Europe, United States). Her book, Muslim Woman and Modern: the Veil and Civilization in Turkey, has been published in five languages.

Anne Hidalgo, Deputy Mayor of Paris since 2001, former national secretary for culture and media of the Socialist Party, senior aide to three cabinet ministers in the Government of Lionel Jospin, Anne is also the author of A Woman in the Arena.

Serge Klarsfeld, Nazi hunter, writer and lawyer, President of the Association of Sons and Daughters of Jews Deported from France. With his German-born wife Beate, Serge Klarsfeld has devoted his lifetime to Holocaust documentation and anti-Nazi activism. They were involved in finding Klaus Barbie, René Bousquet, Jean Leguay, Maurice Papon, and Paul Touvier to seek prosecution for their war crimes. Their work was formally recognized by President Jacques Chirac in a 1995 speech acknowledging the responsibility of France for the plight of Jews during the Second World War and a law establishing a remedy for orphans whose parents were victims of anti-Semitic persecution. Serge is the author of several books, including The Auschwitz Album, Goodbye Children ( 1942-1944), The Star of the Jews, Remembering Georgy: Letters from Izieu: 1935-1944.

Julia Kristeva, linguist, logician, psychoanalyst, writer, professor at the Institut Universitaire de France, directs the Graduate School for Language, Literature, Picture, Civilization and Humanities at the University of Paris 7 Denis-Diderot, and teaches in the Faculty of Arts, concentrating in particular on twentieth century literature. Born in Bulgaria, Julia immigrated to France in 1966. She is also a member of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society and regularly teaches at Columbia University and the University of Toronto, as well as other universities in the United States and Europe. Her books are translated into English by Columbia University Press.

Claude Lanzmann, one of France’s best-known filmmakers, his most renowned work being the nine-and-a-half hour film Shoah (1985), an oral history of the Holocaust broadly considered to be the foremost film on the subject. Lanzmann joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and, as a journalist and filmmaker, has consistently spoken out on international issues. He vehemently opposed the war in Algeria and signed the 1960 antiwar petition Manifesto of the 121. Lanzmann is chief editor of the journal Les Temps Modernes, which was founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. In 2009, he published his memoirs under the title "Le lièvre de Patagonie" (The Patagonian Hare), which has become a bestseller in France and Germany.

Roch-Olivier Maistre is the First Advocate General in the Court of Accounts, France’s highest audit body. He was previously educational and cultural advisor to President Jacques Chirac, senior aide to Minister of Culture Francois Leotard (1986-88), General Director of Comédie Française (1993-95) and Secretary General of the Council of Paris (1995-2000).

Jean Mouttapa, director of Spirituality Department at Albin Michel, one of France’s largest publishers. A Christian with a longstanding commitment to interreligious dialogue, he has authored Religion in Dialogue (Vintage Open Space). In 2003, with Father Emile Shufani of Nazareth, he co-organized a Jewish-Arab visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the first of its kind, and recounted it in An Arab Facing Auschwitz.

Ndioro Ndiaye, Minister in several governments in Senegal, a former Director General of the International Organization for Migration, invited by UNICEF to help prepare the World Summit for Children in 1990, member of the preparatory committee of the World Summit on Economic Advancement of Rural Women, held in Geneva in 1992, president of the Senegalese delegation to the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, President of the Regional Conference of African Women, a member of the Advisory Board for the preparation of the Summit World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, founding member of the Scientific Committee on Women and Development, a founding member of the Network of African Women Leaders for Peace and Development.

Martine Ouaknine, lawyer, deputy mayor of the city of Nice,

Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, former Director General of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, former Director of International Cooperation, Ministry of National Education, Research and Technology.

David de Rothschild, President of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and Chairman of N M Rothschild & Sons, he is a graduate of Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and served for 18 years as the mayor of the town of Pont-l'Évêque in Normandy.

Rene Samuel Sirat, former Chief Rabbi of France, holds a PhD in Hebrew Language and Literature and has taught at the Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations at the University of Paris. He is currently Chief Rabbi of the Central Consistory and Vice Chairperson of the Conference of European Rabbis. As holder of a UNESCO Chair for the Mutual Knowledge of Religions of the Book and the Teaching of Peace, he is involved in a variety of interfaith teaching and research, through a variety of academic institutes of which he is president. He is the author (with Bishop Olivier de Berranger and Yousseff Seddik) of Jews, Christians, Muslims gather readings, readings that separate, The Austere Joy (with Emmanuel Hirsch), and The Tenderness of God.

Executive Director

Abe Radkin, former executive director of the Human Rights Foundation, he is the author of several reports on the situation of human rights and ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. Ten years of work experience for international organizations and the private sector in different countries of the Middle East have given him a detailed knowledge of the region’s issues. He is fluent in several languages, including English, French, Arabic and Persian.