Levinas, Emmanuel (1906–95)

Abstract

AbstractEmmanuel Levinas was born in Kovno, Lithuania, on January 12, 1906. In 1923 he left for France and enrolled at the University of Strasbourg, where he studied philosophy under a number of professors, including Charles Blondel and Maurice Halbwachs. There he met Maurice Blanchot, who not only became his lifelong friend but was instrumental in saving his wife and his daughter during the Nazi war years. In 1928–9 Levinas went to Freiburg, intending to study under the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl; and he also met Martin Heidegger. Shortly after returning to France in 1930, Levinas became a naturalized citizen and took a position at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), an organization that focused on disseminating Jewish education in the countries of the Mediterranean and primarily in North Africa, for instance in Morocco and Tunisia. He later stated that he believed his French citizenship saved him from being sent to a concentration camp.