lit a candle 23h agoMy father rang me this morning before I'd even seen the news. He kept repeating chasser la haine, said Lazare wrote it somewhere and it stuck with him for years. I only knew the man from a short clip a friend sent me last year. 101 years old, that alone stops you.
Their story
Lucien Lazare was a French-Israeli teacher, Resistance veteran and historian who spent a lifetime insisting that rescue could be as decisive as combat. Born in Strasbourg on 24 November 1924, he finished secondary school in Lyon under German occupation, joined the Eclaireurs israelites de France, and from 1942 to 1944…
Lucien Lazare was a French-Israeli teacher, Resistance veteran and historian who spent a lifetime insisting that rescue could be as decisive as combat. Born in Strasbourg on 24 November 1924, he finished secondary school in Lyon under German occupation, joined the Eclaireurs israelites de France, and from 1942 to 1944 worked in their clandestine network La Sixieme, helping to hide and save Jewish children. He later fought with the Compagnie Marc Haguenau of the Maquis de Vabre and took part in the liberation of Castres in the Tarn in 1944.
After the war he studied at the yeshiva of Aix-les-Bains, where he befriended Henri Ackermann, married psychologist Janine Hemmendinger in Strasbourg on 12 March 1949, taught in France and Belgium, and became the first editor of Hamore, the quarterly for Jewish teachers. He served as secretary of the Communaute israelite de Strasbourg, completed a doctorate in history at the University of Strasbourg in 1967, and in 1968 moved with his family to Israel. In Jerusalem he founded and directed the Lycee Rene-Cassin for many years, guiding French-speaking students while sitting on Yad Vashem's commission that names the Righteous Among the Nations.
His books made that work public. La Resistance juive en France (1987), a study of Abbe Glasberg (1990), Le Livre des Justes (1993), the Dictionnaire des Justes de France (2003, with Yad Vashem and Fayard), Organisation juive de combat (2006), and his memoir Le tapissier de Jerusalem (2015) argued that those who sheltered Jews at mortal risk were non-violent resisters whose courage belongs at the centre of national memory. With Simone Veil he helped press for the Righteous to be honoured at the Pantheon. A man of the left and a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, he also translated and supported peace debates linked to his son-in-law Avraham Burg, and late in life summed up the value he hoped to leave: chase away hatred.
Lucien Lazare died in Jerusalem on 22 September 2026, aged 101. His family announced the news the same day. Franceinfo, Le Monde, Alsace historians and colleagues across France and Israel remembered a scout, maquisard, headmaster and chronicler who kept children's names, and the names of those who saved them, from disappearing into silence.
Biography adapted from French Wikipedia (Lucien Lazare); franceinfo 22 Sep 2026; Le Monde; Yad Vashem / Fayard Dictionnaire des Justes; Amicale des Maquis de Vabre.
In their own words
“Chasser la haine.”
On the values he hoped to leave future generations, Studio Qualita interview, 2022
Photos
3Lucien Lazare, December 2019
by People Forever
Mur des Justes, Paris (October 2020)
by People Forever
Yad Vashem Hall of Names, Jerusalem
by People Forever
my grandmother used to say the same phrase, must be from one of his books