LÉVY, ALFRED

LÉVY, ALFRED (1840–1919), chief rabbi of France, scholar, and author. Lévy, who was born in Lunéville, France, graduated from the Paris Ecole Rabbinique in 1866 and subsequently served as rabbi at Dijon (1867–69), Lunéville (1869–80), and Lyons (1880–1905). In 1905 he succeeded Zadoc Kahn as chief rabbi of the Consistoire Central de France, in which capacity he presided over the reorganization of French Jewry following the separation of State and Church in 1905. In 1932 a street in his native Lunéville was named after him. Lévy, whose main scholarly interest was in French-Jewish history, wrote Les Juifs de la Comté au xive siécle (in: Archives Israélites, 30 (1869), 182ff., 214ff., 245ff.), Les Juifs du duché de Bourgogne au moyen-âge (ibid., 1869), and Notice sur les Israélites de Lyon (1894). Levy also wrote on Al-Ḥarizi's Taḥkemoni (in: REJ, 59 (1910), Actes et Conférences, VII–XXV), Le deuil et les cérémonies funéraires chez les Israélites (1874), and published a volume of sermons Les doctrines d'Israël (1896). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L' Univers Israélite (June 22, 1914; July 25, 1919; Aug. 1, Aug. 8, 1919); Archives Israélites (June 21, 1917; July 31, 1919). (Georges Weill)