Benny Levy, 58; French Jewish Philosopher, Author and ‘60s Radical
Benny Levy, a secretary to French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and a former militant socialist who later embraced a life of piety and study of Judaism, has died in Jerusalem at the age of 58.
Levy, a leading French philosopher and author, died Wednesday of a heart attack.
Levy was born in Cairo on Aug. 28, 1945, into a Jewish family and later moved to France, where he studied at the elite Ecole Normale Superieure. Joining the Marxist-Leninist circles of Paris, Levy became a prominent radical in the 1968 student protests and was best known by his rebel name, Pierre Victor.
Levy is perhaps best known for his role as personal secretary to an aging and blind Sartre from 1974 until his death in 1980.
A month before Sartre’s death, the Paris weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published his final thoughts and interviews -- the last ever given -- that Levy conducted with Sartre. The interviews caused a stir because they seemed to show Sartre had abandoned a leftist ideology and embraced religion, a path that Levy himself took.
Levy was accused of making up the interviews until Sartre confirmed their contents just before his death.
Levy later moved to Israel. His latest book, “To Be Jewish,” is to be published next month in France.
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