A celebration at Israel’s Presidential Residence on Wednesday marked the completion and publication of the first full French translation of the Talmud, based on the commentary of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. The project is intended to make Jewish texts accessible to hundreds of thousands of French speakers in Israel and around the world, and was made possible by a generous donation from the Patrick and Lina Drahi Foundation.
The event was held on 9 Tammuz, a date loaded with historical meaning. It fell 782 years after the 1242 Paris Talmud burning, when thousands of volumes of the Gemara and other sacred books were ordered burned by King Louis IX in an effort to weaken Jewish life. Speakers said issuing the Talmud in French, in sovereign Jerusalem and on that date, amounted to a symbolic reversal of that destruction and a victory for Torah.
The new edition rests on the life’s work of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, who died in 2020 and won the Israel Prize. For 45 years he worked to explain the Babylonian Talmud under the motto, “Let my people know,” aiming to make Torah accessible beyond elites. He broke through the barrier of Aramaic, added punctuation and vocalization, and included historical and practical explanations that opened the text to a broad readership. Though initially criticized in some circles for altering the traditional page layout, his commentary later became widely accepted and is now found in study halls worldwide.
President Isaac Herzog said the French edition opens the Talmud to many more people in the Jewish world and beyond. Businessman Patrick Drahi said Talmudic dispute is not divisive but creative, adding that he hopes the edition will help people listen to one another. Rabbi Meni Even-Israel, Steinsaltz’s son and head of the Steinsaltz Center, said the French publication and the ceremony express the continuity and eternity of the Torah of Israel and the Jewish people.
