Louis Kahn (admiral)
Louis-Lazare Kahn, known as Admiral Louis Kahn, was the first French Jewish Admiral, and a leader of the French Jewish community.
Biography
Louis Kahn was born in 1895 and received a degree in marine engineering from the École Polytechnique in 1914. During World War II, he escaped from France via Spain, headed for London, then to Algiers, the shipbuilding center of the French Naval Forces.With the Secretary of the Navy Louis Jacquinot and the Vice-Admiral André Lemonnier, Engineer General Louis Kahn was one of the project managers of the revival of the Navy from Algiers.
Roger Peyrefitte thus described Admiral Kahn's role:
He was president of the Marine Academy from 1959 to 1961.
He was president of the Consistoire Central des juifs de France. He was also president-delegate of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and vice-president of the ORT.
Admiral Kahn was close to rabbi David Feuerwerker. The latter officiated at the wedding of the son of the president of the Consistoire Central in the Synagogue Chasseloup-Laubat, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
Personal life
Louis Kahn married Anne-Marcelle Schrameck on 11 July 1922, at the synagogue de la Victoire in Paris. In 1919 she had been the first woman engineer to graduate from the École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne. The couple lived in Brest, then Saigon then Lorient and had two sons, Pierre and Jean.Death and commemoration
Admiral Kahn was buried at Versailles's Jewish cemetery. The funeral was led by Jacob Kaplan', France's Chief Rabbi. Note that both, Kahn and Kaplan, were Kohanim.In 1968, the writer Arnold Mandel gave the following description of Admiral Kahn:
On July 18, 2010, in a speech, the French Secretary of State for development of the territory, Hubert Falco, paid homage to him.