Léon Henri Alfandari was born in Paris in 1933. His family lived in Istanbul and immigrated to Paris, in the end of the 1920's, in the 11th arrondissement, where the Jewish community from Turkey used to live. Hidden during the war by the Jesuits, his childhood was indeed chaotic. After his father's abrupt death, he had to put an end to his brilliant studies of philosophy, to deal with the familial business.
Self-taught thereafter, he was used to reading a lot, and had signed up for a drawing class in the school "Les Beaux-Arts". He had settled his studio above his shop. After his death, many wonderful watercolours and charcoal drawings were discovered. The Cinema was his other passion: he loved the old American movies.
At the end of his life, he discovered the Internet and its many opportunities. It was an epiphany.
It is by memory of this last passion that his daughter Hélène Schoumann, his grandchildren: David, Clara and Paul-Elie, decided to modestly contribute to the development of the Jerusalem Cinematheque website, as he would have wished to do so. He had visited the building and had whispered, moved, up steps, where the landscape sprawls beyond the David citadel great wall: ‘here, the world ceases and all the dreams can come true'.
Hélène Schoumann
The Jerusalem Film Center web site is supported by the generous contribution of the Schoumann family in memory of Léon Henri Alfadari
