Oury Cherki

Rav Oury Cherki (born 1959) is president of the Brit Olam organization, one of whose activities is the spreading of Noahid laws in the world. He has been a lecturer at Machon Meir for decades and lectures extensively in Israel in Hebrew and French. The Ourim Association has published over 12 books and other essays by the Rav on the many subjects he teaches. He also established the Graduate School of Jewish Thought and heads the Beit Yehuda community in Jerusalem.

Rav Cherki was born in Algeria. Her grandfather and father were versed in the Torah and active leaders of the Jewish community in Algeria first, then in France. Rav Cherki lived his childhood in France before settling in Israel in 1972 where he studied at the Yeshiva of Merkaz Harav under the direction of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook. He was also a pupil of Rav Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi (Manitou) and Rav Shlomo Binyamin Ashlag.

The teaching of Rav Cherki, although rooted in that of Rav Kook, has other elements, such as the movement of Algerian-French Jewish thought. The latter joins modern orthodoxy in that it also seeks to maintain its loyalty to Jewish practice while engaging in modern philosophy and modernity in general. The result is a unique style of Jewish thought that represents an alternative way of bringing Jewish traditions into dialogue with the modern and secular world.