The French historian and writer Marcel Bénabou was born in Meknès, Morocco, on June 29, 1939, to an observant Sephardi family. A brilliant student at the Alliance Israélite Universelle school, he left Morocco and religious practice in 1956 to study in Paris and was a student at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure. He later became a professor of ancient history at the University of Paris7—Denis Diderot and authored a number of scholarly works, most notably La résistance africaine à la romanisation (1976).

In addition to his academic career, Bénabou is also a novelist and …