Founder of Ashteret – Forum for the Renewal of Knowledge and Coexistence

Faraj Alexandre Rifai is a Franco-Syrian author.

Born in Syria into a family with a communist tradition, with a Sunni father and an Alawite mother, he grew up in a society marked by double indoctrination: that of authoritarian Arab nationalism and that of an expanding obscurantist Islamism. Two ideologies that seemed entirely opposed, yet converged in the same visceral rejection of otherness—particularly towards Jews, Israelis, Kurds, Alawites, atheists, and any voice perceived as different.

In this cultural climate saturated with hatred and fear, Faraj Alexandre Rifai, like so many others, was educated with the idea that Israel was the absolute enemy, and that Jews formed a homogeneous bloc responsible for the misfortunes of the Arab world. This discourse was not marginal. It was structural—in textbooks, in the media, in daily conversations.

It was upon his arrival in France that a slow intellectual and moral journey began. The confrontation with other narratives, other truths, other faces, led him to question what he had taken for granted. He discovered the complexity of the history of the Jewish people, the scale of the Shoah, the diversity of Israel and the societies surrounding it. This gradual upheaval pushed him to deconstruct the narratives of hatred he had internalized, and to reconsider the ideological foundations of his upbringing.

A graduate of ESSEC (École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales), he continues this work of transmission and openness as the editor of the website Moyen-Orient.fr, a platform dedicated to telling the story of this region differently: through culture, innovation, architecture, major projects, and social dynamics too often invisible in dominant narratives.

Faraj Alexandre Rifai observes with concern how certain political currents, particularly on the far-left in Europe, are today echoing rhetoric he knew in the Middle East—simplistic, binary discourses that recycle hatred in pseudo-humanist forms. This convergence between authoritarian propaganda and activism disconnected from real history contributes, in his view, to misinforming a European youth ill-equipped to understand Middle Eastern issues.

By founding Ashteret, he wishes to offer a space where one can think differently. A place for emancipation through knowledge, dialogue between memories, struggle against obscurantism, and reconciliation between tradition and modernity.

Ashteret embodies a vision: that of a bridge between cultures, peoples, and narratives, to resist extremes and restore thought to its rightful place in building peace.