David Encaoua is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he taught for more than thirty-five years.
In retirement, after a career devoted to industrial economics and the theory of innovation, he chose to devote his intellectual energy to the exploration of Jewish thought and history — returning to the sources of a family whose members were guardians of rabbinic learning.
David Encaoua had a remarkable academic career as a specialist in industrial economics, intellectual property, and the theory of innovation. A professor at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and a researcher at the Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne, he published numerous articles in international academic journals and supervised many doctoral theses. This methodological rigor — the ability to analyze complex systems with precise analytical tools — is found again in his later works on the history of Jewish thought.
David Encaoua's return to the history of his family was not a simple retirement hobby, but a genuine “intellectual teshuvah” — a return to the sources motivated by the conviction that the Encaoua lineage carried a message that deserved to be transmitted to future generations. His first article on the subject, “Des passeurs de pensée juive d'origine hispano-maghrébine: la lignée Encaoua” (Généalo-J, no. 135, 2018), laid the foundations of a research effort that continued with his book published by L'Harmattan in 2024.