The Lodge was established in 1997.

It is a lively lodge that is heavily involved in regional activities.

The Lodge was established following the election of the National Front Mayor of Toulon, Jean-Marie le Chevallier.

Despite the political situation in the area, where Le Pen's National Front has a significant presence, the Lodge was founded with the support of Maître Yves Haddad, Esq. President of the Jewish Community of Toulon.

The Lodge was named after philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas who spent his last years living in Jerusalem.

On 12th January 1906, Emmanuel Lévinas was born into a Jewish Community in Kovno, Lithuania that was steeped in Talmudic tradition.

His father, a bookseller, gave his three boys a religious education, and Emmanuel grew up speaking Russian and Hebrew.

He went to high school in Karkhov, before admission to the École Nationale Supérieure in Strasbourg, where he met leading professors such as Blondel, Halbwachs and, in particular, Maurice Blanchot who became a friend and mentor.

After reading Husserl's Logical Investigations, he moved to Freiberg to study, where he discovered Heidegger and existentialism.

He then moved to the Sorbonne to study philosophy, and enjoy Parisian intellectual life, with mentors such as J. Wahl and Gabriel Marcel.

However, his rise was cut short by the war, when he was called up as a Russian translator. He was captured in Germany, and back in Lithuania, his whole family was exterminated.

After the war, he produced his thesis Totality and infinity, before being appointed Professor at University of Poitiers, and working at Sorbonne from 1973 to his retirement in 1979.

Emmanuel Lévinas taught Husserl and Heidegger's philosophy, helped Jewish thought find its place within a framework of western philosophy and developed an ethics of responsibility, which included the idea of the Divine.

He passed away on 25th December 1995, shortly after having again enjoyed the pure light of the eight Hanukkah candles, which he had evoked so eloquently in his discussion of light and darkness in Difficult Freedom.