Rebecca Boukhris

Israel/France

Rebecca Boukhris has been the Trustee and Director of the Adelis Foundation since its creation in 2006.

The Adelis Foundation bears the combined name of André Deloro, who founded it, and of his passion: André Deloro, Israel. 

Rebecca Boukhris began her professional career at the Edmond de Rothschild banking group, and for 36 years, thanks to her talent and dedication, she rose through the ranks to become Director of Private Banking.

It was in the course of her work that in 1990 she met André Deloro, a Jew from Egypt. He had arrived in France in 1950, graduated with distinction from one of the largest schools of engineering, and prospered in the construction sector. Rebecca Boukhris soon made an impression on him with her aptitudes, and André Deloro asked her to join him in managing his wealth. Over the years, she became his right-hand woman. And together, guided by the same Zionist vision, they accomplished the creation of the Adelis Foundation.

When André Deloro died in 2012, she complied with his final wishes by putting aside her professional banking work and devoting herself exclusively to the concerns of the Foundation.
Rebecca Boukhris shares André Deloro’s determined focus on reinforcing Israel’s security and ensuring the future of the Jewish people, with an emphasis on education, scientific research, and medical excellence, both for the country’s economic growth and for the welfare of humanity.
They were both convinced that scientific progress is what will make possible a change in the way people live their lives.

And so, dedicating her future to the Foundation, she made aliyah — immigration to Israel — in 2014 with her husband Sidney Boukhris.

Her expertise in financial operations enabled Rebecca Boukhris to organize the Foundation’s activities with the strictness of a proper investment fund. Thus while the Foundation, of course, supports many scientific research projects, it goes beyond mere subsidies, maintaining a long-term relationship with the research labs by meticulously tracking the development of each project that it finances.

In specific, the Foundation is active in bringing different universities together to promote joint projects that will accelerate research. In doing so, the Foundation has established important partnerships among Israeli institutions, notably a brain research collaboration between the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Over the years, the Adelis Foundation has become one of the chief partners of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Important grants, and considerable labor, have gone into the creation of the André Deloro Institute for Space and Optics Research, the André Deloro Research School of Physical Science, the André Deloro Prize for Scientific Research, the forthcoming André Deloro Building for Advanced and Intelligent Materials, and funds for research in Alzheimer’s disease, metabolic syndrome, and multiple sclerosis.

Rebecca Boukhris was born in Casablanca in 1956. Her family moved to Paris in 1964, and there she studied economics. She and her husband have two children, Nataniel and Michael.