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יהדות אלג'יריה يهود الجزائر | |
|---|---|
 Algerian Jew (1892). | |
| Total population | |
| <200[1] (2020) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Algiers | |
| Languages | |
| Arabic,Judeo-Algerian Arabic,French,Berber,Tetuani Ladino | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Jews (Maghrebi Jews,Sephardi Jews) |
The history of Jews in Algeria goes back toAntiquity, although it is not possible to trace with any certainty the time and circumstances of the arrival of the first Jews in what is nowAlgeria.[a] In any case, several waves of immigration helped to increase the population. There may have been Jews inCarthage and present-day Algeria before the Roman conquest, but the development of Jewish communities is linked to theRoman presence. Jewish revolts in Israel andCyrenaica in the 1st and 2nd centuries certainly led to the arrival of Jewish immigrants from these regions. The vast majority of scholarly sources reject the notion that there were any large-scale conversions ofBerbers to Judaism.[2]
TheMuslim conquest of North Africa, which was completed in Algeria in the 8th century, brought North Africa into the realm of Islamic civilization and had a lasting impact on the identity of local Jewish communities, whose status was henceforth governed by thedhimma.
New immigrants later strengthened the Algerian Jewish community: Jews fled Spain during theVisigothic persecutions of the 5th and 6th centuries, and again during the persecutions linked to theSpanish Reconquista of the 14th and 16th centuries. ManyJews from the Iberian Peninsula settled in Algeria, mixing with the local Jewish population and influencing its traditions. In the 18th century, other Jews, theGranas of Livorno, were few in number, but played a role as commercial intermediaries betweenEurope and theOttoman Empire. Later in the 19th century, many Jews fromTetouan arrived in Algeria, strengthening the ranks of the community.[3]
After theFrench colonization of Algeria in 1830, Algerian Jews, like other Algerians, faced discrimination by the colonial state. Like Muslims, they were given the status of "indigène" (indigenous) and were barred from gaining French citizenship unless particular conditions were met. However, the dhimma was abolished, and Jews became equal to Muslims under French law. Indeed, the Muslim law that governed the country put the former at a distinct disadvantage to the latter, especially in the legal sphere and their treatment as inhabitants of the country. This changed in 1870, with theCrémieux Decree granting Algerian Jews French citizenship (except forMozabite Jews), while Muslims remained under the second-class indigenous status. Algerian Jews increasingly identified withmetropolitan France, and despite a period of forced return to second-class indigenous status duringWorld War II,[4] they opted en masse to be repatriated to France on the eve ofAlgerian Independence—when even the formerly excluded Mozabite Jews were granted French citizenship—with a minority choosingIsrael. This virtually put an end to more than 2,000 years of presence on Algerian soil. A few dozen very discreet Jews still live in Algeria.[5][6]
There is evidence of Jewish settlements in Algeria since at least theRoman period (Mauretania Caesariensis).[7] Epitaphs have been found in archaeological excavations that attest to Jews in the first centuries CE.Berber lands were said to welcome Christians and Jews very early from theRoman Empire. Thedestruction of the Second Temple inJerusalem byTitus in 70 CE, and thereafter by theKitos War in 117, reinforced Jewish settlement in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Early descriptions of theRustamid capital,Tahert, note that Jews were found there, as they would be in any other major Muslim city of North Africa. Centuries later, the letters found in theCairo Geniza mention many Algerian Jewish families.
In the 7th century, Jewish settlements in North Africa were reinforced by Jewish immigrants that came to North Africa after fleeing from the persecutions of theVisigothic kingSisebut[8] and his successors. They escaped to theMaghreb, which was at the time still part of theByzantine Empire. It is debated whether Jews influenced the Berber population, making converts among them. In that century, Islamic armies conquered the whole Maghreb and most of the Iberian peninsula. The Jewish population was placed underMuslim domination in constant cultural exchanges withAl Andalus and theNear East.
Later many Sephardic Jews were forced to take refuge in Algeria from the persecutions in Spain ofCatalonia, Valencia andBalearic Islands in 1391 and theSpanish Inquisition in 1492.[9] Together with theMoriscos, they thronged to the ports of North Africa, and mingled with native Jewish people.Abraham Lévy-Bacrat, a rabbi and one of the Jewish refugees from the 1492 expulsion from Spain, recorded that around 12,000 Jews arrived in theKingdom of Tlemcen in what is today northwestern Algeria.[10] In the 16th century there were large Jewish communities in places such asOran,Bejaïa andAlgiers. Jews were also present in the cities of the interior, such asTlemcen andConstantine, and as far asTouggourt andM'zab in the south, with the permission of the Muslim authorities. Some Jews in Oran preservedLadino language—which was a uniquely conservative dialect of Spanish—until the 19th century.
The fear of Spanish invasions in the 18th century caused Jews in Algeria to face potential expulsion and confiscation of property, similar to what had occurred in Spain.[11]
Jewish merchants did well financially in lateOttoman Algiers. The French attack on Algeria was provoked by theDey's demands that the French government pay its large outstanding wheat debts to two Jewish merchants. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, richer Jews fromLivorno in Italy started settling in Algeria. Commercial trading and exchanges betweenEurope and the Ottoman Empire reinforced the Jewish community. Later again in the 19th century, many Sephardic Jews fromTetouan settled in Algeria, creating new communities, particularly in Oran.
On the eve of the conquest of 1830, Algerian Judaism was as far removed culturally from the France of the Enlightenment as Islam. Three features characterise this distance.[12]
The first is civilisational. Algerian Judaism, and more broadly North African Judaism, is a traditional Judaism that bases its social and religious order not only on the law of God and rabbinical teaching, but also on a foundation of values, beliefs, and practices common to all North African ethnic groups. The centuries-long cohabitation with Islam has given rise to an original culture, as evidenced by the Judeo-Arabic language, fertility rituals, and the practice of maraboutism.[12]
The second characteristic is institutional. Submission to the Muslim sovereign had one major consequence for community organisation: independence. Indeed, the dhimma pact, which gave Jews the status of protected inferiors, granted - apart from its very restrictive aspects - almost total freedom to the communities in the management of their worship. Each community (independently of the others) was free to manage its own resources, appoint its own rabbis, keep civil records, and maintain its religious infrastructure (synagogues, ritual baths, cemeteries).[12]
Finally, the third determining factor is social and political. Community independence and extreme poverty resulted in a clannish organisation of Jewish society. The need to be represented before the Muslim sovereign stimulated competition between the large families and clientelism.[12]
In 1830, the Jewish population of Algeria was estimated at around 26.000[13] mostly congregated in the coastal area. As a frontier population, natural intermediaries between Europeans and Muslims and fluent in Arabic,[14][15] Jews were recruited as a priority to accompany French troops in the operations of conquest.[15] Some Algerian Jews aided in the conquest, serving as interpreters or suppliers.[16] However sympathetic some Algerian Jews were to the conqueror, the first priority was to subjugate the ‘indigenous’ populations. In this respect, the Jews were no exception.[12]
Although Ottoman subjection had been abolished with the conquest and annexation by France, they did not enjoy the rights of French citizens because they had a specific personal legal status of religious origin. Until the decree of 1870, the legal status of the Jews of Algeria was hardly different from that of Muslims. The Act of Capitulation of 5 July 1830 guaranteed the ‘inhabitants of Algeria’, whether Muslims or Jews, freedom of worship and respect for their religious traditions. In other words, Algerian Jews remained subject to the jurisdiction of the rabbis, in accordance with Mosaic law. More specifically, the natives of Algeria had the status of French citizens by virtue of the general principles of international law applied to cases of annexation. However, to avoid any confusion and for fear of giving too much weight and rights to this status, the ruling specifies that the natives do not enjoy the rights of French citizens due to the maintenance of their own laws (respect for religion recognised since 1830): ‘While not being a French citizen, the Muslim or Jewish native is French’.[15]
By 1841, the Jewishbatei din "religious courts" were placed under French jurisdiction, linked to theIsraelite Central Consistory of France. Regional Algerian courts orconsistoires were put in place, operating under French oversight.[16]
On 9 November 1845, the French government organised community worship along metropolitan lines by creating an Algerian Israelite Consistory in Algiers and two provincial consistories, in Oran and Constantine (with metropolitan rabbis), thus completing the legal ‘assimilation’ of Algerian Jews.[15] The creation of consistories would make it possible to achieve two other objectives: firstly, to remove the communities from the authority of the rabbis, considered to be the breeding ground for fanaticism, by entrusting management to a secular and ‘enlightened’ elite; secondly, to break down the clan structure of indigenous society by imposing a single authority.[12]
In 1845, the French colonial government reorganized communal structure, appointing French Jews, who wereAshkenazi Jews, aschief rabbis for each region, with the duty "to inculcate unconditional obedience to the laws, loyalty to France, and the obligation to defend it".[17] Such oversight was an example of the French Jews' attempt to "civilize" Jewish Algerians, as they believed their European traditions were superior toSephardic practices.
This marked a change in the Jewish relationship with the state. They were separated from the Muslim court system, where they had previously been classified asdhimmis, or a protected minority. As a result, Algerian Jews resisted those French Jews attempting to settle in Algeria; in some cases, there was rioting, in others the local Jews refused to allow French Jewish burials in Algerian Jews' cemeteries.[16] In 1865, the Senatus-Consulte liberalized rules of citizenship, to allow Jewish and Muslim "indigenous" peoples in Algeria to become French citizens if they requested it. Few did so, however, because French citizenship required renouncing certain traditional mores. The Algerians considered that a kind ofapostasy.[16]
In October 1870,Adolphe Crémieux, a lawyer and former minister under theSecond Republic, but also President of theAlliance Israélite Universelle, as Minister of Justice in the National Defence government, promulgated the decree that today bears his name. The decree declared the ‘indigenous Israelites’ of the Algerian departments to be French citizens and made them legally subject to theCivil Code.[15] However, the Jews of the Southern Territories, an administrative entity that existed from 1902 to 1957, were ‘indigenous’ subjects subject to ‘local civil status’ (also known as ‘personal status’ or ‘local status’); as a result, they had no political rights whatsoever.[18] The importance of the decree lies in the massive and compulsory nature of the change in status. That decree met with resistance from hostile Algerian Jewish circles, especially from traditional Algerian rabbis faced with the intrusion of French Judaism.[15]
The French government granted the 'indigenous israelites' (nothing is said about the explicit definition of the category of 'Israelite', unlike what will later happen under Vichy),[15] who by then numbered some 33,000,[19] French citizenship in 1870 under theCrémieux Decree, while maintaining an inferior status for Muslims who, though technically French nationals, were required to apply for French citizenship and undergo anaturalization process.[20] For this reason, they are sometimes incorrectly categorized aspieds-noirs. The decision to extend citizenship to Algerian Jews was a result of pressures from prominent members of the liberal, intellectual French Jewish community, which considered the North African Jews to be "backward" and wanted to bring them into modernity.
Within a generation, despite initial resistance, most Algerian Jews came to speak French rather than Arabic orJudaeo-Spanish, and they embraced many aspects of French culture. In embracing "Frenchness," the Algerian Jews joined the colonizers, although they were still considered "other" to the French. Although some took on more typically European occupations, "the majority of Jews were poor artisans and shopkeepers catering to a Muslim clientele."[16] Moreover, conflicts between Sephardic Jewish religious law and French law produced contention within the community. They resisted changes related to domestic issues, such as marriage.[21]
The Crémieux decree, which brought so-called ‘indigenous’ Jews into the fold of French citizenship,de facto separated Muslims and Jews on a legal and civic level. The latter, albeit with apparent differences depending on the region, welcomed the French policy of assimilation, into which many threw themselves wholeheartedly, and which accelerated the march towards Westernisation. In everyday life, however, relations were often cordial and even fraternal, with Jews not being assimilated into the colonists and frequently acting as intermediaries between Muslims and Europeans.[22] In the end, the naturalisation decree of October 1870 was a measure devised by the ruling circle of French Judaism. It was in no way the consecration of ade facto state of affairs—namely the spontaneous francization of Algerian Jews—but a measure to encourage them to enter (willingly or by force) into French normality.[12]
After the 1882 conquest of theM'zab, the French government in Algeria legally categorized southern Algerian Jews, like the Muslims, as "indigènes", and thus subject to restricted and decreased rights under theindigénat compared to their northern Jewish counterparts, who were still French citizens under the Crémieux Decree of 1870. In 1881, there were only about 30,000Mozabite Jews in Southern Algeria. They established, in Southern Algeria, “local civil status” laws, with rabbis overseeing legal issues. The French government recognized Jewish laws pertaining to domestic issues, such as marriage and inheritance. While these laws allowed for Jews to be structured underhalakha, it prevented southern Jews from accessing “elite” opportunities, as their indigenous status established them as lesser citizens.[23]
Frenchantisemitism set down strong roots among the expatriate French community in Algeria, where every municipal council was controlled by anti-Semites, and newspapers were rife with xenophobic attacks on the local Jewish communities.[24] Much of this was encouraged by the French colonial administration, in particular by the militant antisemiticMax Régis. In Algiers whenÉmile Zola was brought to trial for his defense in an 1898 open letter,J'Accuse…!, ofAlfred Dreyfus, sympathy for whom was widespread in the Arabic press,[25] over 158 Jewish owned shops were looted and burned and two Jews were killed, while the army stood by and refused to intervene (see1898 Algerian riots).[26]Hannah Arendt was to comment later that,'that pogroms against Jews in Algeria were carried out not, as it was claimed, by “‘backward Arabs’” but by “thoroughly sophisticated officers of the French colonial administration” and by the mayor of Algiers, Max Régis.'[27]
Under French rule, some Muslim anti-Jewish riots still occurred, as in 1897 inOran.[28]
In the late 19th century and during the 1930s, mayors elected on anti-Jewish agendas sought to disenfranchise Jewish voters in their municipalities, as seen inSidi-Bel-Abbès, when they could not directly repeal the Crémieux Decree. In these municipalities, Jewish voters were required to provide proof that they or their ancestors had been born in Algeria before 1830. Failure to provide such proof was considered attempted fraud and resulted in removal from the electoral rolls.[15]
In 1931, Jews made up less than 2% of Algeria's total population. This population was more represented in the largest cities:Algiers,Constantine, andOran, which each had Jewish populations of over 7%. Many smaller cities such asBlida,Tlemcen, andSetif also had small Jewish populations.[citation needed] By the mid-thirties,François de La Rocque's extremistCroix-de-Feu and, later, theFrench Social Party movements in Algeria proved active in trying to turn Muslims against Algerian Jews by publishing tracts in Arabic, and were responsible for inciting the1934 Constantine Pogrom, in which 25 Jews were killed and some 200 stores were pillaged.[29][24][30]
With regard to the scope ofZionism in the upper echelons of Algerian Jewry, the wealthy and influential Jews of Algeria are opposed to Zionism and so far we have not counted on their support". They consider that ‘being French first and foremost, they have no interest in the question of Zionism and that they belong here’.[31]
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One of the first moves of the pro-GermanVichy regime was to revoke the effects of theCrémieux Decree, on October 7, 1940, thereby abolishing French citizenship for Algerian Jews, affecting some 110,000 Algerians.[32][33] UnderVichy rule in Algeria, evenKaraites and Jews who had converted to another religion were subject to anti-semitic laws, known collectively asStatut des Juifs.[32][34] TheVichy regime's laws ensured that Jews were forbidden from holding public office or other governmental positions, as well as from holding jobs in industries such as insurance and real estate.[32] In addition, theVichy regime set strict limitations on Jewish people working as doctors or lawyers.[32] It is essential to acknowledge that in no way dictated by Nazi Germany, this policy of blacklisting Jews was exclusively the initiative of the Vichy government.[35]
TheVichy regime also limited the number of Jewish children in Algeria's public school system, and eventually terminated all Jewish enrollment in public schools.[32] In response, Jewish professors who had been forced from their jobs set up a Jewish university in 1941, only for its forced dissolution to occur at the end of that same year.[32] The Jewish communities of Algeria also set up a system of Jewish primary schools for children, and by 1942 some 20,000 Jewish children were enrolled in 70 elementary and 5 secondary schools all over Algeria.[32] TheVichy government eventually created legislation allowing the government to control school curriculum and schedules, which helped dampen efforts to educate young Jews in Algeria.[32]
It was in this context that the French authorities carried out a legal spoliation of Jewish property, known as ‘economic Aryanisation’ in Nazi-inspired terminology, in order to ‘eliminate all Jewish influence’ in the economy. In the space of a few months, more than 2,500 properties were taken from their owners and entrusted to ‘commissaires-gérants’ who had put themselves forward as candidates and whose dossiers had been validated. While most of them were French nationals from the colony, there were also a handful of Muslims among the provisional administrators, at least those who had not been rejected by the authorities. Careful examination of the archives reveals a geography of spoliation. As the Jews were main actors in trading with the Muslims, the colonial authorities sometimes feared that spoliation would jeopardise the fragile social balance, or even create unrest among the ‘indigenous’ population that would be difficult to control. After the Allied landings, the return to normality was slow and many spoliated people had difficulty recovering their property.[35]
UnderAdmiral Darlan andGeneral Giraud, two French officials who administered the French military in North Africa, the antisemitic legislation was applied more severely in Algeria than France itself, under the pretext that it enabled greater equality between Muslims and Jews and considered racial laws a condition sine qua non of thearmistice. Under theVichy regime in Algeria, an office called the "Special Department for the Control of the Jewish Problem" handled the execution of laws applying to Algeria's Jewish population.[32] This was unique in French North Africa, and as such the laws covering the status of Jews were governed much more harshly in Algeria than in Morocco or Tunisia.[32] A bureau for "Economic Aryanization" was also installed in order to eradicate the Jewish community's significance in the economy, mostly by taking control of Jewish businesses.[32]
On March 31, 1942, the Vichy government issued a decree demanding the creation of a local Jewish government called the Union Générale des Israélites d’Algérie (UGIA).[32] The UGIA was intended to be a body of Jews that would execute theVichy regulations within Jewish communities, and was seen by much of the Jewish population as collaboration with the government.[32] In response, many young Jews joined the Algerian resistance movement, which itself had been founded by Jews in 1940. On November 8, 1942, the Algerian resistance to the Vichy government took part in the takeover of Algiers in preparation for the Allied liberation of North Africa, known as "Operation Torch."[32] Of the 377 resistance members who took Algiers, 315 were Jewish.[32] In November 1942,Allied forces landed and took control of Algiers and the rest of Algeria. However, Jews were not returned all of their former civil rights and liberties, nor their French citizenships until 1943. This can partially be explained by the fact thatGiraud himself, along with the Governor-GeneralMarcel Peyrouton, in promulgating the cancellation ofVichy statutes on March 14, 1943, after the allies landed in North Africa, retained exceptionally the decree abolishing citizenship rights for Algerian Jews, claiming that they did not wish to incite violence between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Algiers.[34] It was not until the arrival ofCharles De Gaulle in October 1943 that Jewish Algerians finally regained their French citizenship with the reinstatement of theCrémieux Decree.
In addition to the discriminatory and antisemitic laws faced by Jews all over Algeria, some 2,000 Jews were placed in concentration camps at Bedeau andDjelfa.[32] The camp at Bedeau, nearSidi-bel-Abbes, became a place for the concentration of Jewish Algerian soldiers, who were forced to perform hard labor.[36] These prisoners formed the "Jewish Work Group," and worked on a Vichy plan for a trans-Saharan railroad; many died from hunger, exhaustion, disease, or beatings.[32][36]
During theAlgerian War, most Algerian Jews took sides with France, out of loyalty to the Republic which gave themFrench citizenship, against the Arab Independence movement, though they rejected that part of the official policy which proposed independence for Algeria. Some Jews did join theFLN fighting for independence, but a larger group made common cause with theOAS, secret paramilitary group.[37] Throughout the Independence War, violence remained palpable and relations deteriorated following clashes and assassinations, such as that of the rabbi of Nédroma in November 1956, the chief rabbi of Médéa in March 1957, and the great singer Cheikh Raymond Leyris.[22]
The FLN published declarations guaranteeing a place in Algeria for Jews as an integral constituent of the Algerian people,[38] hoping to attract their support. Algerian Muslims had assisted Jews during their trials under theVichy régime in WW2, when their citizenship rights under the Crémieux Degree had been revoked.[37][38]
Some Algerian Jews responded positively to the call from the FLN, joining with local militias or making financial contributions. For these Jews, they recognized a common attachment to Algeria and the antisemitism prevalent among the French.[39] For others, memories of the 1934pogrom, and incidents of violent Muslim assault on Jews inConstantine andBatna, together with arson attacks on the Batna and Orleanville synagogues, played a role in their decisions to turn down the offer.
In 1961, with the French National Assembly Law 61-805,[40] theMozabite Jews, who had been excluded from the Cremieux Decree, were also given French citizenship.[41]
Between late 1961 and late summer 1962, 130,000 of Algeria's approximately 140,000 Jews left forFrance, while about 10,000 of them emigrated toIsrael.[42][43] Moroccan Jews who were living in Algeria and Jews from theM'zab Valley in the Algerian Sahara, who did not have French citizenship, as well as a small number of Algerian Jews from Constantine, also emigrated toIsrael at that time.[44] The fact that Israel was unable to attract more Jewish immigrants from Algeria dismayed Zionist representatives in Algeria as well as the Israeli authorities;[18]Zionism remained a marginal movement within Algerian Jewish society compared to other North African countries. In any case, it is clear that the weakness of Zionist action in Algeria was largely due to the French nationality of Algerian Jews.[31]
Algerian Jews massively left Algeria because of the fear of a return to the status ofdhimmi, which an independent state founded on an Arab-Muslim identity - the pillar of the future Algeria might engender, where the Jewish minority would find no place, as many had foreseen from the eve of independence.[22]
In 1961, theBizerte crisis caused upheaval and increased the rate of Jewish migration to France. Jews, considered to be responsible for the conflict because of their proximity to Europeans, were the victims of anti-Semitic movements. In just a few months, France received as many refugees as in the previous six years.[14]
Following a1961 referendum, the 1962Évian Accords secured Algerian independence. Some Algerian Jews had joined theOrganisation armée secrète, which aimed to disrupt the process of independence with bombings and assassination attempts, targets includingCharles de Gaulle andJean-Paul Sartre.[45]
These accords led to a mass exodus of ‘pieds noirs’. In the early 1960s while North African Jews faced a wave of anti-Semitism in the Maghreb. Moreover, Algerian Jews also identify with their attachment to France, which Algerians revealed in the nineteenth century in their fight for French naturalisation.[14] The Jews of Algeria, but also of Morocco and Tunisia, showed a great attachment to metropolitan France, as shown by their attitude during the colonial wars and their choice to settle in France: "The Jews felt perfectly French and proud to be so.[46] Moreover, the anti-Semitic violence that had been manifesting itself in the colony since the last quarter of the nineteenth century affected every aspect of daily life in minute detail.[35]
More than 90% of Algerian Jews (110,000 out of about 130,000) opted for France, they left Algeria en masse, not because they were persecuted there as Jews but because they had so deeply internalized their "Frenchness" that they considered their destiny linked to that of the French,[47] although some went to Israel.[48][unbalanced opinion?] By 1969, fewer than 1,000 Jews were still living in Algeria.[49][better source needed] By 1975, because of a lack of worshippers, all but one of the country's synagogues were closed, having been converted into mosques or libraries.[50]
After the Evian agreements of 19 March 1962, the vast majority of the remaining Jews in Algeria were among the 800,000 French people who crossed the Mediterranean at in the space of a few months. Regarded as repatriates in the same way as the 'Pieds Noirs', they gradually integrated into the French Jewish community, which they helped to reshape,[46] like their co-religionists who had previously arrived from Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. The number of those who settled in Israel is estimated at around 10,000. As for those who remain in Algeria, they can only observe that the young independent nation is being built on a Arab-Muslim identity, since the law on the nationality code of 12 March 1963 automatically grants Algerian nationality only to those who have a ‘nationality of origin’, defined by their Muslim personal status under French domination.[51]
Since 2005, the Algerian government has attempted to reduce discrimination against the Jewish population by establishing a Jewish association and passing a law that recognized freedom of religion. They also allowed a relaunching of Jewish pilgrimage, to the most holy Jewish sites in North Africa. In 2014, the Minister of Religious Affairs Mohammed Eissa announced that the Algerian government would foster the reopening of Jewish synagogues. However, this never came to fruition, with Eissa stating that it was no longer in the interest of Algerian Jews.[52] In 2017, there were an estimated 50 Jews remaining in Algeria, mostly in Algiers.[29] As of 2020, there were an estimated 200 Jews in Algeria.[1]
According to theJewish Encyclopedia,[53]
A contemporary [1906] Jewess of Algiers wears on her head a "takrita" (handkerchief), is dressed in a "bedenor" (gown with a bodice trimmed with lace) and a striped vest with long sleeves coming to the waist. The "mosse" (girdle) is of silk. The native Algerian Jew wears a "ṭarbush" or oblong turban with silken tassel, a "ṣadriyyah" or vest with large sleeves, and "sarwal" or pantaloons fastened by a "ḥizam" (girdle), all being covered by a mantle, a burnus (also spelledburnoose), and a large silk handkerchief, the tassels of which hang down to his feet. At an earlier stage the Algerian Jewess wore a tall cone-shaped hat resembling those used in England in the fifteenth century.
The largest study to date on the Jews of North Africa has been led by Gerard Lucotte et al. in 2003. Sephardi population studied is as follows: 58 Jews from Algeria, 190 from Morocco, 64 from Tunisia, 49 from the island ofDjerba, 9 and 11 from Libya and Egypt, respectively, which makes 381 people.[59] This study showed that the Jews of North Africa showed frequencies of their paternal haplotypes almost equal to those of the Lebanese and Palestinian non-Jews when compared to European non-Jews.
The Moroccan/Algerian, Djerban/Tunisian and Libyan subgroups of North African Jewry were found to demonstrate varying levels of Middle Eastern (40-42%), European (37-39%) and North African ancestry (20-21%),[60] with Moroccan and Algerian Jews tending to be genetically closer to each other than to Djerban Jews and Libyan Jews.[61][62][63][64] According to the study:
"distinctive North African Jewish population clusters with proximity to other Jewish populations and variable degrees of Middle Eastern, European, and North African admixture. Two major subgroups were identified by principal component, neighbor joining tree, and identity-by-descent analysis—Moroccan/Algerian and Djerban/Libyan—that varied in their degree of European admixture. These populations showed a high degree of endogamy and were part of a larger Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish group. By principal component analysis, these North African groups were orthogonal to contemporary populations from North and South Morocco, Western Sahara, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Thus, this study is compatible with the history of North African Jews—founding during Classical Antiquity with proselytism of local populations, followed by genetic isolation with the rise of Christianity and then Islam, and admixture following the emigration of Sephardic Jews during the Inquisition."[60]
There are gaps in the information available on the Jewish population in Algeria over time, and everyone tries to get around them as best they can, which leads to variations in estimates and results depending on the source. These estimates are clearly flawed because part of the territory was outside French control, because only ‘municipal populations’ are counted, because rural dwellers are not counted, and because the evaluation methods were incomplete.[65]
| Year | Jewish Population[65][51] |
|---|---|
| 1830 | 26,000 |
| 1850 | 21,048 |
| 1866 | 33,952 |
| 1881 | 52,000 |
| 1914 | 96,000 |
| 1921 | 73,967 |
| 1931 | 110,000 |
| 1941 | 117,646 |
| 1948 | 125,000 |
| 1962 | 110,000 |
| 1963 | 5 000 |
| 1970 | 2000 |
| 1980 | less than 200 |
| 1990 | only a few |
Muslim anti Jewish riots in Constantine in 1934 when 25 Jews were killed
Jewish participation in the OAS has been widely acknowledged by historians, though just how many actually joined the organization and why, remain difficult to know exactly
Media related toJewish people of Algeria at Wikimedia Commons
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