Algeria’s Jews in the 20th Century
Until 1962, when Algeria gained independence from France, the country was home to a large Jewish population. Although most Algerian Jews claim descent from the Sephardim who were expelled from Spain or Italy in the fifteenth century or later, some had settled in Algeria as early as the Phoenician period (500 BCE). Others arrived via the Saharan trade routes and first settled in the oases, subsequently moving north from the desert. Jews established themselves primarily along the Mediterranean Coast in urban centers such as the capital, Algiers. Since the Ottoman conquest of Algeria in 1520, they lived as dhimmis, a special legal status conferred to Jews and Christians under Muslim rule. Dhimmitude granted protection while also involving certain restrictions.
A new situation emerged when France conquered Algeria in 1830. Although the French authorities initially gave Jews and Muslims the same rights, the Crémieux decree conferred French citizenship collectively on Algerian Jews in 1870. A French Jew, Adolphe Crémieux, was France’s minister of justice and a leader of the Paris-based Alliance Israélite Universelle, an influential Jewish organization whose mission was to improve the juridical, political, and social status of the Jews in Muslim lands. Jewish success under the new law led to a rise in antisemitism in Algeria: first from Arabs, who resented Jews’ higher social status, but especially from the European colons, or settlers, also called pieds-noirs, who sought to deny Algerian Jews French citizenship. The situation in the metropole partly fanned their antisemitism, but it also grew into its own Algerian kind. Falsely accused of spying for Germany, the French Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted of treason in 1898. The Dreyfus affair sharply divided French society between those who believed in Dreyfus’s innocence and those who viewed him as a traitor.
Fueled by the economic grudges held by the European population, which included Italians, Maltese, and Spaniards, anti-Jewish sentiment found a favorable breeding ground in Algeria. Anti-Jewish leagues and parties multiplied in the main urban centers at the turn of the 20th century, often leading to riots targeting Jews. The situation reached another climax in the 1930s with the election of Léon Blum, a Jew, as prime minister of France in 1936. Significantly, the Dreyfus affair and the election of Léon Blum are both mentioned in Josette Amselem’s account. In 1940, the Crémieux decree was repealed under the Vichy regime, and Algerian Jews lost their French citizenship. Zionism rapidly gained hold in Algeria, which, unlike Morocco and Tunisia, allowed Zionist activity. L’Union Sioniste Algérienne was founded in 1920, and although halted during the Vichy era, the Zionist framework in Algeria expanded after World War II with the creation of small Zionist youth movements, such as Dror and Ihud Habonim, which trained youth for combat and emigration to Israel.
Zionism did not, however, fully succeed in Algeria as Jews assimilated to French culture since 1870. Many took up arms for France during World War I and subsequently fought for their civil rights. When the nationalist revolt against the French colonialists broke out in Algeria in 1954, Jews initially remained neutral. Profoundly influenced by Arab civilization in all aspects of life, some were sensitive to injustice toward Muslims and espoused the cause of the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale). However, the majority, targeted by Muslim nationalists and predicting an uncertain future for Jews in an independent Algeria, supported French Algeria. Some even, like Jean Ghénassia mentioned in Josette Amselem’s account, joined the ranks of the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), a French terrorist organization opposing the colonial struggle. Following Algeria’s independence in 1962, the vast majority of the 140,000 Jews living in Algeria moved to France.
Yaëlle Azagury, Ph.D., is a literary scholar and critic, and co-author of a critical edition of the French-Algerian novel Mazaltob by Blanche Bendahan, a finalist for the 2024 National Jewish Book Award.
