#历史开讲 #
With the rise of modern European sovereign states and foreign expansion, North Africa was involved in the European colonial system. At the time of the French conquest of Algeria, the Algerian Jewish community was thriving and was linked to Jews from other countries in the Mediterranean through economic exchanges. With the intervention of the French government and French Jews, Algerian Jews and Jewish communities were gradually integrated into the French system.
French Jewish Reformation
Throughout the 19th century, under the influence of French Jewish reformers and Algerian assimilators, Algerian Jews hesitated to appreciate, accept, and assimilate French culture. The Decree of Crimieux was a pivotal point in the Jewish history of modern Algeria, one of the large-scale acts of colonial naturalization carried out by the modern empire. From then on, Algerian Jews became citizens of France.
This shift in identity had an impact on Jews, Arabs, and other natives. Although the decree itself did not lead to the emergence of anti-Semitism, the political and economic advancement of Algerian Jews after gaining citizenship caused discontent. From the end of the 19th century to the 60s of the 20th century, Algerian Jews faced a series of challenges as French citizens.
At the end of the 19th century, Algeria was a complex ethnic group of native Jews, Arabs and Berbers, as well as new French immigrants and European settlers, who pursued political power and economic superiority in the construction of the metropolis. In the colonial context, antisemitism in Algeria manifested itself in many forms, both religious and ethnic.
Although French citizens in Algeria elected representatives to the National Assembly, the National Assembly was far away in Paris, and anti-Semitism in the colonies imposed the greatest restrictions on their citizenship practices. Within Algeria, the contradictions between Jews and Arabs and Berbers were suppressed and controlled, so that despite the anti-Semitism encountered by Jews, their status did not deteriorate seriously.
With the outbreak of World War I, Algerian Muslims demanded citizenship and political participation from the French government. Jews realized the fragility of their citizenship during several anti-Jewish waves and also established organizations to defend their rights. The effects of antisemitism on Jews were complex, causing indelible harm to Jews but also accelerating their assimilation process.
The Jews, who wanted to be blameless French, responded positively to attacks on their patriotism by other peoples, pointing out the Jewish service to France in the military and administration, and their contribution to France. But as long as anti-Semitism existed in Algeria, it severely limited the rights Jews received as French citizens, and they would not be allowed to be exclusively French citizens, regardless of the source of their anti-Semitism.
Even if colonial Jews emigrated to settle in France, their Frenchness was still questioned, and in the eyes of the French, Algerian Jews were a marginalized group, not exclusively French, no matter how hard they tried. Anti-Semitism in Algeria reached its peak under the Vichy regime, and the Algerian colonial authorities strictly enforced the Vichy government's anti-Jewish decrees.
Algerian Jews had tried to show their assimilation to the Vichy regime, calling for the restoration of their French citizenship on the basis of patriotism as a way to escape persecution. In the process, some Jews chose to intermarry with non-Jews or convert to Catholicism, both of which in fact testified to the anti-Semitic rigidity of the Vichy system and the limits of assimilation of Algerian Jews.
In the absence of their appeals, they turned to organizing underground movements to help the real France. Charles de Gaulle and the French National Liberation Committee restored citizenship to Algerian Jews. As Algerian Jews emerged from the shadow of the Vichy government, the Algerian War of Independence was questioned as some Jewish leaders tried to keep their Jewish community on the brink of conflict.
The choice of Algerian Jews was very concerned by both French and Algerian leaders. After Algeria's independence, with the intensification of the Arab-Jewish conflict and the accusations of Jewish identity by Algerian Muslims, Jews faced a severe existential crisis in Algeria, which triggered a large-scale migration wave.
In the history of modern Algerian Jewry, the choice of assimilation coexisted with adherence to tradition, and the defense of citizenship went hand in hand with resistance to antisemitism. For Algerian Jews, their liberation was nothing less than a continuation of the ideas of the Enlightenment and the spirit of the Revolution in North Africa, which began with the intervention of French forces. Algerian Jews lived in a better environment than Western European Jews, so they did not show much enthusiasm in the early days of liberation.
In contrast, they were both emancipated by acquiring citizenship, and after becoming citizens, their country of residence no longer demanded Jews in associations, but by the norms of citizenship, and independent executive and judicial powers ceased to exist. Financially, they also have more career options.
The emancipation of Western European Jews was mostly through political revolution or reform, and they were more deeply influenced by the ideas of the Great Revolution and actively fought for emancipation, while Algerian Jews were liberated by citizenship granted by the metropolis and were in a passive position. Granting citizenship to Jews meant emancipation, integration, and even social advancement, but at the same time it brought them new problems, and Jews were always in conflict and entanglement in the face of the conflict between Jewish tradition and modern culture.
In the colonial context, Jews existed as minorities, confronted with the entanglement of tradition and modernity, while for Algerians, the contradiction between colonization and independence. With the establishment of the State of Israel, the Arab-Jewish conflict intensified. Relations between Muslims and Jews in Algeria inevitably cast a political and diplomatic shadow. The tortuous and iterative process of obtaining citizenship for Algerian Jews is closely linked to regime change and anti-Semitism, and illustrates the complexity of the issue of Jewish emancipation.