#历史开讲 #
It dissipated during the anti-Semitism period that erupted in Algeria at the end of the 19th century. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, violence against Jews continued in the colonies. The violence against Jews in Constantine in 1934 epitomized colonial violence against Semitism.
The colonial peoples of the two world wars participated, fighting for France while fighting for their rights. The Jews of the colonies, faced with accusations of disloyalty to France, responded by military service and administrative participation. The Vichy government's anti-Jewish persecution of colonial Jews reached its peak. With the rise of anti-colonialism and the spread of Arab nationalism, the Algerian War of Independence plunged Jews into a spiral of dual loyalty, and the choice of national independence, identity and nationality became unavoidable questions for Algerian Jews.
Jewish-Muslim conflict in the 30s of the 20th century
Political identity reflects the relationship of groups to the state and to each other in the political context, and most descriptions of the formation of political identity in Algeria begin at different times in the late 19th century. By the 2030s, the Arab-Berber people in Algeria had formed a powerful group and institution from Constantine and Algiers, including both intellectual and religious elites, as well as immigrants, peasants, and working-class organizations from other regions who came together to reform or eliminate French rule.
Politically-oriented antisemitism in Algeria at the end of the 19th century was influenced by ethnic antisemitism on the European continent and continued into the 20th century. In the town hall, in the financial department of the delegation and in the government building, certain issues were reluctantly recognized and occupied the forefront of the stage throughout the interwar period.
As a result, Algeria witnessed electoral struggles, and the twists and turns behind the scenes became more intense. During the interwar period, relations between Algerian Jews and Muslims deteriorated dramatically, not only due to European influence, but also Muslim dissatisfaction with the French colonial government began to turn to Algerian Jews.
By the 20s and 30s, Algeria was marked by small-scale violence against Jews, a continuation of 19th-century anti-Semitism, in which Muslims used violence to identify themselves. Some Muslims in Algeria want equal citizenship and are actively fighting for their rights, while Jews are constantly engaged in political activity.
In an atmosphere in which there was more political mobilization of all groups in the colonies and an increase in the radical right, including the Confederation, during the interwar period, extreme violence between colonial groups reflected tensions between the community and the political – Jews versus Muslims, the right versus the left, Europeans versus each other, and new settlers versus old French. The resulting competition between colonial groups was not only a struggle for political power, but also a struggle for scarce resources.
Influenced by Europe and Palestine, tensions in the colonies intensified. Fueled by rising Algerian nationalism and the French far right, the violence against Jews in Constantine in 1934 epitomized colonial violence and anti-Semitism.
There are many different versions of why this violence took place. The anti-Semitic French colonial authorities and media reported only Muslim-biased versions that Jews insulted Islam; And a report by Jewish authorities said the Jews simply wanted Muslims to close the windows leading to their bathing halls, and in the ensuing quarrel they cursed him and his faith, saying he in turn cursed them and their religion.
Jewish public opinion at the time blamed the incident on the conspiracy, colonial bureaucracy and pan-Arab propaganda of European anti-Semites in Algeria. The news was also reported in the August 7, 1934 New York Times: "100 dead, 300 wounded, Muslim and Jewish clashes in Algeria: Jewish soldiers invading mosques are responsible for the riots." ”
Edouard Drummont served as president of the organization, but was defeated in internal competition due to the republican tendencies he showed in the Algiers elections. The aim of the National Anti-Semitic Federation was to combat the adverse effects of the Jewish financial oligarchy on the French economy. They also developed organizations outside Paris and organized anti-Jewish youth movements. This group was not as active as most nationalist groups later, but it had a great influence at the time.
In Algeria at the end of the 19th century, anti-Semitism was on the rise of racial anti-Semitism on the European continent, catalyzed by the Dreyfus incident in France. For the natives of Algeria, they vented their anger on the Jews, but the political rights and status they sought were precisely what the Jews could not decide, and it was the French colonial government that really held power, and their target should be the French government.
The Dreyfus affair had a profound impact on French politics. It sheds light on the tensions that existed in France after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, with a more pronounced division between the left and right of the country, reflecting the persistence of anti-Semitism in the homeland of freedom and revolution, and challenging notions of France's identity as a Catholic state.
Antisemitism in Algeria at the end of the 19th century was characterized by a predominantly political approach, linked to antisemitism in mainland France. As for violence between Jews and Muslims, David Nilberg argues that much of the violence that leads to conflict revolves around: for economic power, for civic prestige, for sexual contact with women, and for conversion.
In the Algerian colony, Muslims used violence (verbal and material) to express their dissatisfaction with the existence of this hierarchy. As for the reasons for the frequent violence in the colonies, Benjamin Claude Breuer argues that Algerian violence has multiple logics, and that French colonialism in Algeria has never produced a universal system of shared norms, each of which is a special case.
Reflecting the social makeup of the country itself, colonial violence expressed a variety of political strategies, tensions, hopes and anxieties. Legally, Jews have been French citizens since 1870 and enjoy the same rights as citizens of mainland France, but to the anti-Jewish colonial authorities and most European settlers in the colonies, the Jews of the colonies were not French, they were indigenous like Muslims.
Jews considered themselves French citizens and wanted to exercise their civil rights, and Muslims believed that although Jews were granted citizenship, they were essentially no different from them. Both parties want to gain respect from the other, and in this case, friction inevitably arises in daily interactions.