The Crémieux Decree ( French : Décret Crémieux ; IPA: [kʁemjø] ) was a law that granted French citizenship to the majority of the Jewish population in French Algeria (around 35,000), signed by the Government of National Defense on 24 October 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War . It was named after French-Jewish lawyer and Minister of Justice Adolphe Crémieux .
118-781: The decree automatically made the native Algerian Jews French citizens , while their Muslim Arab and Berber neighbors were excluded and remained under the second-class indigenous status outlined in the code de l'Indigénat . As a result, the decree did not grant citizenship to Mozabite Jews . Mozabite Jews were granted "common law civil status" and French citizenship in 1961, over ninety years later. French Algeria (19th–20th centuries) Algerian War (1954–1962) 1990s– 2000s 2010s to present Muslim Algerians could, on paper, apply individually for French citizenship, but this required that they formally renounce Islam and its laws, and their requests were additionally very seldom accepted. That set
236-589: A Sénatus-consulte in 1865 revised citizenship laws to allow indigenous Algerians to apply for French citizenship. But Algerian culture prided itself on its customary practices, and as a result application rates were low. Many European Jews lived in France, and so the French believed that Algerian Jews would be more likely to assimilate due to having Sephardic ( Portuguese Jews , like Crémieux's mother) and also Ashkenazi relatives in France. Thus, Jews gained recognition in France as
354-573: A "ḥizam" (girdle), all being covered by a mantle, a burnus (also spelled burnoose ), 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
472-493: A Jew upon baptism ." From the perspective of racial antisemitism, however, "the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism.[...] From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews[...] Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews,
590-517: A Muslim clientele." 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. After the 1882 conquest of the M'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
708-554: A Semitic language. Though 'antisemitism' could be construed as prejudice against people who speak other Semitic languages, this is not how the term is commonly used. The term may be spelled with or without a hyphen (antisemitism or anti-Semitism). Many scholars and institutions favor the unhyphenated form. Shmuel Almog argued, "If you use the hyphenated form, you consider the words 'Semitism', 'Semite', 'Semitic' as meaningful ... [I]n antisemitic parlance, 'Semites' really stands for Jews, just that." Emil Fackenheim supported
826-568: A change in the Jewish relationship with the state. They were separated from the Muslim court system, where they had previously been classified as dhimmis , or a protected minority people. 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. In 1865,
944-655: A collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions—social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence—which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews." Elaborating on Fein's definition, Dietz Bering of the University of Cologne writes that, to antisemites, "Jews are not only partially but totally bad by nature, that is, their bad traits are incorrigible. Because of this bad nature: (1) Jews have to be seen not as individuals but as
1062-442: A collective. (2) Jews remain essentially alien in the surrounding societies. (3) Jews bring disaster on their 'host societies' or on the whole world, they are doing it secretly, therefore the anti-Semites feel obliged to unmask the conspiratorial, bad Jewish character." For Swiss historian Sonja Weinberg , as distinct from economic and religious anti-Judaism , antisemitism in its specifically modern form shows conceptual innovation,
1180-446: 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
1298-763: 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 the interest of Algerian Jews. In 2017, there were an estimated 50 Jews remaining in Algeria, mostly in Algiers. As of 2020, there were an estimated 200 Jews in Algeria. According to
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#17330851893371416-564: A means of control: the French government having realized that, by enabling Ashkenazi practices, they could appoint chief Rabbis with a duty to "inculcate unconditional obedience to the laws, loyalty to France, and the obligation to defend it". France had already given the Sephardic Jews of France citizenship in 1790, and almost two years after, in September 1791, granted citizenship to their Ashkenazi co-religionists who were seen as less French at
1534-578: A misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy ) that it refers to racist hatred directed at " Semitic people " in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept . Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a " scientific-sounding term " for Judenhass ( lit. ' Jew-hatred ' ), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone. The word "Semitic"
1652-503: A misnomer. The word Judeophobia first appeared in his pamphlet " Auto-Emancipation ", published anonymously in German in September 1882, where it was described as an irrational fear or hatred of Jews. According to Pinsker, this irrational fear was an inherited predisposition. Judeophobia is a form of demonopathy, with the distinction that the Jewish ghost has become known to the whole race of mankind, not merely to certain races... Judeophobia
1770-414: A non-religious perspective ) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both "Jewry" (the Jews as a collective) and "Jewishness" (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit). He accused the Jews of a worldwide conspiracy against non-Jews, called for resistance against "this foreign power", and claimed that "there will be absolutely no public office, even
1888-419: A people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism . In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism , a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism ,
2006-412: A person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions . The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by
2124-438: A refuge. Most Zionists do not believe that antisemitism can be combatted with education or other means. The contextual approach treats antisemitism as a type of racism and focuses on the historical context in which hatred of Jews emerges. Some contextualists restrict the use of "antisemitism" to refer exclusively to the era of modern racism, treating anti-Judaism as a separate phenomenon. Historian David Engel has challenged
2242-481: A resort to "science" to defend itself, new functional forms, and organisational differences. It was anti-liberal, racialist and nationalist. It promoted the myth that Jews conspired to 'judaise' the world ; it served to consolidate social identity; it channeled dissatisfactions among victims of the capitalist system; and it was used as a conservative cultural code to fight emancipation and liberalism. In 2003, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky developed what he called
2360-410: A standard different from that applied to others, and they are accused of "cosmic evil". Thus, "it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being anti-Semitic" unless this hatred or persecution displays one of the two features specific to antisemitism. There have been a number of efforts by international and governmental bodies to define antisemitism formally. In 2005,
2478-522: A state of Israel is a racist endeavor, can be a manifestation of antisemitism—as can applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, or holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel. The EUMC working definition was adopted by the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism in 2010, by
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#17330851893372596-411: Is a Jewish state , expressions of anti-Zionist positions could harbour antisemitic sentiments. Natan Sharansky describes the "3D" test to determine the existence of such antisemitism: demonizing Israel, the double standard of criticizing Israel disproportionately to other countries, and delegitimizing Israel's right to exist . Due to the root word Semite , the term is prone to being invoked as
2714-423: Is a psychic disorder. As a psychic disorder, it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable... Thus have Judaism and Jew-hatred passed through history for centuries as inseparable companions... Having analyzed Judeophobia as a hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to the human race, and represented Jew-hatred as based upon an inherited aberration of the human mind, we must draw
2832-765: Is as follows: 58 Jews from Algeria, 190 from Morocco, 64 from Tunisia, 49 from the island of Djerba , 9 and 11 from Libya and Egypt, respectively, which makes 381 people. 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%), with Moroccan and Algerian Jews tending to be genetically closer to each other than to Djerban Jews and Libyan Jews. According to
2950-727: Is evidence of Jewish settlements in Algeria since at least the Roman period ( Mauretania Caesariensis ). 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 the Roman Empire . The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by Titus in 70 CE, and thereafter by the Kitos War in 117, reinforced Jewish settlement in North Africa and
3068-565: Is not possible to trace with any certainty the time and circumstances of the arrival of the first Jews in what is now Algeria . In any case, several waves of immigration helped to increase the population. There may have been Jews in Carthage and present-day Algeria before the Roman conquest, but the development of Jewish communities is linked to the Roman presence . Jewish revolts in Israel and Cyrenaica in
3186-657: The Ottoman millet system . At the time, the French government distinguished French citizens (who had national voting rights and were subject to French laws and conscription ) from Jewish and Muslim "indigenous" peoples, who each were allowed to keep their own laws and courts. By 1841, the Jewish batei din "religious courts" were placed under French jurisdiction, linked to the Israelite Central Consistory of France . Regional Algerian courts or consistoires were put in place, operating under French oversight. In 1845,
3304-559: The Alliance Anti-semitique Universelle in Bucharest. In the period before World War II , when animosity towards Jews was far more commonplace, it was not uncommon for a person, an organization, or a political party to self-identify as an antisemite or antisemitic. The early Zionist pioneer Leon Pinsker , a professional physician, preferred the clinical-sounding term Judeophobia to antisemitism, which he regarded as
3422-507: The Crémieux Decree , while maintaining an inferior status for Muslims who, though technically French nationals, were required to apply for French citizenship and undergo a naturalization process. For this reason, they are sometimes incorrectly categorized as pieds-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
3540-583: The FLN fighting for independence, but a larger group made common cause with the OAS, secret paramilitary group . The FLN published declarations guaranteeing a place in Algeria for Jews as an integral constituent of the Algerian people, hoping to attract their support. Algerian Muslims had assisted Jews during their trials under the Vichy régime in WW2, when their citizenship rights under
3658-598: The Fundamental Rights Agency ), an agency of the European Union , developed a more detailed working definition , which stated: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." It also adds that "such manifestations could also target
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3776-493: The Jewish Encyclopedia , 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
3894-664: The Near East . Later many Sephardic Jews were forced to take refuge in Algeria from the persecutions in Spain of Catalonia , Valencia and Balearic Islands in 1391 and the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. Together with the Moriscos , they thronged to the ports of North Africa, and mingled with native Jewish people. In the 16th century there were large Jewish communities in places such as Oran , Bejaïa and Algiers . Jews were also present in
4012-785: The Spanish Inquisition , and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492; the Cossack massacres in Ukraine , between 1648 and 1657; various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire , between 1821 and 1906; the Dreyfus affair , between 1894 and 1906; the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II ; and various Soviet anti-Jewish policies . Historically, most of the world's violent antisemitic events have taken place in Christian Europe . However, since
4130-819: The United States Department of State in 2017, in the Operational Hate Crime Guidance of the UK College of Policing in 2014 and by the UK's Campaign Against Antisemitism . In 2016, the working definition was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance . IHRA's Working definition of antisemitism is among the most controversial documents related to opposition to antisemitism, and critics argue that it has been used to censor criticism of Israel. In response to
4248-531: The United States Department of State stated that "while there is no universally accepted definition, there is a generally clear understanding of what the term encompasses." For the purposes of its 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism, the term was considered to mean "hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity." In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC, now
4366-404: The Vichy regime set strict limitations on Jewish people working as doctors or lawyers. The Vichy regime also limited the number of Jewish children in Algeria's public school system, and eventually terminated all Jewish enrollment in public schools. 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
4484-784: The indigénat compared to their northern Jewish counterparts, who were still French citizens under the Crémieux Decree of 1870. In 1881, there were only about 30,000 Mozabite 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 under halakha , it prevented southern Jews from accessing “elite” opportunities, as their indigenous status established them as lesser citizens. French antisemitism set down strong roots among
4602-659: The " Semites " as a race ]." Psychologist Avner Falk similarly writes: "The German word antisemitisch was first used in 1860 by the Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) in the phrase antisemitische Vorurteile (antisemitic prejudices). Steinschneider used this phrase to characterise the French philosopher Ernest Renan's false ideas about how ' Semitic races ' were inferior to ' Aryan races ' ". Pseudoscientific theories concerning race , civilization, and "progress" had become quite widespread in Europe in
4720-431: The "Anti-Kanzler-Liga" (Anti-Chancellor League). The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their forced removal from the country. So far as can be ascertained, the word was first widely printed in 1881, when Marr published Zwanglose Antisemitische Hefte , and Wilhelm Scherer used
4838-601: The "Jewish Work Group," and worked on a Vichy plan for a trans-Saharan railroad; many died from hunger, exhaustion, disease, or beatings. During the Algerian War , most Algerian Jews took sides with France, out of loyalty to the Republic which gave them French citizenship , against the Arab Independence movement, though they rejected that part of the official policy which proposed independence for Algeria. Some Jews did join
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4956-467: The "origins of anti-Semitic prejudices are rooted in different historical periods." König asserts that differences in the chronology of different antisemitic prejudices and the irregular distribution of such prejudices over different segments of the population create "serious difficulties in the definition of the different kinds of anti-Semitism." These difficulties may contribute to the existence of different taxonomies that have been developed to categorize
5074-450: The "three D" test to distinguish antisemitism from criticism of Israel, giving delegitimization , demonization, and double standards as a litmus test for the former. Bernard Lewis , writing in 2006, defined antisemitism as a special case of prejudice, hatred, or persecution directed against people who are in some way different from the rest. According to Lewis, antisemitism is marked by two distinct features: Jews are judged according to
5192-539: The 1954–1962 Algerian War where suspects of collaboration with French authorities had been seen as enemies of the revolution and traitors of the people and the nation, after which the vast majority of the Jews of Algeria emigrated to France. Jews first migrated to Algeria during the Roman period. The Spanish inquisition also led to an influx of Jewish migration. France conquered Algeria in 1830-1834. France became focused on assimilating colonized people into French citizens, and
5310-402: 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 of Berbers to Judaism. The Muslim 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
5428-576: The Algerian Jewish population relocated to France 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 . French Republic No. 136. - Declaring the indigenous Jews of Algeria French citizens. 24 October 1870. The Government of National Defense Decrees: The indigenous Jews of
5546-633: The Algerian Jewish population was between 15,000 and 17,000, mostly congregated in the coastal area. Some 6,500 Jews lived in Algiers , where they made up 20% of the population; 2,000 in Oran ; 3,000 in Constantine ; and 1000 in Tlemcen . While Muslims resisted the French occupation, some Algerian Jews aided in the conquest, serving as interpreters or suppliers. After their conquest, the French government rapidly restructured
5664-587: 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 ." Of the 377 resistance members who took Algiers, 315 were Jewish. 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
5782-702: 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, the Mozabite Jews, who had been excluded from the Cremieux Decree, were also given French citizenship. Between late 1961 and late summer 1962, 130,000 of Algeria's approximately 140,000 Jews left for France, while about 10,000 of them emigrated to Israel. Moroccan Jews who were living in Algeria and Jews from
5900-465: The Christian foundation on which the modern antisemitic edifice rests and invoke political antisemitism, cultural antisemitism, racism or racial antisemitism, economic antisemitism, and the like." William Nicholls draws a distinction between religious antisemitism and modern antisemitism based on racial or ethnic grounds: "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion [...] a Jew ceased to be
6018-469: The City of Tours ( Bulletin officielle de la ville de Tours ) on 7 November 1870. Within a generation, most Algerian Jews came to speak French and embrace French culture in its entirety. Conflicts between Sephardic Jewish religious law and French law troubled community members as they attempted to navigate a legal system at odds with their established practice. The French army's control over civilian life in Algeria
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#17330851893376136-514: The Colonies. These ministers were members of the provisional Government of National Defense (based in Tours , since France was at war and Paris was besieged . The Muslim revolt of 1871 created distrust of the indigenous non-Jews, as it established that they would not respect French authority. This amplified French desire to attempt the assimilation of Algerian Jews over other indigenous communities who, it
6254-539: The Crémieux Degree had been revoked. 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. For others, memories of the 1934 pogrom , and incidents of violent Muslim assault on Jews in Constantine and Batna , together with arson attacks on
6372-410: The French , although some went to Israel. By 1969, fewer than 1,000 Jews were still living in Algeria. 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. Since 2005, the Algerian government has attempted to reduce discrimination against the Jewish population, by establishing a Jewish association, and passing
6490-508: The French colonial government reorganized communal structure, appointing French Jews, who were Ashkenazi Jews , as chief rabbis for each region, with the duty "to inculcate unconditional obedience to the laws, loyalty to France, and the obligation to defend it". Such oversight was an example of the French Jews' attempt to "civilize" Jewish Algerians, as they believed their European traditions were superior to Sephardic practices. This marked
6608-570: 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 the armistice . Under the Vichy 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. This
6726-436: The Holocaust. Hannah Arendt criticized this approach, writing that it provoked "the uncomfortable question: 'Why the Jews of all people?' ... with the question begging reply: Eternal hostility." Zionist thinkers and antisemites draw different conclusions from what they perceive as the eternal hatred of Jews; according to antisemites, it proves the inferiority of Jews, while for Zionists it means that Jews need their own state as
6844-499: The Jewish race." After 1945 victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany , and particularly after the full extent of the Nazi genocide against the Jews became known, the term antisemitism acquired pejorative connotations. This marked a full circle shift in usage, from an era just decades earlier when "Jew" was used as a pejorative term. Yehuda Bauer wrote in 1984: "There are no anti-Semites in
6962-505: The Jews for an encyclopedia of sins . The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus ; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity . In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease . Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism ; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan ; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood
7080-602: The Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection. Louis Harap , writing in the 1980s, separated "economic antisemitism" and merges "political" and "nationalistic" antisemitism into "ideological antisemitism". Harap also adds a category of "social antisemitism". Religious antisemitism , also known as anti-Judaism, is antipathy towards Jews because of their perceived religious beliefs. In theory, antisemitism and attacks against individual Jews would stop if Jews stopped practicing Judaism or changed their public faith, especially by conversion to
7198-874: The M'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 to Israel at that time. Following a 1961 referendum , the 1962 Évian Accords secured Algerian independence. Some Algerian Jews had joined the Organisation armée secrète , which aimed to disrupt the process of independence with bombings and assassination attempts, targets including Charles de Gaulle and Jean-Paul Sartre . 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
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#17330851893377316-567: The Mediterranean. Early descriptions of the Rustamid 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 the Cairo 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
7434-577: 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 or Judaeo-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
7552-478: 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 of apostasy . The French government granted the Jews, who by then numbered some 33,000, French citizenship in 1870 under
7670-400: The actions of an individual Jewish person or group; denying the Holocaust or accusing Jews or Israel of exaggerating it; and accusing Jews of dual loyalty or a greater allegiance to Israel than their own country. It also lists ways in which attacking Israel could be antisemitic, and states that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of
7788-550: The arrival of Charles De Gaulle in October 1943 that Jewish Algerians finally regained their French citizenship with the reinstatement of the Crémieux 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 and Djelfa . The camp at Bedeau, near Sidi-bel-Abbes , became a place for the concentration of Jewish Algerian soldiers, who were forced to perform hard labor. These prisoners formed
7906-585: The bipolarity that is at the heart of the problem of antisemitism". The Associated Press and its accompanying AP Stylebook adopted the unhyphenated spelling in 2021. Style guides for other news organizations such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal later adopted this spelling as well. It has also been adopted by many Holocaust museums , such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem . Though
8024-607: The cities of the interior such as Tlemcen and Constantine and as far spread as Touggourt and M'zab in the south, with the permission of the Muslim authorities. Some Jews in Oran preserved Ladino 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. Jewish merchants did well financially in late Ottoman Algiers. The French attack on Algeria
8142-442: The colonial state. Like Muslims, they were given the status of "indigéne" ( indigenous ) and were barred from gaining French citizenship unless highly specific 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
8260-462: The concept of anti-Judaism , which is distinct from antisemitism itself. There are various ways in which antisemitism is manifested, ranging in the level of severity of Jewish persecution . On the more subtle end, it consists of expressions of hatred or discrimination against individual Jews and may or may not be accompanied by violence. On the most extreme end, it consists of pogroms or genocide , which may or may not be state-sponsored. Although
8378-516: The country. Having become French citizens following the Crémieux Decree of 1870, the Algerian Jews increasingly identified with metropolitan France , and despite their forced return to second-class indigenous status during World War II , they opted en masse to be repatriated to France on the eve of Algerian Independence , with a minority choosing Israel . This exile 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. There
8496-494: The creation of a local Jewish government called the Union Générale des Israélites d’Algérie (UGIA). The UGIA was intended to be a body of Jews that would execute the Vichy regulations within Jewish communities, and was seen by much of the Jewish population as collaboration with the government. In response, many young Jews joined the Algerian resistance movement, which itself had been founded by Jews in 1940. On November 8, 1942,
8614-549: The departments of Algeria are declared French citizens; therefore, their actual status and personal status will, after the promulgation of this decree, be settled by French law, any rights acquired to date remaining inviolable. Any legislative provision, any Sénatus-consulte , decree, regulation or ordinance to the contrary is abolished. Done at Tours, 24 October 1870 Signed Ad. Crémieux, L. Gambetta, Al. Glais-Bizoin, L. Fourichon Algerian Jews The history of Jews in Algeria goes back to Antiquity , although it
8732-519: The downfall of Judaism, a phenomenon that negates everything purely human and noble." This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of " Antisemitismus " which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites), apparently named to follow
8850-539: The early 20th century, there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the Arab world , largely due to the surge in Arab antisemitic conspiracy theories , which have been cultivated to an extent under the aegis of European antisemitic conspiracy theories . In recent times, the idea that there is a variation of antisemitism known as " new antisemitism " has emerged on several occasions. According to this view, since Israel
8968-507: The end of that same year. 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. The Vichy government eventually created legislation allowing the government to control school curriculum, and schedules, which helped dampen efforts to educate young Jews in Algeria. Under Admiral Darlan and General Giraud , two French officials who administered
9086-455: 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. Much of this was encouraged by the French colonial administration, in particular by the militant antisemitic Max Régis . In Algiers when Émile Zola was brought to trial for his defense in an 1898 open letter, J'Accuse…! , of Alfred Dreyfus , sympathy for whom
9204-478: The fact that Giraud himself, along with the Governor-General Marcel Peyrouton , in promulgating the cancellation of Vichy 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. It was not until
9322-437: The financial canards: Abraham Foxman describes six facets of the financial canards: Gerald Krefetz summarizes the myth as "[Jews] control the banks, the money supply, the economy, and businesses—of the community, of the country, of the world". Krefetz gives, as illustrations, many slurs and proverbs (in several different languages) which suggest that Jews are stingy, or greedy, or miserly, or aggressive bargainers. During
9440-509: The forms of antisemitism. The forms identified are substantially the same; it is primarily the number of forms and their definitions that differ. Bernard Lazare , writing in the 1890s, identified three forms of antisemitism: Christian antisemitism , economic antisemitism, and ethnologic antisemitism. William Brustein names four categories: religious, racial, economic, and political. The Roman Catholic historian Edward Flannery distinguished four varieties of antisemitism: Europe has blamed
9558-420: The general definition of antisemitism is hostility or prejudice against Jews, and, according to Olaf Blaschke , has become an "umbrella term for negative stereotypes about Jews", a number of authorities have developed more formal definitions. Writing in 1987, Holocaust scholar and City University of New York professor Helen Fein defined it as "a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as
9676-591: The highest one, which the Jews will not have usurped". This followed his 1862 book Die Judenspiegel ( A Mirror to the Jews ) in which he argued that "Judaism must cease to exist if humanity is to commence", demanding both that Judaism be dissolved as a "religious-denominational sect" but also subject to criticism "as a race, a civil and social entity". In the introductions to the first through fourth editions of Der Judenspiegel, Marr denied that he intended to preach Jew-hatred, but instead to help "the Jews reach their full human potential" which could happen only "through
9794-591: The identity of local Jewish communities, whose status was henceforth governed by the dhimma . New immigrants later strengthened the Algerian Jewish community: Jews fled Spain during the Visigothic persecutions of the 5th and 6th centuries, and again during the persecutions linked to the Spanish Reconquista of the 14th and 16th centuries. Many Jews from the Iberian Peninsula settled in Algeria, mixing with
9912-459: The important conclusion, that we must give up contending against these hostile impulses, just as we give up contending against every other inherited predisposition. In the aftermath of the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, German propaganda minister Goebbels announced: "The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of
10030-653: The late 19th century. For example, Karl Lueger , the popular mayor of fin de siècle Vienna , skillfully exploited antisemitism as a way of channeling public discontent to his political advantage. In its 1910 obituary of Lueger, The New York Times notes that Lueger was "Chairman of the Christian Social Union of the Parliament and of the Anti-Semitic Union of the Diet of Lower Austria. In 1895, A. C. Cuza organized
10148-609: The local Jewish population and influencing its traditions. In the 18th century, other Jews, the Granas of Livorno , were few in number, but played a role as commercial intermediaries between Europe and the Ottoman Empire . Later in the 19th century, many Jews from Tetouan arrived in Algeria, strengthening the ranks of the community. After the French colonization of Algeria in 1830, Algerian Jews, like other Algerians, faced discrimination by
10266-433: The mayor of Algiers, Max Régis.' Under French rule, some Muslim anti-Jewish riots still occurred, as in 1897 in Oran . In 1931, Jews made up less than 2% of Algeria's total population. This population was more represented in the largest cities: Algiers , Constantine and Oran , which each had Jewish populations of over 7%. Many smaller cities such as Blida , Tlemcen and Setif also had small Jewish populations. By
10384-521: The mid-thirties, François de La Rocque 's extremist Croix-de-Feu and, later, the French 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 the 1934 Constantine Pogrom , in which 25 Jews were killed and some 200 stores were pillaged. One of the first moves of the pro-German Vichy regime
10502-600: The most widely read Catholic writers in France during the Dreyfus Affair, likewise combined religious and racial antisemitism. Drumont founded the Antisemitic League of France . The underlying premise of economic antisemitism is that Jews perform harmful economic activities or that economic activities become harmful when they are performed by Jews. Linking Jews and money underpins the most damaging and lasting antisemitic canards . Antisemites claim that Jews control
10620-613: The new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear." Some Christians such as the Catholic priest Ernest Jouin , who published the first French translation of the Protocols , combined religious and racial antisemitism, as in his statement that "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." The virulent antisemitism of Édouard Drumont , one of
10738-508: The nineteenth century, Jews were described as "scurrilous, stupid, and tight-fisted", but after the Jewish Emancipation and the rise of Jews to the middle- or upper-class in Europe were portrayed as "clever, devious, and manipulative financiers out to dominate [world finances]". Léon Poliakov asserts that economic antisemitism is not a distinct form of antisemitism, but merely a manifestation of theologic antisemitism (because, without
10856-542: The official or right religion. However, in some cases, discrimination continues after conversion, as in the case of Marranos (Christianized Jews in Spain and Portugal) in the late 15th century and 16th century, who were suspected of secretly practising Judaism or Jewish customs. Although the origins of antisemitism are rooted in the Judeo-Christian conflict, other forms of antisemitism have developed in modern times. Frederick Schweitzer asserts that "most scholars ignore
10974-475: The outset the term "anti-Semitism" bore special racial connotations and meant specifically prejudice against Jews . The term has been described as confusing, for in modern usage 'Semitic' designates a language group, not a race. In this sense, the term is a misnomer, since there are many speakers of Semitic languages (e.g., Arabs , Ethiopians , and Arameans ) who are not the objects of antisemitic prejudices, while there are many Jews who do not speak Hebrew ,
11092-666: The perceived lack of clarity in the IHRA definition, two new definitions of antisemitism were published in 2021, the Nexus Document in February 2021 and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism in March 2021. In 1879, Wilhelm Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (Anti-Semitic League). Identification with antisemitism and as an antisemite was politically advantageous in Europe during
11210-665: The persecutions of the Visigothic king Sisebut and his successors. They escaped to the Maghreb , which was at the time still part of the Byzantine 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 under Muslim domination in constant cultural exchanges with Al Andalus and
11328-591: The project to define antisemitism, arguing that it essentializes Jewish history as one of persecution and discrimination. Engel argues that the term "antisemitism" is not useful in historical analysis because it implies that there are links between anti-Jewish prejudices expressed in different contexts, without evidence of such a connection. Antisemitism manifests itself in a variety of ways. René König mentions social antisemitism, economic antisemitism, religious antisemitism, and political antisemitism as examples. König points out that these different forms demonstrate that
11446-541: The rights of the latter, while treating the former as indigenous Algerians. Following the fall of France and the formation of the Vichy government , Interior Minister Marcel Peyrouton abolished the decree on 7 October 1940, at the same time as the new government promoted antisemitic laws in metropolitan France. After the Anglo-American landings in Algeria and Morocco in November 1942, Vichyist Admiral François Darlan
11564-497: The rise of Christianity and then Islam, and admixture following the emigration of Sephardic Jews during the Inquisition." Antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews . This sentiment is a form of racism , and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite . Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as
11682-436: The scene for deteriorating relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities, with tensions increased by the colonial administration discrimination between natives and citizens. Seeing one's indigenous brother become a first class citizen while being left as a second class citizen made one suspect them of collaboration with the colonial authorities as harkis and divided locals with animosity. This eventually proved fateful in
11800-498: The second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase "the Jews are our misfortune" which would later be widely used by Nazis . According to Falk, Treitschke uses the term "Semitic" almost synonymously with "Jewish", in contrast to Renan's use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria. According to philologist Jonathan M. Hess ,
11918-421: The state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity," but that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It provided contemporary examples of ways in which antisemitism may manifest itself, including promoting the harming of Jews in the name of an ideology or religion; promoting negative stereotypes of Jews; holding Jews collectively responsible for
12036-416: 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
12154-537: The term Antisemiten in the January issue of Neue Freie Presse . The Jewish Encyclopedia reports, "In February 1881, a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums speaks of 'Anti-Semitism' as a designation which recently came into use ("Allg. Zeit. d. Jud." 1881, p. 138). On 19 July 1882, the editor says, 'This quite recent Anti-Semitism is hardly three years old. ' " The word "antisemitism"
12272-605: The term "antisemitism" did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of antisemitic persecution include the Rhineland massacres in 1096; the Edict of Expulsion in 1290; the European persecution of Jews during the Black Death , between 1348 and 1351; the massacre of Spanish Jews in 1391, the crackdown of
12390-528: The term was originally used by its authors to "stress the radical difference between their own 'antisemitism' and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism." In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet ( The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from
12508-552: The time. By granting citizenship to Algerian Jews, the French believed the local Jews would forgo their traditions, and become loyal to France. The intent was rapid acculturation of Algerian Jews into French Jews. It was signed as Decree 136 of 1870 by Adolphe Crémieux as Minister of Justice, Léon Gambetta as Minister of the Interior, and Léon Martin Fourichon as Minister of the Navy and
12626-735: The unhyphenated spelling, in order to "[dispel] the notion that there is an entity 'Semitism' which 'anti-Semitism' opposes." Others endorsing an unhyphenated term for the same reason include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance , historian Deborah Lipstadt , Padraic O'Hare, professor of Religious and Theological Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College ; and historians Yehuda Bauer and James Carroll . According to Carroll, who first cites O'Hare and Bauer on "the existence of something called 'Semitism ' ", "the hyphenated word thus reflects
12744-500: The world finances, a theory promoted in the fraudulent The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and later repeated by Henry Ford and his The Dearborn Independent . In the modern era, such myths continue to be spread in books such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews published by the Nation of Islam and on the internet. Derek Penslar writes that there are two components to
12862-581: The world ... Nobody says, 'I am anti-Semitic.' You cannot, after Hitler. The word has gone out of fashion." The study of antisemitism has become politically controversial because of differing interpretations of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. There are two competing views of antisemitism, eternalism, and contextualism. The eternalist view sees antisemitism as separate from other forms of racism and prejudice and an exceptionalist, transhistorical force teleologically culminating in
12980-472: Was borrowed into English from German in 1881. Oxford English Dictionary editor James Murray wrote that it was not included in the first edition because "Anti-Semite and its family were then probably very new in English use, and not thought likely to be more than passing nonce-words... Would that anti-Semitism had had no more than a fleeting interest!" The related term " philosemitism " was used by 1881. From
13098-636: Was coined by German orientalist August Ludwig von Schlözer in 1781 to designate the Semitic group of languages — Aramaic , Arabic , Hebrew and others—allegedly spoken by the descendants of Biblical figure Sem , son of Noah . The origin of "antisemitic" terminologies is found in the responses of orientalist Moritz Steinschneider to the views of orientalist Ernest Renan . Historian Alex Bein writes: "The compound anti-Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his 'anti-Semitic prejudices' [i.e., his derogation of
13216-556: Was felt, would be more resistant. At the same time, the naturalization regime in French Algeria was confirmed by Decree 137, which stated that Algerian Muslims were not French citizens. The aim was to maintain the status quo, the sovereignty of France over its North African colonies. Five years later, in 1875, this was confirmed in the framework of the code de l'indigénat . Decrees 136 and 137 were published in Official Gazette of
13334-452: Was initially kept in power by the Allies and did not abrogate the laws of Vichy. After Darlan's assassination on December 24, 1942, General Henri Giraud was appointed French Civil and Military Commander-in-Chief and, on March 14, 1943, he revoked the antisemitic laws of Vichy and reinstated the Crémieux decree. The Decree remained in effect until Algeria won its independence in 1962 and most of
13452-496: Was limited, as Algerian Jews were legally viewed as equal to other French citizens. The Crémieux Decree also heightened French feelings of racial superiority in Algeria. Many French colonists refused to accept Jews as citizens, leading to a wave of antisemitism that continued to worsen well into the mid-1900s. This led to a divide after the 1882 conquest of M'zab when the French government categorized Southern Algerian Jews and Northern Algerian Jews as distinct groups, recognizing only
13570-630: Was provoked by the Dey 's demands that the French government pay its large outstanding wheat debts to two Jewish merchants. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, richer Jews from Livorno in Italy started settling in Algeria. Commercial trading and exchanges between Europe and the Ottoman Empire reinforced the Jewish community. Later again in the 19th century, many Sephardic Jews from Tetouan settled in Algeria, creating new communities, particularly in Oran. In 1830,
13688-550: Was to revoke the effects of the Crémieux Decree , on October 7, 1940, thereby abolishing French citizenship for Algerian Jews, affecting some 110,000 Algerians. Under Vichy rule in Algeria, even Karaites and Jews who had converted to another religion were subject to anti-semitic laws, known collectively as Statut des Juifs . The Vichy 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. In addition,
13806-513: 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. 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. On March 31, 1942, the Vichy government issued a decree demanding
13924-423: Was widespread in the Arabic press, over 158 Jewish owned shops were looted and burned and two Jews were killed, while the army stood by and refused to intervene (see 1898 Algerian riots ). 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
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