The Antisemitic Movement in Algeria: French Antisemitism in Decline

Abstract

This chapter studies the antisemitic movement in Algeria, which had its own distinct make-up and raison d'être that explain its peculiar success and virulence. It had its own political organization in the Ligue Anti-Juive d'Alger, founded in 1892. Physical and verbal violence against Jews was also an Algerian tradition by the end of the century, and the “pogroms” of the late 1890s were only a repetition or an escalation of similar demonstrations in the 1880s. The extraordinary development of antisemitism in Algeria can be explained by a combination of factors: the presence of an old and important Jewish community in a territory with a corrupt political system; a large European immigrant population; a recently conquered native population; and a lopsided “colonial” economy. Ultimately, the Algerian antisemitic movement was of definite Left-wing complexion; its leaders were Radicals and Socialists, and they were also anticlerical. The chapter then looks at the decline of the antisemitic movement in France.