History of the Jews in Algeria

The history of Jews in Algeria goes back to Antiquity, although it 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 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 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 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 the colonial state. Like Muslims, they were given the status of "indigène" (indigenous) and were barred from gaining French citizenship unless particular 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 the country. This changed in 1870, with the Crémieux Decree granting Algerian Jews French citizenship (except for Mozabite Jews), while Muslims remained under the second-class indigenous status. Algerian Jews increasingly identified with metropolitan France, and despite a period of 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—when even the formerly excluded Mozabite Jews were granted French citizenship—with a minority choosing Israel. This 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 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 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 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 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 the cities of the interior, such as Tlemcen and Constantine, and as far 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.