Language:
French
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
Controverses; revue d'idees
Angaben zur Quelle:
12 (2009) 136-164
Keywords:
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism History 1945-
Abstract:
Traces Algerian antisemitism backwards in time, from hate sermons and anti-Zionist Arab-language propaganda following Israel's incursion into Gaza in 2009 to the Crémieux decree in 1870. Views the present-day obliteration of the memory of the famous Jewish Algerian musician Raymond Leyris as an example of attempts to remove all traces of Jewish influence from the country's cultural heritage. Leyris's musician son-in-law, Enrico Macias, has met similar treatment. Views the attitude towards these two Jewish artists as an expression of Algerian society's discomfort with the age-old Jewish presence there. Argues that the hostile reactions to ca. 100 Jews who were visiting their native town Tlemcen in 2005 reveal Algerians' fears that the 130,000 Jews who fled during the war of independence between 1954-62 would reclaim lost property. Leyris's assassination in 1961 greatly accelerated the exodus. Views repeated attacks against the Jews at that time as part of a strategy to rid Algeria of non-Muslims before achieving independence. States that this strategy, which is generally concealed and denied by Algerian and French historians, has been the unwritten foundation of Algerian nationalism since the 1930s. Also underscores that Nazism would have gained a larger following in Algeria had the Allies not landed in 1942. Rejects the view that Algerian Jews "betrayed" the Muslims by receiving French citizenship in 1870, and punctures the myth that the Cremieux decree put an end to good Muslim-Jewish coexistence in Algeria.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink