Description
Book SynopsisExploring how Algerian Jews responded to and appropriated France's newly conceived civilizing mission in the mid-nineteenth century, Arabs of the Jewish Faith shows that the ideology, while rooted in French Revolutionary ideals of regeneration, enlightenment, and emancipation, actually developed as a strategic response to the challenges of controlling the unruly and highly diverse populations of Algeria's coastal cities.
Trade Review"Schreier is a beautiful storyteller, writes in crystalline prose, and presents original and carefully researched historical arguments. He paints a brilliant picture of Algerian Jewries that is far more nuanced than that provided by other sources. His book offers scholars of Algerian/North African/Middle East histories who do not work on Jews a way to understand, situate, and engage this subject." -- Sarah Abrevaya Stein * History Department, UCLA *
"In this remarkable book, Schreier argues convincingly that Algerian Jews helped to shape the civilizing mission in colonial Algeria. By means of a nuanced and sophisticated analysis Schreier brings the Jews out of the shadows of the wings and places them at the center of the colonial stage, thus adding greatly to our understanding of the dynamics of race and ethnicity as well as the civilizing ideologies of the early decades of French colonization in Algeria.
" -- Patricia Lorcin * History Department, University of Minnesota *
"By crossing the boundaries that have conventionally separated French, Algerian and Jewish history,
Arabs of the Jewish Faith brilliantly illuminates the struggles and transformations of Algeria's Jewish minority but also the ways in which France's 'civilizing mission' impacted both the colonies and the metropole.
" -- Zachary Lockman * author of Contending Visions of the Middle East *
"A well-researched book."
* Jewish Book World *
"Schreier concisely studies France's colonozing mission of Algerian Jewry from 1830 to the Crémieux Decree of 1870. His very well written and researched narrative describes the complex, differentiated economic, social, and demographic significance of the widespread Jewish community."
* Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Jews, Commerce, and Community in Early Colonial Algeria
2. Revolution, Republicanism, and Religion: Responses to Civilizing in Oran, 1848
3. Synagogues, Surveillance, and Civilization
4. Teaching Civilization: French Schools and Algerian Midrashim,1852-1870
5. From Napolean's Sanhedrin to the Cremiéux Decree: Sex, Marriage, and the Boundaries of Civilization
Conclusion
