Monday's Reading October 7th

1.What was the effects of French and English colonialism on the Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities?

The purpose was to westernize the Jews living in these areas. As you may recall, after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, a good amount of the Jewish population moved to Africa and the Middle East. Morocco was directly effected when it was split in half by French and Spanish colonialism. In Algeria, French occupied and declares that only Jews could become citizens of France. On the other hand in Iran, Jews were being persecuted and forced to convert. In some places colonialism was a positive thing, in other places it was extremely negative.

Specifically in Algeria, how did French policies distinguish between Jewish and Muslim Algerians?

In Algeria the administration is domicile, which makes it easier to force assimilate Jews. Through legislation, Jews will be broken up from their native groups and assimilate them into overall French unity. Also with the idea that Rabbinic law is second and French law comes first (like seen in the Revolution). Muslims had less opportunity to have a foreign council. Also there was a disposal of half of Arab taxes (which helped fund the French council). Also since Jews were seen as French citizens (population of 35,000 Jews) Muslims deemed it unfair since there were 2.5 million of them.