Introduction
Chapter 1. Jews, Commerce, and Community in Early Colonial
Algeria
Chapter 2. Revolution, Republicanism, and Religion: Responses to
Civilizing in Oran, 1848
Chapter 3. Synagogues, Surveillance, and Civilization
Chapter 4. Teaching Civilization: French Schools and Algerian
Midrashim, 1852–1870
Chapter 5. From Napoleon’s Sanhedrin to the Crémieux Decree:
Sex, Marriage, and the
Boundaries of Civilization
Conclusion
Subtitle: The
Civilizing Mission in Colonial Algeria Author:
Joshua Schreier Subject:Jewish
Studies, European
History Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4794-7 Pages:
256 pages,3 photographs,
2 tables, 2 maps Publication Date: September 2010 Series: Jewish
Cultures of the World
Praise:
"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, New
York University Mid E. Studies and history
Description:
Exploring 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.
About the Author:
JOSHUA SCHREIER is an
assistant professor of history at Vassar College.
