'We Shall Become French': Reconsidering Algerian Jews' Citizenship, c. 1860–1900

Abstract

Abstract This article reconsiders a key episode at the intersection of French, Algerian and Jewish history: the naturalization of Algerian Jews in 1870, commonly known as the Crémieux Decree. Whilst historiography largely portrays this as a unilateral French endeavour, this article draws on new Judeo-Arabic sources to trace an Algerian–Jewish campaign for citizenship in the 1860s. Exploring the use of the Judeo-Arabic dialect and religious terminology in this campaign, the article uncovers a complex and much overlooked dimension of Jewish citizenship in colonial Algeria. Beyond the vertical connection between the metropole and the colony, this is a story of the afterlife of pre-colonial practices, as well as of reformist influences from Tunisia, Morocco and Istanbul. Yet as the article demonstrates, soliciting citizenship in a language other than French disrupted the French orthodoxy of assimilation as a precondition for citizenship. The backlash from settlers, politicians and administrators was fierce and long-lasting.