Introduction
1. Mediterranean Oran
2. Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792-1830
3. Making Money in a Time of Conquest
4. Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran
5. Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest
6. From "Juifs de Gibraltar" and "Algerine Jews" to Israélites
Indigènes
Conclusion: Moralities and Mythologies
Joshua Schreier is Professor of History at Vassar College. He is the author of Arabs of the Jewish Faith (2010).
"In this eloquent evocation of the era of French colonization of
Algeria told through the life of a Jewish merchant and community
leader, Jacob Lasry, Joshua Schreier challenges the monolithic
French colonial representation of 'indigenous' Jews as oppressed,
backwards, and isolated—awaiting to be emancipated—by revealing how
Algeria's cosmopolitan Jews were active agents in shaping and
transforming Jewish society under French rule in Algeria."—Daniel
J. Schroeter, University of Minnesota
"Against a rising tide of large-scale histories of empire and
colonization, Joshua Schreier's book calls attention to the
compelling perspectives offered by individuals. Brought to life
through Schreier's tenacious research, the Jewish merchant Jacob
Lasry and his contemporaries give the reader a refreshing vantage
point from which to rethink French colonialism in the western
Mediterranean."—Benjamin Claude Brower, The University of Texas at
Austin
"Joshua Schreier challenges the conventional narrative of Jewish
emancipation in Algeria at the hands of the French that began with
the conquest in 1830, continued through the Crémieux Decree, and
ended with the departure of Algeria's Jews for l'Hexagone during
the Algerian War....Schreier not only exposes the contradictions
inherent in the new colonial order but also shows how the habits
and practices of Oran's merchant elite formed prior to the French
conquest allowed its members, like Lasry, to adapt and to thrive
under the new regime."—Jonathan G. Katz, H-Judaic
"This is an important and thought-provoking contribution to the
history of Oran and its Jewish mercantile elite; a study that will
interest scholars of empire, France, Jewish history, as well as
those curious about the economies of port cities amid chaotic
shifts in imperial governance."—Rachel E. Schley, H-France Review
of Books
"Schreier raises questions of great importance which deserve
further exploration....[T]he history of French Algeria becomes much
richer and much clearer when space is allowed for more than one
perspective."—Julie Kalman, Journal of Modern History
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