Les Juifs de Bone (Annaba)

Bône (today Annaba), in eastern Algeria, was home to an ancient Jewish community that played a notable commercial role under the Ottoman regency and then under French rule. The Crémieux Decree of 1870 granted French citizenship to the great majority of the Jews of Algeria, accelerating their Frenchification, their schooling, and their entry into commerce and the liberal professions. Under the Vichy regime, this citizenship was stripped from them and antisemitic measures were applied before being repealed. Like all the Jews of Algeria, those of Bône left the country en masse at the time of independence in 1962, settling mainly in France.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World — Brill
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan