Description

This report provides an overview of August 1940 on the political activity of elected Muslim officials, reformist ulama, the Algerian People’s Party, etc. We can also read there information on the youth of the Algerian Muslim congress, the action of the European parties on the Natives, the native workers, the economic question, etc.

“Hostility against the Jews has only increased during the month, not only among Muslims, but among many Europeans (notably members of the PPF, the French Popular Party). They accuse them of having, out of solidarity, with their brothers in Central Europe, pushed for war, and having, by corrupting all the organs of the State, made our defeat inevitable. The Muslims reproach them above all for having ruined them by ratifying usury (however, they are far from having a monopoly on it), having become all-powerful in Algeria by sweeping up all the precious metals there, and speculating on the rise by eliminating foodstuffs. feeds on precise facts, in particular sanctions (published in the newspapers), taken against Jewish traders for concealing food stocks (arrests in Algiers, on August 8, of Mr. Jaïs, owner of the Universal Brewery). There is no doubt, moreover, that the jewish traffickers have, until very recently, traveled around the department buying pieces and jewelry; it is to them, rightly or wrongly, that we attribute the rumor that has spread everywhere that the Government will soon requisition, at a ridiculous price, all the precious metals. “

“Numerous small incidents point to growing anti-Semitism in most of the department.” In Algiers, Affreville, Tizi-Ouzou, anti-Jewish posters and leaflets are distributed daily (almost always it seems by Europeans) … “Slight incidents pit Muslims against Jews, in particular in Blida, Médéa, Boghari, etc “. Serious incidents occurred in Kef (Tunisia) on August 9.

“The jewish leaders of Algiers expressed their concern to attenuate this hostility, either by trying to be forgotten (Mr. Bernard Lecache, president of LICA, however, requested the authorization, which was refused to him, to to reappear in Algiers, his newspaper “Le Droit de Vivre”), either by reminding their co-religionists of the need to comply with commercial regulations, or again by making advances to the Muslims: this is how Dr. Loufrani would have recently proposed to pay a sum to the Muslim Benevolent Office, whose President, Mr. Bouderba, would have rejected this offer. Others would endeavor, here or there, to divert the hostility of the Muslims against Europeans, recalling their common origin, and arguing that if racist doctrines were to take hold in Algeria, the Arabs would sooner or later suffer as well as the Jews. “

“Certain government measures taken during the month (repeal of the decree-law of April 21, 1939 on incitement to racial hatred) strengthen in indigenous circles the conviction that the Crémieux decree will soon be repealed. There is no doubt that this decree was, in matters of native policy, one of our most serious faults.Many good minds believe, however, that it is today very late to reverse a measure of this kind, that the outright abrogation of the decree would injure many innocent people and would engage us in unforeseeable complications, that individual measures, finally, against the Jews who were unworthy would be more equitable and perhaps more effective. “

“It would be important in any case, to alleviate the current malaise by giving legitimate satisfaction to Muslims, to sharply reduce the proportion of Jews employed in the tax services […], as auxiliaries of justice, or in the police.”

“In Algiers, 7 bailiffs out of 12 are Jews, a proportion which is all the more astonishing given that the Jews in Algeria are only 100,000 at most out of 850,000 French citizens of all origins (A. Bernard, in his work on Algeria, page 398, puts them at 86,000 in 1929) “. “Mr. Wahl’s book on Algeria contains a very well-documented chapter of very current interest on the Jewish question in Algeria.”