Black Holes, Dark Matter, and Buried Troves: Decolonization and the Multi-Sited Archives of Algerian Jewish History (original) (raw)

2015, American Historical Review

Abstract

Amidst the denouement of the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962), a variety of international parties, including officials in Israel, France, and Algeria, competed to micromanage, acquire, and steward documents pertaining to the small community of Jews in the Algerian Sahara. Reflecting back on the unique colonial history of southern Algeria, this paper reconstructs the ways in which French colonial classifications haunted the post-colonial era, continuing to affect Jews of southern Algerian origin long after the Algerian Sahara ceased to be home to Jews and Algeria became a sovereign nation; and argues that in the era of decolonization, the struggle to control papers pertaining to Saharan Jewish history abetted a spectrum of local, communal, and national projects. Moving outward, the article meditates on that which is unique—and that which is generalizable—about archives of the post-colonial era, suggesting that they are uniquely multi-sited, yet political, contentious centers of conversation. It concludes by exploring contemporary echoes of its case study apparent in the political intricacies that surround various extant and/or endangered North African and Middle Eastern Jewish archival collections.

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References (23)

  1. shifting authority of the Muslim court over roughly the same period, see Allan Christelow, Muslim Law Courts and the French Colonial State in Algeria (Princeton, N.J., 1985). On the French conquest of the Sahara, see Benjamin Claude Brower, A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844 -1902 (New York, 2009). On the typological casting of Algeria's residents by French law and social science, see, in addition to Brower's work, Kamel Kateb, Europe ´ens, "indige `nes" et juifs en Alge ´rie (1830-1962)
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  5. 4 Primary sources pertaining to the delineation of the status of the Jewish indige `ne in Algeria's Southern Territories include Service historique de la l'Arme ´e de Terre, Vincennes [hereafter SHAT], 1H1026, "Sahara, occupation et organisation du Mzab et cre ´ation du Cercle de Ghardaı ¨a, 1882-1883," GGA Tirman, Service des Affaires indige `nes, "Instructions du gouvernement ge ´ne ´ral de l'Alge ´rie pour l'organisation du Cercle de Ghardaı ¨a," November 1, 1882. On the legal status of the Mzab as decreed by the 1853 negotiations, see the various legal analyses in Archives nationales d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en- Provence [hereafter ANOM], 81F/1295. 5 Jews in the Mzab, unlike Jews elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East, had no opportunity to earn the protection of foreign powers, to acquire standing as foreign nationals or extraterritorial subjects, or to serve the colonial administration, as did Jews elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East, even if they did have access to both Muslim and colonial courts for civil matters. On the notion of legal pluralism in the colonial context, see Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900 (Cambridge, 2002);
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  14. Ahroni, Jewish Emigration from the Yemen; Bashkin, New Babylonians; Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry; Choi, "Complex Compatriots"; Laskier, Yis ´ra'el v ខeha-aliyah mi-Tsefon Afrikah; Nissim Rejwan, The Last Jews in Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland (Austin, Tex., 2004);
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  18. Sami Shalom Chetrit, "On the Way to Ayn Harod," in Ammiel Alcalay, ed., Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing (New York, 1996), 358. I explore this topic further in "Conclusion: Colonial Shad- ows," in Stein, Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria, 138-148.
  19. SHAD, 1H3251, D5, "Assassinats, Exactions commises par ALN ou FLN contre civils musulmans ou musulmans ayant servi dans les FAFA," "Exaction israe ´lite," Commandant superieur des forces arme ´es franc ¸aises en Alge ´rie, "Bulletin de renseignements," April 20, 1963. 54 "Iraq Urges U.S. to Give Back Iraqi Jewish Archive," Haaretz, January 16, 2010 (Associated Press);
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  22. Nathan Guttman, "Should Iraq's Jewish Archives Stay in U.S.?," Jewish Daily Forward, November 8, 2013; Lisa Leff, "Iraqi Jewish Treasures Displayed in D.C. before Being Shipped Back to . . . Iraq," Tablet, October 7, 2013; "Iraq's Jewish Archive Has Not Been Smug- gled: U.S. Official," Al Arabiya, September 4, 2012; Edward Rothstein, "The Remnants of a Culture's Heart and Soul: Iraqi Jewish Documents at the National Archives," New York Times, November 11, 2013;
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