The French authorities in Algeria broadcast hourly warnings today over Radio Algiers that security forces had been ordered to fire on any unruly mobs if violence between Jews and Moslems in Oran broke out again.
No new incidents occurred yesterday or today after the furious two days of Moslem attacks on Jews in the Oran Mella in which, for the first time in North African history, Jewish self-defense groups successfully beat off repeated attempts by Arabs to attack the Jewish quarter. (See page 3 for appeal to Algerian Jews.)
Throughout the day yesterday, steelhelmeted army and police units patrolled the area between the Mella and the nearby Moslem quarter which had been cordoned off in a determined effort to prevent any fresh incident which could spark a renewal of the violence of the two days of Rosh Hashanah.
Despite appeals of authorities, many Jewish stores in the Mella remained close today. People congregated in cafes and on street corners to discuss the Rosh Hashanah attacks and to listen to the hourly radio warnings. Many of Oran’s Jews, who had wavered before, were reported to have decided to leave Algeria as soon as they could.
A long queue of applicants for emigration greeted officials of the Jewish Agency in Oran and Algiers when offices were reopened after the two-day Rosh Hashanah closings. Other Algerian Jews were leaving for France. Others have applied to Hias for resettlement in Latin America.
The two days of Moslem attacks clearly had a shock treatment effect in forcing the Jewish community to take another look at its status, an effect which was not produced by the anti-Jewish riots in Algiers last December when mobs wrecked the synagogue in that city.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
