Anxiety among the Algerian Jewish community continued to mount today as terrorist activities increased throughout Algeria. A 60-year-old Jew, Elie Cherbit, was in grave condition in a hospital today after being stabbed in the back near his home in Mascara, near Oran. The town’s ancient Jewish community is reported seriously concerned with the growing wave of terrorist stabbings.
Jewish emigration from Algeria has been on the increase because of the general tensions there and, specifically, due to attacks or threats against Jews. Benjamin Heller, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Algeria, and Grand Rabbi Isaac Zerbib, of Constantine, have both left, the latter for Israel. Many other rabbis are emigrating to Israel.
Most of the Jews who have left or are leaving Algeria fear attacks by elements of FLN, the Moslem independence movement. But others are apparently just as concerned with the anti-Semitism known to exist among French Algerians.
In addition to Jewish reactions to attacks and terror, causing the new exodus, Algerian Jews are apprehensive over what may happen to their citizenship status, once a political accommodation is achieved between the French Government and the FLN. The Jews of Algeria, numbering 130,000, enjoy French citizenship, granted to them under the Cremieux Decree in 1870.
Ferhat Abbas, leader of the FLN, had pledged that, under an Arab-controlled, independent Algerian republic, Jews would be given equal rights, along with the Christian minority and the Moslems. However, at the recent Evian peace negotiations between the French and the FLN, the representatives of FLN flatly rejected a policy of granting dual citizenship to any Algerians in the projected republic. Jews in Algeria fear to rely on the good will of the FLN for the safety of their rights as full citizens, without a constitutional guarantee based on a treaty between the FLN and France.
The majority of the Jews who have been leaving Algeria recently are from the smaller towns and from among the poorer classes. However, tensions have mounted now also among professionals, businessmen, and community leaders in the larger centers, Algiers, Oran and Constantine.
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.
