Gislaine Diaine

ALGERIA

Filled with fear and faced with the threat of attack from armed anti-colonial nationalists, Gislaine Diaine and her family fled to France in 1961. Today she is a language pathologist and living in Paris.

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Timeline of the Jews in Algeria

1st Cen. CE
Jewish refugees flee into North Africa, and are welcomed by the Berbers.
7th Cen.
Jewish immigrants flee the Visigoths and arrive in Byzantine North Africa under the rule of Islamic armies.
1492
The Spanish Inquisition. Sephardi Jews settle in Algeria.
16th Cen.
Three large Jewish communities are fully established, in Algiers, Bejaia, and Oran.
1841
Jewish rabbinical courts are placed under French jurisdiction. The colonial government begins appointing chief rabbis.
1870
Algerian Jews granted French citizenship. Anti-Semitism takes hold in the French expatriate community.
1898
Jewish shops are looted and burned, and two Jews are killed. Algerian army ignores the pogrom.
1934
The Constantine pogrom. 34 Jews are killed and 200 stores pillaged.
1940
Algerian Jews stripped of their citizenship. Restored in 1943, after Algeria’s liberation.
1962
Algeria secures independence from France. 100,000 Jews emigrate. Algerian citizenship extended to Muslims, not Jews. 6,500 Jews stay behind.
1967-1968
All but one of Algeria’s synagogues are seized by the government and converted to mosques.
2014
50 Algerian Jews remain.