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Synagogue at Miliana, Algeria
Algerian synagogues belonged to the cities where they were located, as opposed to countries such as France where they were considered “public monuments” that belonged to the state.1 Miliana’s Jewish community left the city following Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, and the city repossessed the synagogue. It was converted into a municipal gymnasium in June 1962.2
Description
Early History The Miliana Jewish community had existed since at least the 1300s, founded by immigrants from Spain. In 1838, during the French conquest of Algeria, a leader of the Algerian resistance destroyed the Miliana synagogue and expelled the town’s Jews.3 However, many of them had returned by the late 1800s, when a European visitor found more than 400 Jewish families and a Moroccan rabbi in the town.4
19th and 20th Century After an 1870 decree that granted French citizenship to Algeria’s Jews, Miliana became the site of Algeria’s first anti-Jewish league. Founded by French settlers, the league aimed to prevent Miliana’s Jewish population (more than 40 percent of the town’s electorate) from voting in the parliamentary elections.5 The town’s Jewish population dwindled in the 20th century, and after 1962 the entire community emigrated from Algeria to France and Israel.
Miliana, Algeria
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Sources
[1] Laskier, Michael. North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. New York: NYU Press, 1994. Accessed June 6, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=qV67-V0kiREC
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ayoun, Richard. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. "Miliana." Brill Online, 2014. Accessed June 17, 2014. http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/miliana-SIM_000138
[4] Bashan, Eliezer, and Robert Attal. A History of the Jews in North Africa. Leiden: J. Brill, 1981. Accessed June 12, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=idEUAAAAIAAJ
[5] Ayoun. "Miliana."