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AIU Girls School at Tunis, Tunisia

Description

History of Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) Schools for Girls

In May 1860, the Alliance Israélite Universelle was founded in Paris by Jewish statesman and intellectual Adolphe Crémieux to uphold the human rights and improve the welfare of the Jewish populations of the Middle East and North Africa who were being oppressed and discriminated against. The program stressed the need to combat disease, poverty, and “ignorance” through the education of Jews in the tradition of French secular schooling [4]. This organized school system introduced a modern education aimed at Jewish emancipation, but made an effort not to depart from the traditional Jewish values held by the local populations (which proved successful in most cases) [5]. This process of Jewish emancipation was based on intellectual regeneration geared toward diversifying careeres and creating pathways to seconday/ higher education, opportunities for girls to attend school for the first time, the inclusion of Jewish untiy and solidarity, and the encouragement of religious toleration through education (Judeo-Muslim and Judeo-Christian) [6].

From the mid-nineteenth century, the AIU established a far-reaching network of schools in the Ottoman Empire, its Arab provinces in the Middle East, and in North Africa. By the early twentieth century, there were more than 100 schools with over 26,000 students. The first AIU School was founded in 1862 in Tetouan, Morocco, and served as a model for other schools throughout the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunisia, an AIU school for boys opened in 1878 and an AIU school for girls followed in 1882. The establishment of the School for Girls in Tunis (near ancient Carthage) occurred in tumultuous times: the French occupied Tunisia in 1881 and established a Protectorate there in 1883 as a consequence of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878. What was especially unique about the Alliance schools was that they accepted rich and poor, males and females, Jews and non-Jews. By 1895, the non-Jewish student population of about 280 students included 95 Catholics, 43 Protestants, 39 Greek Orthodox, 21 Armenians, and 37 Muslims. At that time there were 59 AIU schools with a total enrollment of 12,050. Of the 12,050 students, 4,900 were girls. The women teachers of Tunis were also multi-ethnic and multi-religious: European and North African, Jewish and non-Jewish [7].

In the wake of World War I there was a major financial crisis in the organization that made AIU’s goal of education en masse financially burdensome. The financial backing by the French government after 1918, which motivated the organization to become a supporter of French interests abroad, and the support of American Jewry through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee since 1945, enabled the organization to combat mass illiteracy and expand its networks. In Tunisia, however, subsidies from the government of the local French Protectorate, la Régence, were received beginning in 1891 [8].

Teachers of the AIU

Male and female teachers of the Alliance led the creation of an educated urban elite—large-scale merchants, administrative and banking employees, journalists, and vocational-agricultural specialists—who promoted cultural and social activities within their communities [9]. These elites raised funds to expand AIU schools, provided additional Jewish education for Jews attending non-Jewish schools, and organized intellectual circles in which women became involved participants. Thus, the achievements of the AIU were made possible through the teachers who came from North African and Middle Eastern communities.

AIU female educators formed the body of the first Jewish professional females in the Middle East. They took on the role of intermediaries between the modernized culture of the French Jewry, that of which the AIU represented, and the traditional life of the hāra (the Jewish Quarter) in Tunis and elsewhere [10]. These North African women were educated and trained as AIU teachers in France, and returned thereafter to their home countries in order to teach.

Education at the AIU School for Girls

The girls’ curriculum featured foundational mathematics, European subjects such as European geography and the French language, and chemistry but stressed the importance of manual tasks. They received vocational training in needlework, sewing, ironing, dress marking, embroidering, bookkeeping, secretarial work, and laboratory assistance. The purpose of teaching these trades was to find employment for the girls once they finished school, thus promoting their economic independence. Literacy and skilled training provided an avenue for social mobility to Jewish girls from underprivileged backgrounds who could not have previously attained an education. The Alliance championed employment of women and set up workshops to encourage growth in this field. Workshops for girls opened in Tunis in 1885, 1895, and 1901[11]. Thus, the AIU provided and opened up opportunities for women in North Africa.

The necessity of women’s education for the AIU in North Africa and the Middle East was predicated on the theme of the educator-mother. The AIU upheld the standard that girls with schooling would raise their children to be responsible citizens of the future, a theme pervasive in this period. Thus, it was women’s domestic influence and her natural role as educator that suited her for preparing the next generation of AIU education Jews for success, the principle reason the AIU educated girls. The AIU schools for girls, and the school in Tunis in specific, thus was a remedy for the “moral plague” in the community by elevating moral sentiment and ameliorating the “wretched conditions” of the Jewish poor (ex: prostituion) [12].

Another goal of the AIU’s schools for girls was to encourage women to become educational and social equals of men in North African and Middle Eastern societies. They sought to enable women to acquire authority through education, which the AIU functionaries in Paris believed was refused to them by local customs and marked their social inferiority [13].

History of Tunis

Known in Antiquity as Tunes (from Berber, encampment), Tunes was originally a Berber settlement whose existence is attested to by sources dating from the 4th century BC [14]. It served as an elevated lookout post for the nearby city of Carthage, and was one of the first towns in the region to fall under Carthaginian control. Both Tunes and Carthage were destroyed by the Romans in 146 BCE during the Third Punic War, but Tunes was rebuilt under Augustus and became an important Roman town and center of agricultural industry [15]. Arab Muslim troops conquered the region in the late 7th century and ancient Tunes quickly became the city of Tunis, taking on considerable military importance which led to a booming population. It became the provincial capital under the Aghlabids (800-900 CE) and reached its greatest prosperity under the Hafsid dynasty (1236-1574 CE) [16]. The Ottoman Empire took control of Tunis in 1535 CE, and in 1539 CE it passed into the hands of the Turks. Tunis was retaken by the Spaniards, who held it from 1573 to 1574 CE, but yielded it to the Ottoman Empire, under whose control it remained until the French protectorate (1881- 1956 CE). Tunis was occupied by the Germans in 1942 CE and liberated by British forces and Allied troops in 1943 CE. In 1956 CE, Tunis became the capital of independent Tunisia [17].

History of the Jewish Community

There is no record of a Jewish presence in Tunisia before the second century, however, Jews claim a very old implantation on the territory of Tunisia dating back to the Babylonian exile of Judean/ Israeli Jews following the the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE which many scholars believe led to the establishment of Jewish communities in the Maghreb, including the one at Carthage/ Tunis [18]. They were most likely joined by the Jews who fled Jerusalem following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE [19]. Although it is difficult to determine the exact origins of the Jewish community in Tunisia, the first documents attesting to the presence of Jews in Tunisia date from the second century CE, and the presence of Jews in Tunis itself was first documented by the ruins of a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery that may date to the third century CE during the Roman era.

Living and economic conditions of Jewish communities both in Tunis and Tunisia at large during the Roman era prior to its Christianization were prosperous [20]. After the time of Constantine when Christianity took hold and became persecutor in Africa, the situation of the Jews changed considerably. The edicts of 535 CE applied by Justinian I following the overthrow of the Vandals excluded Jews from public office, their worship was outlawed, all meetings were prohibited, and their synagogues were transformed into Christian churches. Towards the end of the sixth century CE though the Byzantine administration eased the strictness of these rules [21]. In the seventh century CE the Jewish population of Tunisia was augmented by Spanish immigrants fleeing persecution by the Visigoth king Sisebut, and when Tunisia came under the control of the Arabian Caliphate of Baghdad, an influx of Arab Jews from the Levant occurred [22]. During the Arab conquest of North Africa beginning in 643 CE Jews coexisted peacefully with the Muslim masses. The Almohad conquest of Tunis that followed in 1159 CE forced Jews to convert to Islam or face death, leading to mass conversions while others fled the area or chose to die as martyrs [23]. In 1236 CE the governor of Ifrīqiya, Abu Zakariya, proclaimed himself emir and chose Tunis as his capital, allowing Jews forced to convert to Islam the ability to return to Judaism and live free of constant threat. The anti-Jewish persecution that broke out in Spain in 1391 CE affected North African Jewry during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. As a result of these harsh conditions Tunisian Jewish communities, especially those on the coast, were depleted of members with many of them leaving for the Orient or Italy [24]. In 1855 CE Mohammed Bey executed a Jew named Batto Sfoz, leading to negotiations with the French government who ultimately responded by granting Jews equal rights in the region, making the Tunisian government wary of interfering with the Jewish population [25]. The French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881, after which the Jewish community once again improved as all the laws which discriminated against them were repealed. Many Tunisian Jews were receptive to the opportunity to become French citizens and shifted their identity to French-European from Moslem-Arab. The situation dramatically changed in 1940 during World War II when France’s anti-Semetic Vichy regime came to power and implemented anti-Jewish legislation. Tunisia was the only Arab country that was directly under Nazi occupation. Community leaders were imprisoned and more than 5,000 Jews were sent to forced labor camps, with an additional 160 Tunisian Jews in France sent to European death camps. After Tunisia’s independence in 1956, Tunisia’s Jewish Community Council was abolished by the newly independent government, with many Jewish areas and buildings destroyed for urban renewal purposes. Several Jewish shops and damage to the Great Synagogue in Tunis occurred due to anti-Jewish rioting during the Six Day War in 1967. Currently, attacks on Jews and Jewish property in Tunisia have occasionally recurred, including the destruction of two synagogues, one in Djerba in 1979 and one in 1983 in Zaris [26].

Demography of Jews in Tunisia

By the time of Nazi occupation in 1942, Tunisia was home to a Jewish population of roughly 100,000. During the 1950s, roughly half this population left to Israel and the other half to France. Following the destruction of the Six Day War in 1967, despite government apologies and attempts to ease the anxieties of the remaining Jewish community, 7,000 of Tunisia’s remaining 20,000 Jews immigrated to France to escape the violence. Today, the Jewish population of Tunis is roughly 700. The current Jewish population on the island of Djerba is 1,000, comprising Tunisia’s largest indigenous religious minority [27]. 

Tunis, Tunisia

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