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Synagogue at Tiaret, Algeria
Tiaret, or Tahert, was founded in 778 as the capital of the Ibādī Rustamid imamate.1 The city became a center of long-distance trade and scholarship, in which the Jewish community played a large role. There is no evidence of the Jewish community’s existence after the eleventh century; a traveler in the early sixteenth century found that the town was completely destroyed.2 The French reestablished it in the nineteenth century and Jews migrated there from other Algerian villages, as well as from southeast Morocco. However, by the time of Algeria’s independence in 1962, the Jewish community had disappeared, with most of the inhabitants leaving Algeria for France or Israel.3
Description
11th Century Connections The Tiaret Jewish community corresponded with important intellectual figures of the eleventh century, including Solomon ben Judah, gaon of the Jerusalem yeshiva; Samuel ben Abraham, a Talmud scholar; and the gaon of a Babylonian yeshiva.4 In addition to the intellectual exchanges, the community was heavily involved in caravan trade, and some of the traders had business ties that reached to India.
Conflict with the Oran Consistory Beginning in 1847, Tiaret fell under the authority of the Oran consistory, and the consistory’s attempt to regulate the affairs of the community led to conflict. In the 1850s, a rabbi named Joseph Cohen opened an unauthorized synagogue. The consistory ordered that both Cohen’s synagogue and the approved synagogue be closed and a new one be built; Cohen refused to obey. The consistory attempted to have him deported to Morocco, but he went to Algiers and eventually disappeared. The president of the consistory opened a new synagogue in 1900.5
![Tiaret Synagogue, Exterior Black and White [2] (Tiaret, Algeria, n.d.)](https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/wE7GquqRwaC5gCpXiHng/convert?w=100&h=100&fit=crop)
![Tiaret Synagogue, Exterior Black and White [1] (Tiaret, Algeria, n.d.)](https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/QdSDoHyQQGasYWVSgTPQ/convert?w=100&h=100&fit=crop)
Sources
[1] Ayoun, Richard. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. "Tiaret (Tahert)." Brill Online, 2014. Accessed June 19, 2014. http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/tiaret-tahert-COM_0021220
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.