Support de ma conférence donnée le 3 mai 2012 au Stanford Humanities Center

1. The Cohen-Tanoudji family
A Historical Itinerary
Through North African Jewry
Denis Cohen-Tannoudji
Stanford Humanities Center
May 3rd, 2012

2. Objective
Develop a new look
of the History of
North African Jewry
in using
a family history

3. Rationale
North African Jewry history : a low historical consciousness
– In particular among Jews from North Africa, among the Cohen-Tanoudji
North African Jewry history : an under developed topic
– Few historians developed it compared to Ashkenazi or Western Sefaradic
Jewry History
50 years after the exodus of the Sefaradic Jews from Muslim world
– Why did the Jews leave ?
– Was the creation of the State of Israel the only reason ?
– The last Cohen-Tanoudji who was still living in North Africa died in 2003
The difficulty to understand the “new antisemitism” in France since 2000
– Was it only due to the importation in France of the third “Intifada” ?

4. A unique approach
A unique family name
A genealogical continuity through centuries
used as an historical marker
At each generation, one or several family
members left some written sources

5. Methodology
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
(1932-2009)
Columbia University

6. Methodology
The Bible was the canon of The Historical Book
However, after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish
leadership did not consider post-biblical History as a priority
Instead, studying Torah, Midrash, Mishnah, Guemarah and Kabbalah,
developing rabbinical laws, were judged much more important to prepare
the venue of the Mashiach
With the Haskala, when Judaism met the Enlightment, some Jewish
scholars started establishing the History of the Jewish People
Those historians used actually a numerous rabbinical literature which
was originally not developed for such purpose

7. Gheniza were the largest sources of archives

8. Family history was not transmitted but indirectly
discovered thanks to numerous written sources

9. A new look at North African Jewry History
• The origins of North African Jewry and the Sefaradic civilization
• The rise and the fall of the Spanish Golden Age(s)
• The light and the darkness of the Ottoman Empire
• From the Spanish repulsion to the French attraction
• “Neither colonized, nor colonizers”
• Dragged in the Second World War
• The Exodus of the Jews from Muslim world

10. The origins of North African Jewry
and the Sefaradic civilization
Jews are already in North Africa during the Roman & Byzantine Empires
– Carthage archeology
– Early Christian literature (Tertullian, Saint Augustine)
Berber population could have been partly judaized, but certainly not more
than elsewhere
First North African Jews were instead Judean population being
berberized
– Cohen-Tanoudji (Priest from Tangier), a Judean name with a Berber touch
The Kahina Queen was certainly not Jewish but Christian

11. The origins of North African Jewry
and the Sefaradic civilization
A wave of Jewish settlements from Middle
East with the rise of the Caliphate
Some Babylonian scholars settled there,
between Kairouan and Cordoba
Talmud Babili and Al-dhimma muslim
laws shaped the Sefaradic civilization
North Africa and Andalusia were united
– For the Muslims, it was Maghreb, for the
Jews, it was Sefarad
– Tangier, a city at the junction
Yitshaq Al-Fassi (1013-1103), born in
Qalad Hammad, studied in Kairouan, Fes
and Lucena is the symbol of the North
African-Andalusia emancipation from
Babylon

12. The rise and the fall of the Spanish Golden Age(s)
1492, as the End of the Spanish Jewish Golden Age, is a well known event among
collective memories
It is however more complicated… there were two Spanish Golden Ages, one under
Omayyad rules, another, later, under Christian rules
The Almoravides (1054), the Beni Hilâl (1060) and then the Almohades (1147) forced
all the non-muslim communities of North Africa and Andalusia to convert to Islam,
to leave or die
North African Christians disappeared, Andalusia Jews left for Castilla and Aragon,
Maghrebi Jews converted to Islam or left for Egypt and Sicily
– A Cohen family from Tangiers fled from Morocco to Sicily where the family name is
noticed in 1354 in Palermo among North African Jews established there
Sefaradic civilization moved from Kairouan and Cordoba to Toledo and Cairo

13. The rise and the fall of the Spanish Golden Age(s)

14. The rise and the fall of the Spanish Golden Age(s)

15. The rise and the fall of the Spanish Golden Age(s)
After the 1391 pogrom, Jews fled from Spain to
North Africa, which is no longer under Almohades
rules, revitalizing local Judaism (Duran family)
In 1492, Isabella the Catholic did not expel the
Jews from Granada, as there were no more Jews
since 1147…
– Expelled Jews from Castilla and Aragon
– The Alhambra Palace is the symbol of a Golden
Age which did not take place there
As Sicily was Aragon, then Spanish, the Jews
were expelled from the Island in 1493
– As the Cohen-Tanoudji family, which came back
to North Africa, in Tunis in particular
In 1535, Charles V invaded Tunis and most of the
Jewish Scholars took refuge in Egypt, in the
Levant and the Balkan
– Yishmael ha-Cohen Tanoudji became Chief
Rabbi of Egypt around 1540

16. The light and the darkness
of the Ottoman Empire
A new Jewish Golden Age under the reign of Suleiman and Selim II
– A haven for Spanish and Portuguese Jewish refugees
– A political, intellectual and religious renewal, in particular in Galilee
• Gracia and Yosef ha-Nassi political involvements, or the premices of Zionism
• Yosef Caro unifying the Jewish Law with its rabbinical codification
• Yitzhaq Luria Ashkenazi, inspiring a new messianic message, the Tikkun Olam
Rabbi Yishmael ha-Cohen Tanoudji participated to this renewal
– His “Book of Memory”, published in 1555 in Ferrara (Italy), is indeed not
about history but a rabbinical guide for Jewish life
– Solicited in 1570 by Yosef ha-Nassi about Herem of his physician
But after Selim II death, the start of a long decline for the Ottoman
Caliphate and a period of hardness for its Jews
– Al-Dhimma became stricter for non-muslim minorities
– No more immigration of Marrano Jews from Spain and Portugal who
preferred to settle in Amsterdam, Leghorn and Bordeaux

17. The light and the darkness
of the Ottoman Empire
Despite those tough times, Erets Yisrael remains a unification factor
among Jews, especially among Western and Eastern Sefaradic Jews
– Shabbatai Zvi, the fake Mashiach in 1666
The Emissaries of the Palestinian Yeshivot financially supported by the
wealthy Jewish Communities of Amsterdam and Leghorn
– Ya’acov Vega from Leghorn
– Ya’acov Pereira from Amsterdam
The Cohen-Tanoudji as actors of this phenomenon
– Shalom Cohen-Tanoudji, emissary of Jerusalem, settled in Tunis in 1680
– His brother or cousin, Shmuel Cohen-Tanoudji, emissary of Jerusalem in
North Africa, Rishon le-Tsion in 1700
– His son, Yehuda ha-Cohen Tanoudji, emissary of Jerusalem, signed in 1708
the Herem against Nehemiah Hayoun, a disciple of Shabbatai Zvi,

18. The Regency of Tunis in the 18th century,
an unknown Golden Age
A stable political power with some independence from the Sublime Gate
The Al-Dhimma laws not too severely applied to Jews compared to other
Ottoman provinces
A significant Sefaradic immigration from Leghorn started around 1650
Tunis has then the largest urban Jewish population of North Africa
The largest trade center between North Africa and Europe
The most numerous Jewish literature of North Africa, with Hebraic books
published generally in Leghorn

19. The Cohen-Tanoudji family symbolizes
this Jewish Golden Age in Tunisia
Caid of the Bey of Tunis, all along the 18th
century
– Started with the emissary Shalom Cohen
Tanoudji from Jerusalem
– Minister of Finance, collecting the Al-Dhimma
taxes called Djezia
– Involved in Diplomacy
– Head of the Jewish community
Tradesmen between Tunis and Leghorn and
between Tunis and Constantine
Rabbinical scholars and authors
Publishers :
– Support book publishing in Leghorn
– Fist Hebraic book ever published in Tunis, 1768

20. From the Spanish repulsion
to the French attraction
Spanish and Portuguese failed invasions of North Africa were celebrated
by Jews as “Small Purim”
Sefaradic emancipation and the French Enlightment started to diffuse
among North African Jewish elites before 1830 French invasion of Algeria
– Leghorn Jews and the ones from Amsterdam are the first emancipated
Jews of Europe, much before the French Revolution
– Trade with France and French Italy exposes Jews of Tunis and Algiers to
the Enlightment
– Joseph Coen Tanugi from Leghorn, the first member of the family to
become French citizen in 1798, much before his cousins settled in 1780 in
Constantine, Algeria, conquered by France in 1837
In parallel, the situation of the Jews of the Ottoman Caliphate deteriorated
– Pogroms of Algiers in 1805 and of Tetouan in 1860
– The Damas Affair in 1840
French colonialism brought at least one positive element, it liberated the
Jews from the Al-Dhimma servitude

21. “Neither colonized, nor colonizers”
North African Jews become French subjects: 1830 in Algeria, 1881
in Tunisia, 1912 in Morocco
In 1870, Jews from Algeria received the French citizenship without
asking for it
– 1865 Law already enabled Jews and Muslims to become French
citizen, but only few hundreds committed
Tradition, Emancipation, Self-Emancipation
– Mass schooling with Alliance and French Schools
– Plural political views: Traditionalist, Socialist, Zionist, Nationalist
– Renewal of rabbinical literature, new cultural and intellectual
fields

22. “Neither colonized, nor colonizers”

23. “Neither colonized, nor colonizers”
Antisemitism from the Colonial sector,
especially in Algeria around 1895-1905
Some antisemitism remained from
portions of the Muslim population
– Al-Dhimma reminiscence, social and
political resentment
– Pogroms of Fes in 1912, of Tunis in
1917, of Constantine in 1934
The end of the Dreyfus Affair, the
engagement of the Algerian Jews in the
First World War, a dialog with Muslim
leaders, reduced the colonial and muslim
antisemitism

24. Dragged in the Second World War
North Africa under Vichy rules as of July 1940
– Social, economical and political exclusion of the Jews
– Algerian Jews lost their French citizenship, with the Crémieux Decree abolished
Revival of antisemitism from colonial and muslim sectors
Wansee Conference outcome included North African Jewry as part as French
Jewry to be annihilated
– Thousands of Jews, from North Africa, living in France are deported in death camps
Anglo-American invasion of Algeria and Morocco in November 1942 saved the
North African Jews from their annihilation fate
Tunisia, as Libya, under Nazi occupation until May 1943
– Thousands of Jews deported in war camps, a dozen deported in Auschwitz
In parallel, Giraud takes the lead of the Free North Africa, while still banning Jews
from political rights
– Second abrogation of Crémieux Decree, Jewish soldiers still in war camps
It is only when Tunisia is finally liberated, and when De Gaulle replaced Giraud, that
North African Jews take fully back their political rights

25. Dragged in the Second World War

26. The Exodus of the Jews from Muslim world
If the decolonization and the rebirth of Israel weaken the situation of the
Million of Jews from Muslim world…
…many other reasons however forced this Sefaradic population to leave
their countries
– Against periodic pogroms, they were somehow protected by the colonial
powers, France and Great Britain
– They generally had political rights compared to the colonized population
– They did not want to go back to the Al-Dhimma framework, or being
marginalized by the arabization or islamization of their countries
– Part of the population, either Religious or secular Zionists, were positively
attracted by Israel
– Some new Arab regimes such as Egypt, Iraq and Libya, had explicit
antisemitic policies, forcing their Jews to leave
– Jews massively left Algeria, together with the French population
Israel became the refuge for 600 000 Jews from Muslim countries
– France was the sanctuary for 300 000, especially for the Cohen-Tanoudji

27. The Exodus of the Jews from Muslim world

28. Where and who are they today ?
Most of the Sefaradic communities who took refuge in Israel were
amputated of their elites who fled to France, Canada, Argentina, UK and
the US
– Mostly observant Jews and Arab speakers
– Installation in refugee camps (Ma’abarot) at the periphery of the country
– Social and cultural marginalization by the secular Ashkenazi pioneers of
the young State of Israel,
– It took decades to reduce the social and economical gap for those who
represent now a small majority of the Jewish population of Israel
Sefaradic population who emigrated to France succeeded its social and
economical integration
– Most of them were already French speakers, a majority, French citizens
– Could benefit from the 1945-1975 French economical boom, even if a
significant portion still faces social difficulties in French suburbs
– Participated fully to French scientific, artistic and intellectual creativity
• Its symbolic example, the Nobel Prize for Claude Cohen-Tannoudji in 1997

29. Key learnings
Even with few thousands Jews in Morocco, Iran and Turkey, and hundreds in
Tunisia today, the Jewish presence in Muslim lands in over
Arab nationalism has succeeded where the Almohades failed, emptying North
Africa of its Jews
French Jews with North African roots are not French “Pieds noirs”, their cultural
and historical identities are much more complex
In France suburbs, young authors of antisemitic acts are not only social victims,
they regenerate old hate mechanisms which pre-existed in North Africa
Developing historical knowledge is the proper way to deconstruct solid myths,
while avoiding reconstructing new ones
– Jewish-Muslim “Golden Ages” did exist
– But it appeared only during some limited periods of the History, when Al-Dhimma
laws were permissively relaxed
– Jewish condition were comparatively better in Muslim world than in Christian
environment (Mark Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, Princeton)

30. Thank You Very Much