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JewishHistoryעברית

Algerian antisemitic riots of 1897–1898

Date
18 May 1897 – January 1898Hebrew date: 16th of Iyyar, 5657
Location
Mostaganem, Oran, Algiers and other towns in French AlgeriaAlgeria
Then part of
French Algeria
Perpetrators
  • European settler antisemites, including Max Régis in Algiers (Mob)
Killed (estimate)
2[3]Jews killed in the January 1898 riots. Larousse states that the riots in Algiers and across Algeria left about a hundred injured and two dead among the Jews. Alain Ruscio states that the manhunts in the streets of Algiers left two dead and hundreds injured. No opened page gives a death toll for Mostaganem in May 1897.
Country

0.004% – 0.0042% of the Jewish population of French Algeria (c. 1891)[61]

Worldwide

0.000022% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1896)[17]

Category
Pogrom
Confidence
Medium

Summary

After the 1870 Crémieux Decree made most Algerian Jews French citizens, a settler antisemitic movement produced riots across French Algeria. The Jewish Encyclopedia dates the spark to a brawl at Mostaganem on 18 May 1897, begun by cyclists from Oran, which ended in the sacking of the synagogue; similar attacks followed at Aïn-Tedeles, Oran, Aïn-Temouchent and other places, with shops and homes plundered and many people wounded. Equally violent riots took place in Algiers in January 1898; Max Régis led them and was elected mayor of Algiers that November. Encyclopaedia Judaica (via JVL) lists attacks on Jews in Tlemcen (1881), Algiers (1882, 1897, 1898), Oran and Sétif (1883) and Mostaganem (1897), where it says the violence reached its peak, and records synagogues sacked and Torah scrolls desecrated; it states that the wave came from French colonial settlers, not from Muslims. Larousse and Alain Ruscio both state that the January 1898 riots left two Jews dead. No opened page gives a death toll for Mostaganem in May 1897.

Sources

  1. Algeria. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  2. Algeria Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library (Encyclopaedia Judaica)
  3. Émeutes antijuives à Alger (janvier 1898). Larousse
  4. Alain Ruscio, L'antisémitisme colonial en Algérie. Histoire coloniale et postcoloniale (2025)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 9,066,534[17]c. 1896Joseph Jacobs's 1896 estimate of 9,066,534, as listed in the Jewish Encyclopedia statistics table.
  • French Algeria: 47,564 – 50,000[61]c. 1891Jewish Encyclopedia, citing Leroy-Beaulieu for 1891 native Jews by department (Algiers 14,895, Oran 19,794, Constantine 12,875 = 47,564). Hazell's Annual for 1900, cited there, gives 50,000. French Algeria under the Third Republic — not independent Algeria.

Sources for population estimates

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