Algerian Jews were indigenous North Africans, not European settlers

Evidence

It is one of the ironies of history that Algerian Jews are often considered to be descendants of French colons, indeed pieds-noirs, rather than as what they historically were in their majority, namely, indigenous Jews of Algeria. A number of European Jews, coming for the most part from Alsace-Lorraine, did begin to arrive after the 1870 Franco- Prussian war. Yet even the local French authorities disregarded this immigration and continued to relate to Jews as indigenous, reminding the Jews of that fact, for example, on census forms. Hence, until 1931, the official census forms still asked whether one had gained citizenship via the Cremieux decree or was a descendant of someone who had so benefited (“Etes-vous israelite naturalise par le decret de 1870 ou issu d’un israelite naturalise par ce decret?” Quoted in Allouche-Benayoun and Bensimon, juifi d’Algerie). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 790

Categorization

• XREF: This overturns the pieds-noirs misperception and complements the claim captured above at 789 in the same chapter.