Jews, Power, and Commerce in Oran, 1820-1831

• In Event: Authority beyond Autonomy: Re-thinking Jewish Power in the Medieval and Modern Mediterranean

Abstract

Jews in Oran during the period leading up to the French occupation in1831not only constituted a significant portion of the population, they were active merchants responsible for a large portion of the city’s trade. In addition to their demographic and commercial weight, they were linked into local and interregional trade networks that lent them particular strength. Beyond “protected minority,” or even “invaluable intermediaries” for European powers (which they doubtlessly were as well), the situation for Jews in pre- and early colonial Oran was one that defies standard paradigms for imagining Jewish power or lack thereof in the Muslim Mediterranean. Notably, Jews were sufficiently integrated into the historical and commercial fabric of the city’s existence, as to question the utility of the “autonomy” of the “the Jewish community” as framework for inquiry.

Jewish power in Oran stems from the specific conditions of the city’s modern history. While Jews were banned in eighteenth-century Spanish Oran, after the city’s transfer to Ottoman rule in 1792, the dey of Algiers offered Jewish craftsmen and merchants from towns such as Mascara and Tlemcen, as well as Moroccan Jews based in British Gibraltar, the opportunity to settle. With its geographic position near the British garrison, its agriculturally productive hinterland, and a new, westward-oriented, Jewish merchant class, Oran became an active Ottoman port town. If the Jewish community of Oran owed its existence to the Ottoman defeat of Spain, Oran owed its commercial existence to its new Jewish population.

Looking at pre-colonial British and French consular archives, as well as early colonial legal registers, this paper argues that in the pre-colonial period, Jews effectively ran Oran’s commerce. They controlled a significant portion of Oran’s export economy, owned much of its real estate, and functioned as key brokers for the bey of the city. While Jews certainly profited by serving as “intermediaries” for the French and British, this paper demonstrates a wider point; Jews in pre-colonial Oran were part of Oran’s elite, as opposed to an autonomous community living under a non-Jewish ruling class.

author

• Joshua Samuel Schreier, Vassar College