Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria

Abstract

In August 1934, riots erupted in the city of Constantine in French Algeria, leaving a trail of destruction and twenty-eight people dead. Of these, twenty-five were Jewish. The riots immediately generated a huge controversy in the midst of a tense local political context and rising global antisemitism. Who were the culprits? Was it a nameless Muslim mob who had in a moment of frenzy, massacred their Jewish neighbours? Or did this mob hide an even more sinister organized conspiracy? Almost a century after an official investigation tried to attribute responsibility, Joshua Cole reopens the case of this highly contested event in a meticulously researched work. Cole’s aim is to deconstruct a narrative of eternal tension between Muslims and Jews by excavating the specific social and political circumstances in which these events unfolded. In particular, he wishes to point our attention to the role that France played in shaping this event, both in the sense of the French state and French actors. As such, his study participates in a growing contemporary interest with the role of the small but strategic Jewish community in colonial Algeria. In particular, Cole’s study builds on a body of studies from anglophone scholars of Jewish history like Maud Mandel and Ethan Katz who have moved into looking at the role of the French state in shaping Muslim-Jewish relations.