“It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris,” Obama said, as if Islamic violence was random rather than targeted. As if killing Jews was something new in the 21st century, something that happened because the West bombed Afghanistan and then Iraq and now is fighting against ISIS. As if Muslim countries have a history of being open and tolerant to all.
The attack to which the President of the United States referred happened in France, home to many Muslims from Algeria, once a French colony. The French terrorists, the Kouachi brothers, the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, were born in Paris to parents of Algerian origin. Amedy Coulibaly, the murderer of the “randomly” selected Jews in the Kosher market in Paris was mentored by Djamel Beghal, a French-Algerian al-Qaida recruiter.
The Muslims of Algerian descent are not new to Jew hatred. It is in their blood. Although there are those who claim that Muslims had a wonderful relationship with the Jews prior to 1948, Muslim anti-Semitism welcomed Nazi anti-Semitism with open arms, long, long before the State of Israel was declared.
Jew hatred in Muslim Algeria was reported in the 14th century. Jews were accused of sorcery, and arrogance, forced to wear “conspicuous and peculiar garb.” Some were forced to convert, others sold into slavery. Under Turkish rule, which began in 1801, Jews were massacred, a Rabbi was beheaded, synagogues desecrated.
An American consul in Algiers wrote in the early 19th century:
“…the Jews were pillaged…their lives nothing but…debasement, oppression and outrage.” The arrival of France as occupier in 1830 led to a better life for the Jews, but only for a short time. Muslims and Europeans came together to attack the Jews, again.
With the rise of the Nazis, swastikas were seen everywhere in Algeria. In 1934 there was an attack in Constantine leaving 25 dead Jews, dozens wounded and Jewish property once again pillaged.
During World War II it was by the grace of God and the Allies’ landing in Algeria that prevented the transfer of the Algerian Jews to the crematoria.
When Algeria obtained state status, she turned to the Arab League. In 1960 Jewish leaders were kidnapped and assassinated, the Great Synagogue and the Jewish Cemetery were sacked. In 1963 Algeria passed a law that gave Algerian citizenship only to those residents whose father and paternal grandfather were Muslim.
The Jews had been a presence in Algeria since the arrival of the Phoenicians 2500 years earlier.
Algerian anti-Semitism came to France in the early 20th century with waves of Algerian immigrants. New arrivals included former French colonists who had resided in Algeria, as well as Algerians who had sided with France during the war of independence. “In 1962, about 350,000 so-called "French Muslims" were counted in France. The number of Algerians rose to 470,000 in 1968 and to 800,000 in 1982.”
In his book “The French Intifada”, Andrew Hussey expressed his shock over the “robustness” of anti-Semitism amongst the many French Muslims: their talk of “crimes of the Jews” from people who had never met one including “comedian” Dieudonné, who “jokes about the Holocaust and denounces “Zionist” influence. “The Barbarians,” a criminal gang, expressed abhorrence of “rich Jews” by torturing and murdering a cellphone salesman in 2006; its leader blamed his jailing on “Zionists of New York.” An Algerian-Frenchman murdered a rabbi and three Jewish children outside Toulouse.”
James Zogby, President, Arab American Institute; author, 'Arab Voices’ wrote January 17 in Huffington Post "[T]he murders at Parisian kosher market, were even more despicable. They were motivated by the crudest form of anti-semitism --killing Jews just because they happened to be Jews who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
But the so-called leader of the free world, President Obama, a supposedly well-educated man. declared the killers of these randomly selected Jews as “a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”
It seems history has no bearing. As Will Durant wrote:"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than their minds.” I have lost track of the number of times I have shared this quote-obviously not enough.
History of anti-semitism in Algeria from the book "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters
Diane Weber Bederman is a blogger for ‘Times of Israel’, a contributor to Convivium, a national magazine about faith in our community, and also writes about family issues and mental illness. She is a multi-faith endorsed hospital trained chaplain.
