Schreier is a beautiful storyteller, writes in crystalline prose, and presents original and carefully researched historical arguments. He paints a brilliant picture of Algerian Jewries that is far more nuanced than that provided by other sources. His book offers scholars of Algerian/North African/Middle East histories who do not work on Jews a way to understand, situate, and engage this subject. -- Sarah Abrevaya Stein * History Department, UCLA *
In this remarkable book, Schreier argues convincingly that Algerian Jews helped to shape the civilizing mission in colonial Algeria. By means of a nuanced and sophisticated analysis Schreier brings the Jews out of the shadows of the wings and places them at the center of the colonial stage, thus adding greatly to our understanding of the dynamics of race and ethnicity as well as the civilizing ideologies of the early decades of French colonization in Algeria.
-- Patricia Lorcin * History Department, University of Minnesota *
By crossing the boundaries that have conventionally separated French, Algerian and Jewish history,
Arabs of the Jewish Faith brilliantly illuminates the struggles and transformations of Algeria's Jewish minority but also the ways in which France's 'civilizing mission' impacted both the colonies and the metropole.
-- Zachary Lockman * author of Contending Visions of the Middle East *
A well-researched book.
* Jewish Book World *
Schreier concisely studies France's colonozing mission of Algerian Jewry from 1830 to the Cremieux Decree of 1870. His very well written and researched narrative describes the complex, differentiated economic, social, and demographic significance of the widespread Jewish community.
* Choice *
