Rosh Hashana 1961 saw an outbreak of violence in the Algerian city of Oran where Muslims were the main victims. By the time calm was restored, a Jewish man and three Muslims had been killed and scores were injured, including police and soldiers. Tensions were then building between the communities as the Algerian war raged. But in his paper Joshua Schreier blames colonialism for creating a chasm between Jews and Muslims, and the Arab-Israeli conflict for poisoning hitherto ‘harmonious’ relations.
The Great Synagogue of Oran, now a mosque
Newspaper reports provide a detailed report of the events that took place over Rosh Hashana in 1961. On September 11, the first day of the two-day holiday, a Jewish barber named Henri Choukroun was taking a walk through the Jewish quarter of Oran. The second largest city in Algeria, Oran lies on on Mediterranean coast, about 350 km south-west of Algiers, and it was then home to about 30,000 Jews, about 7.5 percent of the city’s population.
Unlike the colons, Jews were descendants of the inhabitants of Algeria at the time of the (Arab) conquest. As he strolled, Choukroun held his nine-month-old infant on one arm and his four-year-old daughter on the other.
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