The three­fold divi­sion of Sarah Taieb-Carlen’s book The Jews of North Africa reflects three major peri­ods of North African his­to­ry. The first — the pre-Islam­ic — is regard­ed by the author as a tri­umphant peri­od because Jew­ish set­tle­ment pre­ced­ed and out­last­ed that of all the oth­er groups that passed through the region. Sim­i­lar­ly, she views the Islam­ic era that fol­lowed as a pos­i­tive time for the Jews. Even though they were gen­er­al­ly treat­ed as sec­ond class ​“dhim­mi,” and were repeat­ed­ly sub­ject­ed to dis­crim­i­na­tion and pogroms from the pre­dom­i­nant Moslem pop­u­la­tion, they were allowed a cer­tain degree of auton­o­my. They were per­mit­ted to main­tain their own schools and reli­gious insti­tu­tions.

Last­ly, Taieb-Carlen deals with the French Colo­nial peri­od, when France spread its influ­ence through­out the Mid­dle East. Ini­tial­ly this was accom­plished through mil­i­tary con­quest. Lat­er it was achieved more effec­tive­ly through assim­i­la­tion and ​“re-edu­ca­tion.” The author believes that it was only dur­ing this peri­od that the Jews lost their way. They were taught to view their own tra­di­tions as prim­i­tive and mis­guid­ed as they adopt­ed the morés of French soci­ety. When Islam reassert­ed itself in North Africa the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties had changed to such an extent that they could no longer accom­mo­date them­selves with­in the new Islam­ic soci­eties. Emi­gra­tion was the solu­tion.

This is a basic intro­duc­tion to a sub­ject which the author con­sid­ers a neglect­ed area of study. Bib­li­og­ra­phy, glos­sary, index tables.