In this talk, Yuval Tal will explore the unique relations between Muslims and Jews in the French colony of Algeria between 1830 and 1962, examining the culture and the social space that Jews and Muslims shared and showing how the establishment of colonial rule in Algeria shaped their daily encounters. Both moments of solidarity and episodes of violence between the two groups will be discussed, showing how colonialism, class, and Arab and Jewish nationalism influenced the relations of these communities.
Yuval Tal is an assistant professor of history at the Romance Studies Department and the European Forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Yuval is a historian of modern France and the French colonial Empire in North Africa. His research brings the history of Christians, Muslims, and Jews from across the Mediterranean into a shared analytical framework. This method allows him to bridge the divide between national and imperial histories of Europe, and bring into view hidden ethnic premises that haunt European liberal democracies today.