Table Of ContentT H E M ERCH A N TS OF OR A N
STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE
Edited by David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein
T H E M E R C H A N T S
O F O R A N
A Jewish Port at the Dawn of Empire
JOSHUA SCHREIER
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schreier, Joshua, 1969- author.
Title: The merchants of Oran : a Jewish port at the dawn of empire / Joshua
Schreier.
Other titles: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture.
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. |
Series: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016040093 (print) | LCCN 2016041831 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780804799140 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503602168 (ebook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Lasry, Jacob, 1793-1869. | Jewish
merchants—Algeria—Oran—Biography. | Jews—Algeria—Oran—History—
19th century. | Oran (Algeria)—Commerce—History—19th century. |
Algeria—Ethnic relations—History—19th century. |
France—Colonies—Administration—History—19th century.
Classification: LCC DS135.A3 A3576 2017 (print) | LCC DS135.A3 (ebook) |
DDC 965/.1004924—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040093
Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion Pro
CON T EN TS
Acknowledgments vii
Notes on Language and Terminology xi
Introduction 1
1 Mediterranean Oran 25
2 Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830 47
3 Making Money in a Time of Conquest 71
4 Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran 95
5 Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest 113
6 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to
Israélites Indigènes 131
Conclusion: Moralities and Mythologies 149
Notes 157
Bibliography 181
Index 193
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ACK NOW L EDGM EN TS
This book was such a collaborative effort that it feels odd putting only one name
on the cover. It also could not have been done without significant material as-
sistance. My research was made possible by Vassar College’s Research Commit-
tee, and through the Elinor Nims Brink fund, the Tatlock Endowed Fund for
Strategic Faculty Support, and the Suzanne Schrier Heimerdinger endowment.
The Jewish Studies Program at Vassar College, as well as the Berman Center for
Jewish Studies at Lehigh University both helped significantly. Jonathan Chenette
and the Office of the Dean of Faculty at Vassar College consistently provided
support when it was necessary. As for critical insights over the course of writing,
my debts are great. Sarah Abrevaya Stein has not only been a great friend, but a
keen and tireless reader. Aomar Boum, Benjamin Brower, Susan Hiner, Daniel
Lee, Jessica Marglin, Jeff Schneider, Daniel Schroeter, and Eva Woods have all
read various incarnations of this research as it appeared over the years. They pro-
vided invaluable encouragement, constructive criticism, and thoughtful advice.
Joshua Marrache sat with me for hours in Gibraltar explaining the terri-
tory’s Jewish history and culture. Mesod Belilo, the registrar of Gibraltar’s Jew-
ish community, was similarly generous with his time and kindly guided me
through the registries of Jewish marriages. Anthony Pitaluga of Gibraltar’s Na-
tional Archives helped me find valuable documents, even coming into work
on a vacation day to do it. A sincere word of thanks to Dave Liston and Nicky
Guerrero for their help, warmth, and good cheer before and during my stay
in Gibraltar. In Oran, Robert Parks and Karim Oaras at the Centre d’Études
Maghrebines en Algérie were of incommensurable help during our stay. Great
and sincere thanks are due as well to Jacques Maroni, Jacob Lasry’s great grand-
son, who graciously shared knowledge of his family’s history with me. His ad-
vice significantly strengthened this project.
Michal Birnbaum was an excellent tutor who patiently helped me with a
difficult text to which Isaac Levy was kind enough to introduce me. Mr. Levy
viii Acknowledgments
merits additional thanks for his insights and explanations. Luciana Corti gra-
ciously helped with the Italian-language sources. Marc Michael Epstein has
been a tremendously consistent friend, adviser, and teacher, and this work is
stronger for his hand in it.
My colleagues in Vassar College’s Department of History have provided an
excellent and supportive environment in which to write, teach, and speak my
mind. Tremendous thanks to Nancy Bisaha, Bob Brigham, Mita Choudhury,
Miriam Cohen, Rebecca Edwards, Maria Höhn, Julie Hughes, James Merrell,
Quincy Mills, Lydia Murdoch, Leslie Offutt, Miki Pohl, Ismail Rashid, and
Nianshen Song. Particular thanks are owed to Michelle Whalen for her effec-
tive and consistent help, support, encouragement, warmth, and remarkable
good humor.
Stanford University Press has been an absolute pleasure to work with.
Thank you to David Biale, Sarah Stein, and Kate Wahl for taking an interest
early on and for asking key questions about framing this book. Thanks also to
Margo Irvin, whose recent arrival at the press did nothing to delay her advice
and support. Thanks so much also to Nora Spiegel for all her help as editorial
assistant, and Mimi Braverman for tremendous copyediting of a manuscript
that desperately needed it. Great thanks are due Anne Fuzellier Jain for her
invaluable guidance (and patience) as production editor.
A brilliant cast of friends and colleagues has provided company, laughter,
ideas, and stimulating conversation on research trips, at workshops, confer-
ences, dinners, and concerts, and in cafés and pubs. Many of the ideas that in-
form this book can be traced to my fortunate interactions with these all-stars.
Thanks to Cécile Balavoine, Naor ben Yehoyada, Lia Brozgal, Oliver Burkeman,
Heather Chaplin, Joshua Cole, Jessica Cooperman, Catharine Crawford, Naomi
Davidson, David Deutsch, Nathaniel Deutsch, Sammi Everett, Johnny Farraj,
John Fellas, Michael Gasper, Maria Hantzopoulos, Daniel Hershenzon, Susan
Hiner, Jonathon Kahn, Carey Kasden, Julie Kleinman, Hartley Lachter, Daniel
Lee, Jared Manasek, Liz Marcus, Maria Matthiessen, James McDougall, Mac
Montandon, Joe Nevins, Emanuelle Saada, Rachel Schley, Tyrone Simpson, Susan
Slyomovics, Mira Sucharov, Agi Vetò, Michael Walsh, and Fred Zimmerman.
I owe tremendous and heartfelt gratitude to my family. My daughter Malka
is brilliant, driven, accomplished, loving, and fierce. She became a bat mitzvah
over the course of this book’s writing and reminded me to keep my eyes on
the prize. My son Noam’s intelligence, kindness, talent, and outlandish sense
of humor have been a source of music, sustenance, joy, and inspiration, even if
Acknowledgments ix
he does get me in trouble for laughing at inappropriate jokes. Limitless thanks
to my parents, Arlene Richman and Ethan Schreier, for their love, support, un-
derstanding, and contrarian perspectives. Janet Levine and Geoff Taylor have
taken excellent care of them (I know, it ain’t easy). My parents-in-law, Monique
Nathan and Paul Merle, have been warm, welcoming, helpful, patient, and sup-
portive during the long process of writing this book. Love and gratitude are
due to my inspirational, hilarious, and brilliant sister-in-law, Sarah Koenig; my
excellent niece, Ava (whose recent bat mitzvah was a source of enormous en-
couragement and joy); and my dear, turbo-charged nephew, Reuben. Benjamin
Schreier, the original impossible Jew, my faithful, merciless, and side-splittingly
funny brother, is a great scholar of Jewish studies and my best friend. A part of
me still believes we could have been one of the more popular recording acts of
the mid- to late 1990s. But it is clear to me now that things happened the way
they did for a reason. Most of all, thanks are due to my wife, Lise Schreier, ayshes
hayil intergalactique, who has provided love, support, humor, patience, and one
or two well-merited talking-tos, all of which were essential to this project.
Description:The Merchants of Oran weaves together the history of a Mediterranean port city with the lives of Oran's Jewish mercantile elite during the transition to French colonial rule. Through the life of Jacob Lasry and other influential Jewish merchants, Joshua Schreier tells the story of how this diverse a
