Alliance Israélite Universelle

Founded in 1860
The Alliance Israélite Universelle was established in Paris in 1860 to improve the legal and cultural status of Jews in Asia Minor, the Middle East, and North Africa. It promoted the Gallicization and Westernization of Middle Eastern and North African Jewry across the region largely through an extensive network of elementary and vocational schools. By 1900, it was operating one hundred schools, primarily in Turkey, Tunisia, and Morocco, with a total enrollment of twenty-six thousand students. Although the organization was headquartered in Paris, each regional office had its own distinct identity, informed by local culture and politics. Alliance Israélite Universelle's programs to transform Jewish life through the establishment of schools often created communal tensions between local modernizing and traditional factions.
 

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

Primary Source

Letters to the Central Committee of the Alliance Israélite Universelle from Tangier, Morocco; Sousse, Tunisia; and Tunis, Tunisia

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Tunis, November 1920Zionism still continues to make progress in Tunisia. In all the major cities of the Regency, Zionist committees have already been established. In Tunis itself there are three…

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Proclamation of the Alliance Israélite Universelle

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Israelites! If, scattered over the whole surface of the earth and intermingled with all nations, you remain attached to the old religion of your ancestors, however weak be the bond that unites you…