Joseph Bentolila’s Letter of Rights Issued by Napoleon III
)1808-1873(
Printed in France, received in Algeria, 1865
Print and handwriting
Gift of Jean Jacques Bentolila, Algeria, in the honor of the Bentolila family:
Abraham, Solomon, Bernard, and Aharon
Must Know
Citizenship certificates were given to North African Jews for collaborating with the French colonialist government and for mediating on its behalf with local Muslims. This certificate, signed at Tuileries Palace in Paris, grants the wool merchant Bentolila “French civil rights. Letter of Rights certificates were a form of legal documentation that declare the recipients citizens of France.
The Ben Tolila family is originally from Toledo in Spain, from which they were expelled, like all the Jews, in 1492, following King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s Edict of Expulsion. From Spain they scattered all over North Africa and settled in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Many members of the Ben Tolila family were scholars, traders, philosophers, artists and community leaders, as was Abraham Ben Tolila, Israeli TV personality Erez Tal’s great grandfather’s brother.
Abraham Ben Tolila was born in Tetouan, a cosmopolitan port city in North Morocco, which had a flourishing Jewish community. The Jews of Tetouan called it “little Jerusalem” with love and admiration, expressing their yearning to return to the holy Land.
Abraham left Tetouan and moved to Algeria, where he became head of the Jewish community. In 1841 Napoleon III, ruler of France, sent the emancipation decree displayed here to Abraham Ben Tolila.
More Info
During French rule in Algeria, Algerians could request French citizenship following a 1865 decree signed by Napoleon III. Yet Muslim Algerians, in particular, could only receive citizenship with the condition that they renounce their religious traditions. According to the French, Muslim values was incompatible with French status. Algerian Jews, in this context, were encouraged to act as moderators between the French colonisers and Algerian muslims and to integrate French values and practices into Algerian life. France’s goal was to make Algerian Jews promoters of French culture in Africa and the 1965 decree was the formal tool by which they hoped to motivate Jews to take on that role.
In the 1860s, Napoleon III began enforcing models of assimilation in Algeria. Before these French colonial reforms, Algerians were still under heavy influence from previous Ottoman rule (between 1516 to 1830). In 1834, King of the French, Louis Philippe I, signed the ‘Ordonnance du 22 juillet 1834’ marking the French conquest of Algeria. This annexation of Algeria by France made all colonised people legally linked and under France jurisdiction, breaking off earlier Ottoman governance, yet still did not allow them to become French nationals. In the following years the French rule became more formalised and established, leading up to the 1865 decree (sénatus-consulte du 14 juillet 1865 sur l’état des personnes et la naturalisation en Algérie) where people could request French citizenships. Algerian Jews were the main part of the population that desired French citizenship at the time.
