Lyn Julius
The Colonization Era in the Middle East & North Africa: A Golden Age?
Summary
In this lecture, Lyn Julius discusses the colonial era in the Middle East and North Africa, specifically focusing on its impact on Jews from the late 19th century to 1950. Lyn explores the status of Jews under the Ottoman Empire’s declining rule, where they were considered dhimmi with limited rights, subject to various restrictions and taxes. The lecture provides insights into the complexities and changes in the lives of Jews in the region during the Colonial Era.
Lyn Julius
Lyn Julius was born in the UK and educated at the French Lycée in London and the University of Sussex. The daughter of Jewish refugees from Iraq, she is a journalist and founder of Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (www.harif.org). Lyn blogs daily at Point of No Return (www.jewishrefugees.org.uk). Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Huffington Post, Jewish News, and Jerusalem Post. She has a regular column in the Times of Israel and JNS News. Her book Uprooted: How 3,000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight has been translated in to Norwegian, Portuguese and Arabic, and a Hebrew version is in progress.
There were Muslims who actually attended the Alliance schools. However, Jews couldn’t even begin to teach their skills to the Muslim populations as they weren’t actually in charge of the place. They didn’t run the country so there was a limit to what they could do. You have to bear in mind that the great mass of Jews were actually not in a very good state when the Alliance was set up.
Basically there was a rather oppressive governor in Baghdad in the 1830s, called Dawud Pasha. He persecuted Jews like David Sassoon, which is why the Sassoon’s decided to leave Baghdad. They migrated to India and that was really the start of of their business empire, which they set up first in Calcutta, then in Bombay, and then Indonesia, Burma, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc.
Nowadays colonisation has a very bad image. But from the Jewish point of view, there were many good things about colonisation. It liberated the Jews from the dhimmi status and it was certainly preferable to what had happened before. However, there were limitations to colonisation and the colonial powers actually exploited the Jews for what they could get from them. They weren’t in a hurry to defend them at times of trouble so a mixed bag there.