The Merchants of Oran revisits the life of Jacob Lasry, a Moroccan-born Jewish businessman who played a prominent role in reestablishing Oran as an important trading center in the 1820s and in advancing the French military conquest of western Algeria between 1830 and 1860. As it is told here, his story sheds light on the role that prominent Jews of non-Algerian origin played in those tumultuous years, when France's aims in North Africa were governed by events in the region and the metropole. The focus on elite Jews of the merchant class is made possible by Schreier's close reading of the various archival sources that give details about economic relations in the time of conquest. These documents carry the message that at least some of Algeria's Jews were “powerful, dynamic, and worldly figures,” instrumental in helping France achieve its colonial ambitions (4). Schreier refutes the image that it was France, and France alone, that introduced these capable and world-wise Jewish businessmen to modernity. Rather, he shows how Lasry and people like him were already at home on the international scene; in fact, they were polished and clever manipulators, each of whom made a rational decision to cast his lot with the European invaders. This is strenuously argued revisionist history, depicting a bilateral relationship between Jewish elites and the architects of conquest far more nuanced and complex than previously imagined.
Born in northern Morocco in 1793 (though it is unclear, according to Schreier, if his birthplace was Rabat or Tetuan), Lasry migrated to Gibraltar as a young man, where he befriended British officials and learned how to succeed in trans-Mediterranean trade. (Gibraltar was an especially lively node.) Lasry's ambitions soon outgrew “the Rock,” and in the 1820s, he moved to Oran, where he engaged in a profitable triangular trade between Morocco, Gibraltar, and his newly adopted city. Using family connections that padded him from risk, Lasry became one of the richest merchants of Oran, mentioned often in the consular records.
This bold entrepreneur came fully into his own after the French invasion of Algeria in 1830. How did Jews react to this seminal event? With characteristic nimbleness, men like Lasry soon got their footing in the new colonial order and found ways to gain from the ensuing upheaval, acting as intermediaries between the French and the local economy. Lasry teamed up with the son of the British vice-consul in Oran and soon began exporting grain to Gibraltar, making sizeable profits in no time at all. His name appears frequently in the French consular archives as a figure of cunning and dubious honesty, unwilling to yield ground to either critics or competitors. His side of the story is not known, but his consummate skill at charting a zigzag course among Mediterranean adversaries, fellow Jews, Muslim rivals, and French military operatives is clear.
One of Lasry's bolder capers was his service for the French military during the occupation of Tlemçen in 1836, recounted in the consular archives with all the sordid facts laid bare. Lasry's role in this ugly business is not precisely defined; however, British reports tell how the inhabitants of the city, including its Jews, were tortured and beaten until they yielded their valuables. Lasry's role was to estimate the value of the stolen goods and to “repay” the victims derisory sums in compensation. His complicity in the brutal treatment of the people of Tlemçen and his role in financing the campaign to subdue the city was “enormous,” according the Schreier (118). We may conclude from this incident—and others like it—that opportunities for self-enrichment arose in the wake of the French conquest for those who knew how to seize their share, including Algeria's so-called “subjugated” Jews.
During the early years of French rule, western Algeria's Jewish community grew exponentially, benefitting from increased trade with France and a booming settler population that included migrant Jews from neighboring Morocco. In this frontier economy, Lasry appears as a shrewd operator waxing rich under the protective mantle of colonization. His crowning moment came after 1847, when colonial officials named him president of Oran's Consistoire Israélite, a novel instrument of civic control imported from the metropole, and forerunner to the eventual naturalization of all Algerian Jews in 1870. Once settled in this post, Lasry became one of the most powerful Jews in western Algeria. Did he actually transform himself from a Moroccan Jewish merchant into “a French colonial notable” in a matter of a few short years, as Schreier claims? Or did he simply add new facets to an already many-sided personality attuned to the fluid social and political dynamics of the region?
The Merchants of Oran is an important addition to the list of finely wrought books and articles on the political, social, and legal transitions that radically changed the Maghribi Jewish experience after the arrival of the French. Joshua Schreier's account adds critical insights, particularly in regard to the changing fortunes of the business elite. However, it relies almost completely on French diplomatic archives, from both before and after the conquest. This sort of documentation, while richly informative, is also compromised by its shifting biases and frequent inaccuracies, and has to be read with a critical eye. Consuls usually did not speak Arabic and used local interpreters, adding yet another layer of obfuscation. This point aside, The Merchants of Oran is a valuable addition to the growing list of works that expand our knowledge of Sephardic history at a pivotal moment, enlarging our view of a diversified Jewish modernity.
