University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Pages: 674
•
Trim: 7½ x 10¼
978-1-61147-787-0 • Hardback • May 2016 • $80.00 • (£62.00)
978-1-61147-788-7 • eBook • May 2016 • $76.00 • (£58.00)
Paul B. Fenton is co-director of the Department of Arabic and Hebrew Studies at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, where he is professor of Hebrew language and literature.
David G. Littman (1933-2012) was a British historian and human rights activist.
Acknowledgements
Preface
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of List of Abbreviations: Archives and Periodicals
Glossary
Introduction
Part OneHistorical and literary sources (A)
Part Two Archival Documents (B)
Bibliography
Index of Proper Names
Index of Place Names
This translation of L'Exil au Maghreb: la condition juive sous l'Islam, 1148-1912 (2010) is an anthology of 'documents specifically portraying various aspects of the Jewish experience in the North African lands of the Islamic West.' Its broader aim, however, is to demonstrate that 'anti-Jewish persecution has been endemic to Muslim North Africa' and to refute the claim that Islam provided a more open and tolerant home for Jews than Christian Europe. To this end, the compilers present illustrations, maps, and a wide range of documents describing persecution and harassment of Jews, primarily in Morocco and Algeria over the period from 997 to 1912 until the end of Muslim sovereignty in Morocco. The first section consists of 146 enumerated selections from sources (as the preface states), including chronicles in Arabic or Hebrew and Muslim legal texts, diaries kept by travelers, newspaper accounts, and reports by physicians, adventurers, those in captivity, and diplomatic or consular authorities. The second section presents 188 sources from the Alliance Israélite Universelle archives in Paris, and the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Public Records Office in London. Document annotations are provided in chapter endnotes. While the compilers only allude to academic controversy regarding their thesis and sources, students would have benefited from a fuller discussion of the debate. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty.
— Choice Reviews
[This book] is a compilation of documents shedding light on the conditions in which Jews lived in the Maghreb over 10 centuries. . . .'Exile in the Maghreb' consists of a wealth of original documents amassed by David Littman.
— gem