North African Jewry and the Alliance Israélite Universelle
Born in 1917 in Aïn Témouchent, Algeria, into a family descended from Spanish Jewish rabbis and scholars, André Chouraqui became a historian of North African Jewry and, from 1947, a leader of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, whose schools and communities he visited across North Africa and some 80 countries.
Key facts
- 1917: born in Aïn Témouchent, Algeria; his family descends from rabbis, including Saadia son of Elie Chouraqui (1604–1704).
- 1947: Deputy Secretary General of the Alliance Israélite Universelle; 1952: its Permanent Delegate.
- 1949: proposes a trachoma eradication campaign in Morocco through UNICEF.
- 1950: The Legal Status of the Moroccan Jew (Audifred Prize).
- 1952: March Towards the West: The Jews of North Africa (Zadoc Kahn Prize).
Nathan André Chouraqui was born on 11 August 1917 in Aïn Témouchent, Algeria. His father, Isaac Chouraqui, was president of the Jewish community and descended from a line of rabbis, the most notable being Saadia son of Elie Chouraqui (1604–1704), mathematician, exegete and poet. His mother, Meleha Meyer, also came from a family originally from Andalusia. During the Second World War, as an enrolled lawyer at the Oran Bar, he resigned before being expelled under Vichy's racial laws, which abrogated the Crémieux Decree.
In 1947 René Cassin, President of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, appointed him Deputy Secretary General of the AIU; in 1952 he became its Permanent Delegate, a role that took him on lecture tours across some 80 countries. He inspected Alliance schools in Algeria and Tunisia (1948), toured Morocco (1949), crossed the Sahara to reach ancient Jewish communities in southern Algeria and Morocco (1951), and in 1949 proposed, through UNICEF, a trachoma eradication campaign in Morocco — an initiative that saved the sight of millions of children.
His first books were devoted to North African Jewry: The Legal Status of the Moroccan Jew (1950), awarded by the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and March Towards the West: The Jews of North Africa (1952), awarded the Zadoc Kahn Prize. In 1965 he published a history of the Alliance, One Hundred Years of History, with a preface by René Cassin. He returned to the subject in a 1991 lecture at the Sorbonne.
Articles and documents
Books
- Love Strong as Death (Éditions du Rocher, 1998)
Based on the biography, chronology and list of awards published on this site.