The Birth and Expansion of the Alliance School Network
In both the historical record and the collective memories of Jewish communities that once peopled the Middle East and North Africa, the legacy of the Alliance Israelite Universelle looms large. Founded in Paris in 1860 to advocate for Jewish civil rights around the globe, the Alliance’s central project soon became the creation of a school network that educated generations of Jewish children across the Mediterranean basin. Its history and legacy are essential to understanding the history of the Jews of Muslim lands in the modern times.
The Alliance Israelite Universelle was the brainchild of a group of young French Jews who wanted to take an active role in fighting antisemitism and providing material support to the international Jewish community. In the late 19th century, the Alliance spearheaded a variety of political advocacy campaigns for Jews across the globe. This notably included advocating for citizenship for Jews in the newly created country of Romania and in favor of Jewish rights in the kingdoms of Morocco and Iran, which were unaffected by the Tanzimat reforms that had placed religious communities in the Ottoman Empire on equal legal footing. Fully imbued with imperial France’s “civilizing mission,” for the Alliance’s founders, creating a school network that would provide a European-style education to “Oriental” Jewish populations soon became central to its humanitarian mission. The expansion of the French colonial empire and the rise of European dominance in the Middle East and North Africa more broadly made conditions ripe for putting that mission into action. From its first school in Tétouan (Morocco) in 1862, the Alliance network expanded at a rapid pace, counting 183 schools and 43,700 students spread out over 15 countries and 90 localities across the Mediterranean by the eve of the First World War.
Initially, local Jewish elites were reluctant to allow the Alliance to establish schools for fear that they would encourage the abandonment of religious practice and the unravelling of tradition. Increasingly, however, at a time when Europe was establishing dominance across the region, the Alliance’s offer of secular education and fluency in French (and oftentimes other European languages as well) became an opportunity for social, cultural and economic advancement that was difficult to refuse. Both by necessity and design local Jewish communities thus became willing participants in the Alliance’s educational project. Alliance representatives most often negotiated with local notables to take over already existing schools, and its curriculum always included Hebrew and religious studies, generally dispensed by rabbis from the community. One of the most revolutionary aspects of the Alliance’s program was the fact that it opened the doors of secular education and French literacy to girls as well as boys. While an 1873 grant from the Baron Maurice de Hirsch played a critical role in expanding the network, local benefactors—after which the schools were often named—also played an important role in creating and keeping the schools afloat. Even as most children paid little or nothing for their education, a sliding-scale tuition scheme was put into place in 1895 to reinforce the principle of community collaboration
The Alliance Between Two World Wars
The First World War marked a watershed for the Alliance. As a polyglot, multi-ethnic space with different communities or Millets given a great deal of autonomy in running their internal affairs, the Ottoman Empire had been an ideal space for the Alliance to develop its Francophone school network. By contrast, there was no room for a school network run by a foreign power in the new nationalist configuration of the Turkish Republic, which progressively nationalized Alliance schools. The Alliance network also shut down in Bulgaria and Greece in the 1920s and maintained only one school in Egypt, in the city of Tantah. Alliance schools remained active in Iraq and Iran, but primary instruction was now provided in Arabic and Farsi respectively, and curriculum were modified to incorporate national histories and cultures. The Alliance’s loosening grip outside of the French Empire was counterbalanced by the incorporation of Morocco into the French empire. As per agreements signed in 1924 and 1928, the Alliance was officially tasked with educating the Jewish children in the country, with the financial support of the Protectorate.
The Alliance Under Vichy and German Occupation
The fall of France in September of 1940 sent the Alliance into disarray, as its leadership fled to London with the Provisional government.
The German occupiers requisitioned the Alliance’s Paris headquarters, and a portion of its archives were pillaged and sent to Berlin. In March of 1942, the Alliance was forcibly dissolved and integrated into the UGIF (Union Générale des Israelites de France), an organization created by German command in November of 1941 to serve as an interface between the Jews and government authorities. While most members of the Alliance’s central committee survived the war, their lives were radically disrupted as they scattered and went into hiding to avoid persecution.
The division of France after the defeat of 1940 left the administration of France’s overseas possessions to Petain’s Vichy government. Despite the fact that these ministries were functioning under the auspices of the Vichy government, they did not necessarily share that government’s antisemitic priorities.
By 1940, the Alliance network had largely taken on a life of its own in each of the countries in which it was operating. While schools were forced to raise tuition and drastically cut teachers’ pay to make up for budgetary deficits, directors developed a whole network of relationships both with local authorities and French government agencies abroad that they drew on to keep the network afloat.
Decolonization, Jewish Migration, and the Decline of the Alliance School Network
The creation of the State of Israel together with decolonization and the rise of Arab nationalism set in motion a crescendo of Jewish outmigration that reduced the number of Jews living in their former homes in the Middle East and North Africa from close to one million in 1948 to fewer than 50,00 (living primarily in Iran and Turkey) at the turn of the 20th century.
The shuttering of the Alliance network in the Muslim-majority world followed this outmigration. By 1960, the Alliance had closed its doors in Iraq and Libya and reduced its presence in Syria. By contrast, the network expanded in both Iran and Morocco into the early 1960s, as the Alliance opened new schools in rural areas with the financial support of the American Joint Distribution committee. Enrollment at the Alliance school in Beirut also increased in the 1950s, as the city’s Jewish population swelled with new arrival fleeing Syria and Iraq.
This period of expansion was short-lived. Jewish migration from Morocco rose sharply in the lead up to independence in 1956 and then again after the Six Day War, leading the Alliance to progressively shutter it network. Only 11 of the 83 schools operating on the eve of independence were still open in 1982, and by 2000, the Alliance’s presence in Morocco had been reduced to a single institution in Casablanca. In Tunisia, where attendance had been declining for decades, the Alliance closed its doors in 1974. While Iranian Jews did not emigrate in large numbers until after the 1979 Islamic revolution, its Alliance network was also in decline by the late 1960s. As Jews flocked to Tehran, schools in smaller cities and towns around the country were progressively nationalized as their Jewish populations became negligible. The Alliance’s teaching of French as a second language also made the schools less attractive to Iranian Jews, who now preferred that their children learn English. Jewish outmigration following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 further shrank the Alliance’s presence, which by 1997 had been reduced to one school in Tehran over which they had little if any jurisdiction.
As the Alliance shuttered its doors across the Arab and Muslim world, it expanded its presence in Europe and Israel. Today, the Alliance runs a handful of schools in the greater Paris area and Israel alongside its remaining school in Casablanca. It has partnered with Montreal’s robust Jewish school network, where it helped develop their French curriculum and has put in place a partnership to facilitate student exchange between France and Canada. The Alliance is also home to an extensive archival collection and the largest Jewish library in Europe.
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