EAJS Conference Grant Program in Jewish Studies
Report
Jews and Colonialism: Communities and Networks on the African Continent
An International Conference, 13–14 May 2024, King’s College London
Organised by Matteo D’Avanzo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) and Dr Andrea Schatz (King’s College London)
Organizing Committee: Matteo D’Avanzo, Alessandro Guetta, Ilaria Pavan, Andrea Schatz
Event rationale and achievements
Researching and rethinking Jewish history and culture in colonial and postcolonial contexts is an endeavour that is grounded in multiple contexts. This conference builds on recent research at the intersection of Jewish and colonial histories that has, however, often centred on European Jewish agency, and proposes a fresh focus on Jewish communities and colonial regimes on the African continent. It also links historical research to the critical interventions in Jewish contexts since the 1950s – from Jacqueline Kahanoff to Gil Anidjar, among many others – on questions of religion, racism and colonialism. Offering a forum for Early Career Researchers, PhD students and established scholars from Europe and beyond, the conference aims to support new research and to lay the foundation for an inter-disciplinary research network.
During the two-day meeting, scholars and students active in Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom explored Jewish communities in various African colonial settings, examining their interactions with imperial networks, the impact of Fascist and Nazi rule, and Jewish involvement in postcolonial struggles. Participants also asked how religious and racializing differentiations were jointly employed by colonial regimes, and discussed how religious and political commitments intersected in Jewish engagements with colonialism and decolonization.
The conference proved highly stimulating, thanks to an excellent keynote lecture, many incisive papers, and lively discussions, in which students and scholars of all career stages participated very actively and in equal measure. Coffee breaks and conference dinners further facilitated informal conversations and exchange. The conference ended with detailed plans for the establishment of a research network, the publication of several interrelated papers as a special issue in a leading journal (that already signalled preliminary interest), and the application for a research group.
Overview: Conference sections and papers
In their opening remarks, Andrea Schatz (King’s College London), Ilaria Pavan (IMT School of Advanced Studies, Lucca) and Matteo D’Avanzo highlighted the conference’s focus on African Jewish communities as the starting point for interdisciplinary explorations of multi-centred and multi-directional dynamics and interactions. They stressed that the conference had the potential to open up new directions for collaboration between African Studies and Jewish Studies and to shape a new chapter in global Jewish history. Holding the conference in London, however, clearly had implications for who could consider to participate. In this context, it was also mentioned that one speaker joined the conference remotely, because his passport had not been returned on time – a stark reminder of the uneven power relations that continue to govern borders and conversations that seek to cross them.
The speakers thanked the Department of Theology and Religious Studies for hosting the conference and the research managers and conference team at King’s for their brilliant support. They expressed their gratitude for generous support to the EAJS and to the Global Cultures Institute with its Language Acts and Worldmaking research centre in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at King’s.
Session 1: Jewish Communities and Colonial Histories
Isabella Soi (Università degli studi di Cagliari) focused on the founder of the Bayudaya community in Uganda, Semei Kakungulu. She explored Kakungulu’s significant role in Uganda’s political and social transformation during the colonial period, when he first converted to Anglicanism before consolidating his opposition against the colonial regime by converting to Judaism. Soi described Kakungulu’s religious politics as “rebellion” against aspects of colonialism rather than fundamental “resistance” to it. She also provided insights in the contemporary life of the community, its focus on education and the support it receives from Reform congregations in the United States.
Shaul Marmari (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig) examined the expansion of the Menahem Messa Company, a family business in Aden that preceded the British arrival, but benefitted from its ties to the British administration after colonialisation. The paper traced the expansion of the company to Northeast Africa and Egypt, using British, French, and Italian colonial infrastructures, in particular the growing railway network. The company’s growth encouraged Jewish, in particular Adeni migration, leading to the formation and consolidation of Jewish communities in various places, e.g. in Asmara, and facilitating the emergence of a “Red Sea Diaspora” that stretched from Yemen to India, East Africa, Egypt and Palestine.
Yair Wallach (SOAS) returned to the “patchwork” of minorities in Egypt and, after the previous paper had touched on the Yemeni community there, focused on the evolving role of Ashkenazim following waves of immigration driven by the search for economic opportunities and (relative) political freedom. The paper highlighted the diversity and complexity of layered identities shaped by the degree of integration into the colonial economy and administration, by cultural creativity (e.g. the Yiddish theatre), political activity (e.g. as communists), and intermarriage. It suggested to re-consider the history of a – not particularly privileged – Ashkenazic-Egyptian community within the wider contexts of minorities in North African, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean contexts.
William Pimlott (Royal Holloway, University of London) proposed a multi-directional analysis of Eastern European Jewish politics, looking at the Yiddish press (c. 1890–1920) not just in South Africa, but also in Eastern Europe, where “Letters” from South Africa discussed the colonial and racializing contexts of Jewish life there. The paper traced the tensions between the Anglo-Jewish community and Eastern European immigrants in South Africa, e.g. in relation to the Yiddish language and education, and it discussed the success of the South African Zionist Organisation in the country’s multi-national society, as it took upon itself to look after “the needs of all Jews”, including Eastern European immigrants.
Keynote Lecture: Northern African Intercommunal Entanglements: From Judeo-Indigeneity to the Abrahamic Other
Sami Everett (University of Southampton) explored the concept of indigeneity, critically examining its connection to Jewish existence in the Maghreb. His analysis was grounded in ethnographic work highlighting Judeo-indigeneity’s poetic and musical expressions. Everett showed that, although dynamics of migration between North Africa and France complicate notions of indigeneity, and although Jews became “othered” as an Abrahamic minority, their complex indigeneities – e.g. as “Arab-Amazigh-Jewish of Maghribi descent” – could never be entirely erased. Everett analysed various historical categorizations, from “assimilé” and “Israélite” to Toshavim and Megorashim, before widening the perspective, including also gender, and discussing the life and work of the singer Reinette L’Oranaise, which suggest to replace fixed categorizations with narratives whose temporalities allow for fluidity and pluri-vocality.
Session 2: Jewish Communities, Fascism, and Colonial Regimes
Martino Oppizzi (École française de Rome) presented the first of several papers in this session that examined Italian-Jewish interactions during the interwar period and World War II. Oppizzi focused on Italian Jewish teachers and consuls in Egypt and Tunisia, who found themselves in an intermediate position between colonial powers and local Jewish communities, being in contact with both. In Egypt, the Italian regime sought to coopt local Jews to strengthen its position in competition with other colonial powers. Italian schools employed Italian Jewish teachers, were attended by many local Jewish pupils and adopted a multi-cultural approach. In Tunisia, by contrast, local Jewish communities were seen with suspicion, as they tended to have closer links to the French authorities, and Italian schools attracted far fewer Jewish pupils. Oppizzi showed that the impact of fascism was not immediate, but profound, with a tipping point reached in 1938, when ‘racial laws’ led to the expulsion of Jewish teachers and the dropout of Jewish pupils from Italian schools.
Matteo D’Avanzo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) outlined the relationship between colonial regimes through the experiences of Taamrat Emmanuel. Starting as a student in Europe, T. Emmanuel became a prominent educator in Ethiopia, a partisan against the Italian occupation, and a diplomatic attaché for the Ethiopian Empire. His story reveals a man dedicated to serving Ethiopian Jews while maintaining independence in his actions and thoughts. D’Avanzo examined Emmanuel’s complex relationship with colonial experiences in Mandatory Palestine, Fascist-occupied Ethiopia, and British-controlled Egypt and Aden Protectorate.
Livia Tagliacozzo (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) turned to the impact of the Second World War on Libya’s Jews, analysing through oral testimonies and diaries the experiences of the Jews of Cyrenaica who, in 1942, were deported to the Giado concentration camp. Tagliacozzo highlighted complex constellations: Italian workplace colleagues and Arab neighbours sometimes offered help to evade deportation; and various factors, such as labour shortages, created some space for resistance. The expectation, however, that Italians would act as a “compassionate people” was destroyed, when Jews experienced the camp’s brutal everyday regime.
Session 3: Escaping the Holocaust, Resilience, Spaces of Encounter
Shirli Gilbert (UCL) offered a rich account of the complex contexts that need to be taken into consideration when researching how European Jewish refugees settled in sub-Saharan Africa: local and regional colonial administrations, international aid agencies, the South African Council for Refugee Settlement, and the Colonial and Foreign Offices in London. Gilbert highlighted opposition, e.g. by the Kenyan governor due to the country’s “racial problems” being already “sufficiently complicated”, and scepticism among British liberals about the Jewish ability to assimilate. Turning to the experiences of the refugees themselves, she proposed to explore in greater detail how European Jews navigated the colonial contexts: How did their presumed whiteness impact their interactions with authorities and claims for settlement? How did they interact with local people? And how did their experiences compare to those of Jews in other parts of the British Empire? Their experiences highlighted the intersections of antisemitism, racism, and colonialism, revealing new perspectives on the global impact of the Holocaust.
Dario Miccoli (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice) explained how mostly Sephardic Jews from Rhodes settled in the Belgian Congo and Southern Rhodesia: first – since the early 1910s – for economic reasons, and later because of Fascist anti-Jewish laws in the Italian Dodecanese. Miccoli then traced how those who survived the deportations from Rhodes resettled in Congo and Rhodesia after World War II and sought to establish continuity with their previous communal life, while navigating – in diverse ways – colonial taxonomies of power. Here, Miccoli referred to Michael Rothberg’s notion of “implicated subjects” as analytically useful. The paper ended with the early 1960s, when in the wake of the political changes during the period of decolonisation Rhodesli left for Belgium, South Africa, the US, Italy and Israel.
Eliana Hadjisavvas (Birkbeck, University of London) began with the Israeli TV drama Carthago (2022) that depicts the internment of Jews in a British-run camp in Sudan during the 1940s. She explained how Jews charged as terrorists and Jewish refugees considered “enemy aliens” were detained in Southern and Eastern Africa, and she proposed to understand their experiences within wider contexts of interconnected histories of the Holocaust, displacement and empire. Looking at criminal charges, such as involvement in illegal immigration to Palestine, Hadjisavvas showed the interconnection between histories of migration and political detention in colonial contexts.
Julia Schulte-Werning (University of Vienna) explored Jewish humanitarian activities in French Morocco. She showed how OSE-Morocco (as part of the network of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee established various health facilities and campaigns, focusing on children and the impoverished. She then delved into the case of the Casablanca dispensary La Maternelle-OSE as a “gendered space of encounter”, which became a central hub for various facilities. Julia Schulte-Werning highlighted the interplay of Jewish humanitarian efforts, medical professionalism, and political visions amid decolonization.
Session 4: Legacies and Transformations in Postcolonial Contexts
Roni Mikel-Arieli (Ben-Gurion University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) focused on the fascinating figure of Leo Kuper, a South African Jewish sociologist and anti-apartheid activist. Kuper acted as chair of the Natal Liberal Party, he opposed apartheid, leading to his immigration to Los Angeles in 1961 after his books were banned. In the US, he shifted from writing on apartheid to pioneering genocide studies in the early 1980s, including the Holocaust. Roni Mikel-Arieli explored how Kuper’s anti-apartheid activism and intellectual journey influenced his ground-breaking contributions to genocide studies.
Ayode Daniel Dossou (Geneva Graduate Institute) introduced Robert Léon, a French Jew, who significantly influenced Côte d’Ivoire’s transition from colonial rule to independence in 1960 by enhancing education for future Ivorian elites. Léon integrated deeply into Ivorian society and maintained a strong friendship with the first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. His legacy explained the longstanding philo-semitism in Côte d’Ivoire.
Giordano Bottecchia (IFG Lab – Institut Français de Géopolitique, Paris) examined effects of decolonization on the Libyan Jewish community’s dynamics of inclusion and exclusion from the 1947 Peace Treaty to the granting of Italian citizenship in 1987. Utilizing diplomatic records and documents from international Jewish organizations, he demonstrated how the Jewish community managed its position, reshaping relationships with Libya and Italy.
Session 5: Speaking Now
Asher Salah (Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem) took as his starting point the complex self-identification of Sansone Banin as “African by birth, Yemenite by origin, British by nationality, Italian by culture, Jewish by faith”. His life mirrored the complexities of the Asmara Jewish community’s existence within the Italian colony in the horn of Africa. Salah’s study explored the Banin-Cohen-Shua families’ diaspora across Italy, Great Britain, Kenya, and Israel, shedding new light on the porous boundaries between colonized and colonizers through the Asmara Jewish community case study.
Rebekah Vince (Queen Mary, University of London) began with Jacques Derrida’s work, reflecting on his precarious French citizenship and ‘disorder of identity’. She examined the troubled memories of a “cosmopolitan Southern Mediterranean” (Leïla Sebbar), exploring Jewish autobiographical essays from North Africa that challenge colonial ideologies and fixed identities, and she proposed to consider the links between nostalgia and utopia.
Simcha Getahune (Ethiopian Jewry Heritage Centre, Tel Aviv, and Kibbutzim College) spoke about the history of Ethiopian Jewry and the social circumstances of the community in Israel today. Her presentation left a notable impression, as she spoke as a “voice of the community” and one of its major representatives. She outlined the initiatives of the Ethiopian Jewry Heritage Centre and the proactive policies and supportive activities pursued by Ethiopian Jews in Israel.
Concluding Round-Table: Religion, Racism and Antisemitism in (Post-)Colonial Contexts.
This moment of collective and participatory discussion has been valuable in examining critical aspects of the conference and proposing new lines of research. Emphasis has been placed on the importance of further integrating African studies with the study of Jews and colonialism on the African continent. An overarching theme has been the necessity to contextualise Jewish experiences within wider African and global contexts. It was also emphasised that the discussion of racializing dynamics on the continent deserves of a global perspective. The topic of refugees has proven particularly interesting to participants and remains an important lens of inquiry. Participants also found it necessary to develop new lines of inquiry into antisemitism and racism that can reconstruct the underlying dynamics of political-intellectual thought within wider contexts of power. Similarly, it has been emphasized that religious dynamics should be explored through new studies that look at intra-Jewish relations as well as, e.g., Jewish-Christian dynamics in colonial contexts.
Summary
Papers and discussions brought attention to several intriguing aspects warranting further exploration:
- They challenged conventional dichotomies between colonized and colonizers often applied to the study of Jews and Jewish communities in colonial contexts;
- They endeavoured to transcend geographical and scholarly divides between North Africa, East Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa in Jewish Studies by investigating links among the continent’s diverse Jewish communities. At the same time, they also proposed global perspectives when focusing on Mediterranean, Red Sea and Atlantic connections.
- They employed cultural and material history approaches to shed light on the production and legacy of Jewish communities in Africa.
- They introduced innovative research methodologies that combine traditional archival techniques with oral history and memory studies.
- They deepened comprehension of African contexts, including histories, cultures and societies to elucidate connections and interactions between (indigenous and European) Jewish communities and local populations.
- They proposed to conduct thorough analyses of the experiences of migrants and refugees as a lens for gaining a nuanced understanding of the Jewish presence in Africa.
- They studied the intellectual thought of prominent Jewish figures, including on issues of racialization and racism.
Engagement with the public
Members of the Asmara Jewish community residing in the United Kingdom attended the conference and participated in the final round-table discussion, advocating for further initiatives aimed at documenting the experiences of Jewish communities across the African continent.
Planned outcomes
The participants emphasised the importance of maintaining contact to plan further collaborations. To this end, a newsletter (or H-Net list) was proposed that will disseminate research news related to Jews and Jewish communities on the African continent. The organisers are currently exploring various options for this.
Several participants suggested organizing workshops with experts in African Studies, and with colleagues on the African continent. Possibilities for holding a conference in North Africa were discussed. Participants also encouraged interdisciplinary collaboration and suggested events that will explore methodological tools from various disciplines (anthropology, cultural studies, sociology) in addition to the traditional historical-archival method.
Numerous ideas for collaboration emerged, particularly for the organization of panels at international conferences on specific topics such as the impact of Fascist colonialism, Jewish political thought in Africa, and the study of Judaizing groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. One significant idea was the creation of a society for the study of African Jewry, which could convene annually and publish a specialized journal.
Lastly, plans were made to publish a special issue in an international journal specializing in Jewish Studies, featuring a thematically coherent set of articles based on contributions from the conference. This publication will showcase the work conducted during the conference and analyse the multifaceted and complex themes of the relationship between Jews and colonialisms on the African continent.
Final Programme
| MONDAY 13 May 2024 | |
| 8:30 | Registration |
| 9:00 | Opening Remarks |
| Andrea Schatz (King’s College London)
Daniel Orrells (King’s College London) Ilaria Pavan (IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca) Matteo D’Avanzo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) |
|
| 9:15 | Session 1: Jewish Communities and Colonial Histories |
| Chair: Adam Sutcliffe (King’s College London) | |
| Isabella Soi (Università degli studi di Cagliari) Rebellion, Ambition and Consolidation: The Genesis of a Ugandan Jewish Community |
|
| Shaul Marmari (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig) Red Sea Crossings: The Jewish-Adeni Scramble for Africa |
|
| Yair Wallach (SOAS) Ashkenazim in Egypt: Between Migrants and Colonial Protégés |
|
| William Pimlott (Royal Holloway, University of London) South Africa’s Jewish Colonialism(s): The Yiddish Press and Zionism |
|
| 11:15 | Coffee Break |
| 11:30 | Keynote Lecture |
| Chair: Andrea Schatz | |
| Sami Everett (University of Southampton) Northern African Intercommunal Entanglements: From Judeo-Indigeneity to the Abrahamic Other |
|
| 12:30 | LUNCH |
| 14:00 | Session 2: Jewish Communities, Fascism, and Colonial Regimes |
| Chair: Ilaria Pavan | |
| Martino Oppizzi (École française de Rome) Italian-Jewish Relations in Tunisia and Egypt: The Perspective of Italian Teachers and Consuls |
|
| Matteo D’Avanzo (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) Navigating Colonial Landscapes: The Journey of Taamrat Emmanuel |
|
| Livia Tagliacozzo (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Defiance in the Dunes: Jewish Resistance in Giado |
|
| 15:30 | Coffee Break |
| 16:00 | Session 3: Escaping the Holocaust, Resilience, Spaces of Encounter |
| Chair: Heather Munro (King’s College London) | |
| Shirli Gilbert (UCL) Jewish Refugees from Nazism in Sub-Saharan Africa |
|
| Dario Miccoli (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice) “A land of refuge, oblivion and rebirth”: Rhodesli Holocaust Survivors in the Belgian Congo and Southern Rhodesia, 1945–1965 |
|
| Eliana Hadjisavvas (Birkbeck, University of London) Exile in the Empire: European Refugees and Political Detainees – Legacies of Jewish Displacement in Kenya, 1940-1950 |
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| Julia Schulte-Werning (University of Vienna) Coming to the Dispensary: Jewish Medical Humanitarianism and Spaces of Encounter in Late Colonial Morocco |
|
| DINNER | |
| TUESDAY 14 May 2024 | |
| 9:00 | Session 4: Legacies and Transformations in Postcolonial Contexts |
| Chair: Shirli Gilbert | |
| Roni Mikel-Arieli (Ben-Gurion University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Apartheid, Holocaust and Genocide: On Leo Kuper’s Legacy |
|
| Ayode Daniel Dossou (Geneva Graduate Institute) Life and Contributions of Robert Léon to the Formation of the Post-Independence Ivorian Elite |
|
| Giordano Bottecchia (IFG Lab – Institut Français de Géopolitique, Paris) Reframing National Belonging After Empire: Libyan Jews Between Libya and Italy (1947–1987) |
|
| 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 | Session 5: Speaking Now |
| Chair: Matteo D’Avanzo | |
| Asher Salah (Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem) The Multiple Identities of the Jewish Community in Asmara: Oral Testimonies and Family Memories |
|
| Rebekah Vince (Queen Mary, University of London) Translating Troubled Memories and Remembering Forgotten Futures: A Jewish Childhood in the Muslim Mediterranean (2023) |
|
| Simcha Getahune (Ethiopian Jewry Heritage Centre, Tel Aviv, and Kibbutzim College) Studies in the History of Ethiopian Jewry: The Beta Israel |
|
| 12:30 | LUNCH |
| 13:30 | Concluding Round-Table: Religion, Racism and Antisemitism in (Post-)Colonial Contexts – Research Perspectives |
| 14:30 | Conference ends |