Alliance Israélite Universelle
The Alliance israélite universelle (AIU; Hebrew: כל ישראל חברים; transl. "Universal Israelite Alliance") is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 with the purpose of safeguarding human rights for Jews around the world. It promotes the ideals of Jewish self-defense and self-sufficiency through education and professional development. The organization is noted for establishing French-language schools for Jewish children throughout the Mediterranean, Iran, and the former Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Founded
Impact on Girls and Women[edit]
The Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) changed and shaped the roles and opportunities for women in North Africa. Before the establishment of the AIU, primarily girls from wealthy or rabbinical families received an education.[21] Literacy and skilled training provided an opportunity for upward social mobility, especially to Jewish girls of underprivileged backgrounds who could not attain an education previously. Curricula featured foundational mathematics, such as arithmetic, and exposure to European subjects such as European geography and the French language.[21] Additionally, girls received vocational training in fields such as needlework, sewing, bookkeeping, secretarial work, laboratory assistance, and industrial chemistry; this training promoted the economic independence of Jewish women in the region.[21] Many North African women were also educated and trained as AIU teachers in France, returning thereafter to their countries of origin to teach.
Along with economic change, the AIU changed cultural norms for Jewish girls in the Maghreb as well. Primarily, the AIU lobbied to extend the typical marriage age from twelve to fifteen by 1948.[21] This changing role of women led to controversy regarding the secularization of Jewish society through Western-style education.
The AIU and Secularization[edit]
The AIU, and more generally, the French colonization of swaths of North Africa, shifted education from the hands of rabbis and religious leaders to secular, European instructors. In Algeria, this shift resulted in a legal mandate: in 1845, a law required Jews of Algeria to be registered in French schools and to only attend a religious school as a supplement.[22] Although the AIU did teach both secular and religious subjects, such as Hebrew and biblical history, religious leaders still questioned and lamented secularization.[21]
Similarly, the AIU attempted to secularize the Jewish legal systems in North Africa. Before colonization, Jews in Morocco operated their legal system according to Halakha (Jewish law). In 1913, the AIU appealed to the French government to try the "indigenous [Jewish] inhabitants" in French courts instead of rabbinical tribunals.[23]