User:Jwdolin/sandbox

Article Evaluation - Ham (Son of Noah)

I found that overall this article seems to contain only relevant information and does not contain any superfluous discussion about tangentially related subjects. One thing that could be added to this article is a discussion, as we've been having in class, about how Ham and the curse of Canaan relate to the ideas of blackness and how the curse was used by some later scholars as a sort of justification/explanation for the subjugation of Africans and people with dark skin. The article mentions that the name 'Ham' has some connection to 'burnt' or 'black' but doesn't have any further discussion on how scholars have interpreted this in relation to the curse of Ham. This article also seems fairly neutral and there's not any clear bias or viewpoints that seem over represented. I also checked out some of the references, most of which were not online sources. Two of the online sources seemed legitimate, one being a book called The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by David M. Goldenberg, and the other being an article of the same name by the same author. It's interesting, considering these sources that there isn't a broader discussion about Ham/Ham's descendants and their relationship to the idea of blackness and to slavery. I also visited the talk page for this article, which featured a lengthy argument about the use of the word Kemet and whether or not the Bible is a reliable source for wikipedia articles about Bible characters. There is definitely more of a discussion about the Ham's connection to blackness, but the ideas are not fully thought out so it's probably best they stay out of the main article. It is interesting to see people on an online forum discuss an issue using detail and nuance, something not easily found online. Another interesting section of the talk page is just a statement from some editor saying that the article is full of white supremacist ideas and that they were deleting most of it. This is a pretty clear example of the wikipedia community editing for good, as a white supremacist viewpoint in an article like this (or any article) is entirely abhorrent.

Article Selection - Possible Articles

History of the Jews in Algeria

The content of this article is relevant to the topic, however, many claims lack proper citation. In addition, there is not much discussion of the Jews under the Romans, though there is surely more to be said about how they were treated and what their lives were like under Roman rule. There could also be more discussion about the role of race in the French government's treatment of North African Jews and Muslims, as well as more discussion as to what happened to Algerian Jews during the Holocaust and the impact it had on the community. The citations mostly seem reliable, as the sources appear to be mostly scholarly articles or books.

Zanj Rebellion

The content of this article is relevant to the topic, but is also missing citations. The article is written neutrally, but lacks discussion about the role of race, or how the slave owners viewed the Zanj. It might be better if more context surrounding the recent history before the rebellion was covered in the article. The citations for this articles also seem reliable and scholarly in nature. This article would also benefit from a brief discussion of the descendants of the Zanj in Iraq and what happened to them as a group after the rebellion.

Arab Slave Trade

Again, the content of this article is relevant to the topic and the citations look legitimate, but not every claim is backed by a proper citation. One thing that might improve this article is an expanded section on Arab views of Africans. There are only a few lines here, and it does not really go in depth about how Muslims and Muslim slaveholders in particular viewed the Zanj and people from other parts of Africa. In addition, the section on the 19th century is pretty light on detail and could definitely use more information (ie Why did the slave trade pick up and at did local Muslims try to fight for their previous right to own slaves after Europeans colonized their countries?).

Bibliography (possible sources)

1) Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa By Emily Benichou Gottreich and Daniel J. Schroeter - https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/lib/umichigan/detail.action?docID=731391

2) The architecture of memory : a Jewish-Muslim household in colonial Algeria, 1937-1962 / Joëlle Bahloul - https://search.lib.umich.edu/catalog/record/003091691?query=all_fields:Jewish AND all_fields:Algeria OR all_fields:North Africa OR all_fields:Jew&filter.language=English&library=U-M Ann Arbor Libraries

3) The Integration of North African Jews in France - https://www.jstor.org/stable/2930080?newaccount=true&read-now=1&seq=5#page_scan_tab_contents

4) Arabs of the Jewish Faith : The Civilizing Mission in Colonial Algeria By Joshua Schreier - https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/lib/umichigan/detail.action?docID=832041

5) (FILM) A Matter of Time: The Jews of North Africa in World War II - https://search-alexanderstreet-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity|video_work|1784673

6) A Semite - A Memoir of Algeria By Guenoun, Denis - https://www-degruyter-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/viewbooktoc/product/464205

7) Caught in a colonial triangle: Competing loyalties within the Jewish community of Algeria, 1842–1943 By Younsi, Rochdi Ali. - https://search-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/305300886

9) Algerian Jewish Sign Language: A sociolinguistic sketch By Sara Laneman and Irit Meir https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=OkQLCNql6yEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA361&dq=jewish community of algeria&ots=ty7-mdcebn&sig=kc_gW60mZDHJ7M9QkSB-S5FMaKM#v=onepage&q=jewish community of algeria&f=false

10) Remembering the Jews of Algeria - https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yCn_R9I0MBMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA251&dq=algerian jews&ots=AAfQ5nOoYN&sig=nalUVgTHsspPR7znkVsAP_4YIxE#v=onepage&q=algerian jews&f=false

11) Yad Vashem Holocaust in Algeria - https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/the-jews-of-algeria-morocco-and-tunisia.html#footnoteref5_6z2o4l2

Article Draft Space

Holocaust in Algeria, under the Vichy regime

One of the first moves of the pro-German Vichy regime was to revoke the effects of the Crémieux Decree, on October 7, 1940, thereby abolishing French citizenship for Algerian Jews, affecting some 110,000 Algerians. Under Vichy rule in Algeria, even Karaites and Jews who had converted to another religion were subject to anti-semitic laws, known collectively as Statut des Juifs. The Vichy regime's laws ensured that Jews were forbidden from holding public office or other governmental positions, as well as from holding jobs in industries such as insurance and real estate. In addition, the Vichy regime set strict limitations on Jewish people working as doctors or lawyers.

The Vichy regime also limited the number of Jewish children in Algeria's public school system, and eventually terminated all Jewish enrollment in public schools. In response, Jewish professors who had been forced from their jobs set up a Jewish university in 1941, only for its forced dissolution to occur at the end of that same year. The Jewish communities of Algeria also set up a system of Jewish primary schools for children, and by 1942 some 20,000 Jewish children were enrolled in 70 elementary and 5 secondary schools all over Algeria. The Vichy government eventually created legislation allowing the government to control school curriculum, and schedules, which helped dampen efforts to educate young Jews in Algeria.

Under Admiral Darlan and General Giraud, two French officials who administered the French military in North Africa, the antisemitic legislation was applied more severely in Algeria than France itself, under the pretext that it enabled greater equality between Muslims and Jews and considered racial laws a condition sine qua non of the armistice. Under the Vichy regime in Algeria, an office called the "Special Department for the Control of the Jewish Problem" handled the execution of laws applying to Algeria's Jewish population. This was unique in French North Africa, and as such the laws covering the status of Jews were governed much more harshly in Algeria than in Morocco or Tunisia. A bureau for "Economic Aryanization" was also installed in order to eradicate the Jewish community's significance in the economy, mostly by taking control of Jewish businesses.

On March 31, 1942, the Vichy government issued a decree demanding the creation of a local Jewish government called the Union Générale des Israélites d’Algérie (UGIA). The UGIA was intended to be a body of Jews that would execute the Vichy regulations within Jewish communities, and was seen by much of the Jewish population as collaboration with the government. In response, many young Jews joined the Algerian resistance movement, which itself had been founded by Jews in 1940. On November 8, 1942, the Algerian resistance to the Vichy government took part in the takeover of Algiers in preparation for the Allied liberation of North Africa, known as "Operation Torch." Of the 377 resistance members who took Algiers, 315 were Jewish. In November of 1942, British and American soldiers landed and took control of Algiers and the rest of Algeria. However, Jews were not returned all of their former civil rights and liberties, nor their French citizenships until 1943. This can partially be explained by the fact that Giraud himself, along with the Governer-General Marcel Peyrouton, in promulgating the cancellation of Vichy statutes on March 14, 1943, after the allies landed in North Africa, retained exceptionally the decree abolishing citizenship rights for Algerian Jews, claiming that they did not wish to incite violence between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Algiers. It was not until the arrival of Charles De Gaulle in October of 1943 that Jewish Algerians finally regained their French citizenship with the reinstatement of the Crémieux Decree.

In addition to the discriminatory and antisemitic laws faced by Jews all over Algeria, some 2,000 Jews were placed in concentration camps at Bedeau and Djelfa. The camp at Bedeau, near Sidi-bel-Abbes, became a place for the concentration of Jewish Algerian soldiers, who were forced to perform hard labor. These prisoners formed the "Jewish Work Group," and worked on a Vichy plan for a trans-Saharan railroad; many died from hunger, exhaustion, disease, or beatings.