Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa

12. Crosscurrents: Trajectories of Algerian Jewish Artists and Men of Culture since the End of the Nineteenth Century

12 • Crosscurrents Trajectories of Algerian Jewish Artists and Men of Culture since the End of the Nineteenth Century Hadj Miliani Translated by Allan MacVicar Introduction This chapter focuses on several Algerian Jewish artists and cultural entrepreneurs who have not only influenced aesthetic evolutions but have originated artistic and cultural trends. The goal of this research is to reveal the role Jews played in the evolution of a common artistic heritage in North Africa and to demonstrate how artistic bridges can be built at the crossroads of three monotheistic religions of the Mediterranean in an effort to create a place for cultural sensitivity that is in step with modernity. The approach used here emphasizes the dual program of conservation and innovation that Algerian Jewish musicians and singers have followed in North African music since the end of the nineteenth century. I trace the career of ­ Edmond Nathan Yafil, who worked to rehabilitate and conserve Arabo-­ Andalusian music at the beginning of the twentieth century, and recount the tragic fate of Saoud Medioni to show how these artists, along with others, served as cultural mediators in a North African multicultural society deeply traumatized by coloni­ zation. Despite the colorful Mediterranean friendliness and joie de vivre, this account is not a classic success story. Instead, it follows the social and po­ liti­ cal meanderings of a region, the Maghrib, that was permanently in a state of upheaval, and a country, France, that often fell prey to the worst of demons. Yet the story cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts, for it also demonstrates the power of individuality and subjectivity in an incredibly communitarian and holistic space. 177 178 Hadj Miliani Besides musicians and singers (Yafil, Mouzion, Saoud Medioni, Reinette, Ell Hallali, Raymond Leiris, Line Monty, Alice Fitoussi, Lili Labassi, Blond Blond, and others), I will also consider a few cultural entrepreneurs, such as record producers , managers, and show organizers. In my reexamination of several of the paths that they followed, I will combine general analysis with a more pointed assessment in order to reconstruct the sociopo­ liti­ cal context; this will enable me to analyze the part the Jewish community of Algeria played in the crosscurrents that lie at the foundation of what is today called multiculturalism. A Cultural Tradition in Division Between the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, many Jewish Algerian artists and entrepreneurs made their marks on the cultural landscape of the largest French colony. Writers and musicians established a pluralistic cultural space that highlighted both the local substrate (language, rhythms, traditions, rituals) and new perspectives on cultural creation that were emerging in Europe. Today, when the Jewish community has all but disappeared from the Algerian social and cultural landscape, it is these figures above all who live in collective memory in Algeria. In 1861, when Alexandre Christanowitsch looked for Arabo-­ Andalusian musical performers in Algiers, he met only a few Jewish and Muslim musicians. He wrote, “Having learned that Arab music cafés existed in Algiers, I went one night to one of them on Citati Street. In these cafés Arabs and Moors would gather for coffee, while two or three Jews would play traditional songs, one playing the rebab, the sec­ ond the kemanche, and the third the tar or the darbuka.”1 The practitioners were in fact very numerous, but the number of venues for playing and performing was considerably smaller; it existed mainly in the form of very intimate exchanges at the heart of the Muslim population. Certain Jews were considered to be among the best players of this traditional folk music during the sec­ ond half of the nineteenth century. Yossef Eni-­ Bel Kharraïa, Maqchiech (who died in 1899), and mu"allim (master) Ben Farrachou (1833–1904), for example, had a decisive influence on the preservation and popularization of this music. Moreover, classical North African music owes its survival to the industriousness of certain weavers, babouche makers, and Jewish and Muslim merchants, as Jacques Taïeb has noted: Singing, musical professions, and dance were all despised activities left to the Jews and the Blacks (more precisely, to the Jews of the poorer classes). The high frequency of the family name Abitbol (drummer) and its variations Bitbol, Boutboul, Tabbali, Teboul, etc., demonstrates the extent of this Algerian Jewish Artists since the Nineteenth Century 179 phenomenon. Jews, at least in the east­ ern Maghrib...