Mediterranean Jewries and Global Commerce in the Modern Period: On the Trail of the Jewish Feather Trade

This article writes Jews into the intertwined histories of colonial economics and modern consumption. It explores the involvement of Mediterranean and North African Jews in the global trade of a single, highly valued luxury good—the ostrich feather—whose exchange linked the economies of the Sahel, Sahara, and Central and North Africa with one another and the fashion worlds of Europe and the United States. Situating the global ostrich feather trade within a larger story of imperial competition over colonial commodities, this article argues that Mediterranean and North African Jewries played an important role in transnational and transoceanic commerce in the modern period; contrary to received wisdom, their involvement in global networks was on occasion weakened rather than strengthened by the process of colonization.