Introduction

Jacob Lasry (1793-1869), a North African Jewish merchant, offers a useful optic for reevaluating Jews’ role and influence in pre- and early-colonial North Africa, as well as the early effects of colonialism on the society and economy of the small Mediterranean port of Oran. Against traditional accounts that emphasize the pre-colonial desolation of Oran and the precarious status of most Algerian Jews, this study underlines Oran’s nascent revival, as well as the influence, dynamism, and worldliness of Jews such as Lasry in late Ottoman/early colonial Oran. French forces actually relied on local North African talent (such as Lasry) not only to help finance and coordinate the conquest, but even to direct some of colonialism’s “ideological” work, such as bringing local Jews into the French orbit. By following these threads, this study offers an unprecedented “personal” account of French colonialism in Algeria.