The Impact of Nazi and Fascist anti-Semitism on the Jewish Press in Tunisia in the Years 1938–1940

Abstract

Ten Tunisian Jewish newspapers declaredly involved in discussing Jewish political affairs stopped publication in 1939 or 1940, before the Vichy regime (from December 1940) and the Nazis (from November 1942 to May 1943) suspended all Jewish papers. Half of these titles were avowedly Zionist-oriented, four politically moderate, while one favored a Judeo-Arab league. The decisions of their editorial boards to withdraw from the journalistic market were not based on factors of personal health or economic viability, and neither were they the result of anything as mundane as loss of interest. In actuality, they stemmed from the deep-rooted conviction of the papers’ owners and journalists that terrible things lay in store for Tunisian Jews, and that the Nazi-backed Vichy regime that functioned in the country would not spare them the ordeal of their co-religionists in Europe.

The present article examines both the reactions of the various Tunisian Jewish papers to Nazi and Fascist anti-Semitism in Europe prior to and following the onset of the Second World War, and also the way in which anti-Semitism in Europe upset the relationship between Tunisian and Italian Jews in Tunisia.