Halakha under Colonial Rule: Rabbinic Responses to French Civil Law in Algeria with Gabriel Abensour

Who has the authority to define Jewish law under colonial rule? In nineteenth-century Algeria, French jurists sought to incorporate halakha into the colonial legal system, reshaping it in the process. This talk explores this “colonization of halakha” and examines the different rabbinic responses it provoked, from collaboration with colonial authorities to principled resistance. These debates offer a new perspective on how Jewish minorities in colonial societies negotiated the competing claims of their own legal traditions and European modernity.