October 17, 1961

It's the anniversary of the Paris police massacre of two to three hundred Algerians. Great article in The Funambulist on the event, and the efforts of female activists to inscribe Paris with reminders of this horrific event.

"On October 17, 1961, a few months before the final victory of the Algerian Revolution, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in France organized a massive pacific march in Paris to show their determination against the curfew that the Prefect of police, the infamous Maurice Papon, in agreement with the French government, had taken against their sole persons a few days earlier — during the 1961-1963 state of emergency in France. 20,000 Algerians joined the march which was met with systematic and deadly violence by the Paris police. Between 200 and 300 Algerians were killed by being shot, beaten to death, or thrown into the Seine river; 10,000 were arrested and detained for several days; hundreds were deported to Algeria — some of these deportations were used to hide the deaths."

"Last night, a few hours of the commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the massacre, a small group of female activists visited several of these spaces to graffiti or glue the names of some of the Algerians who were killed that night. In a particularly intense policed and fascist militant environment, they succeeded in paying an homage to the history of Algerian resistance (one that continues today through the antiracist and anticolonial activism) that goes beyond the authorized (yet very important, of course) setting of the 6PM annual gathering on the Saint-Michel bridge. This is crucial as the very discreet official efforts of acknowledgment of the massacre from the Paris municipality and the French state never target those who are responsible for it (Papon, of course, but also the De Gaulle-Debré government, and the police officers themselves)."

The Jewish-Arab victims of the Paris massacres (Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket)

For some reason, the Maghrebi origins of many of the victims of the massacre has not been getting much play, especially in the English language media. (Other than this article in Ynet which reports that all four of the victims of the kosher market shooting will be buried in Israel, and whose chief point seems to be the dangers posed to Jews by living in France).

It is not much remarked that about 60% of the French Jewish population of 600,000 are 'Sephardic,' that is, of Middle Eastern/North African origin -- mostly from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Much more has been written about the Charlie Hebdo victims than the kosher supermarket victims to date. That may be a function of the fact that the kosher market events are more recent. Or it may be, as Gil Hochberg noted on FaceBook, the fact that secular Jews (who are among the Charlie Hebdo dead) are more familiar than the more religious Jews shopping for kosher.

Of the 12 dead in the Charlie Hebdo attack were two Jews of Tunisian origin: Georges Wolinski, 80, a cartoonist at the magazine, born in Tunis, and Elsa Cayat, 54, a journalist at CH and a psychoanalyst, whose father, Georges Khayat, was from Sfax, Tunisia. (And another of those killed was the Algerian-born Kabyle [Berber] Moustapha Ourrad, copy editor.)

Of the 4 dead at the kosher supermarket, three have positively been identified as being of Maghribi origin, i.e., Jewish Arabs.

Yoav Kattab, 21, was the son of the grand rabbi of Tunis, Tunisia, Benyamin Hattab. He was born in La Goulette and raised in Djerba. After completing his bacalaureat in Tunis, he had gone to Paris to study marketing and international commerce. He had recently, and proudly, voted in Tunisia's presidential elections.

Yohan Cohen, 22, born in Enghien-les-Bains. His parents were from Algeria, settled in Sarcelles, France, in the 1960s. He was a grandson of a famous Jewish-Tunisian singer, Doukha, who passed away in December. He liked rap, particularly French rapper Booba -- one of France's great rappers, who frequently raps against racism, is a 'non-practicing' Muslim, and whose father is Senegalese. Cohen reportedly died when he tried to tackle gunman Amedy Coulibaly, in order to save a three year old child.

 Yohan Cohen

Cohen's grandfather Doukha was a passionate fan of the great Syrian singer Farid El Atrache as a boy, and got his start in music singing the songs of Farid in the group of the celebrated Tunisian-Jewish singer Raoul Journo. He was a master of the Judeo-Tunisian, the Judeo-Algerian, and the Egyptian repertoire. Check out his rendition of a "Tunisian folklore" song here.

Doukha

François-Michel Saada, 63, a retired senior executive, whose children live in Israel, was born in Tunis, Tunisia.

I have not yet found information on the background -- Maghrebi or otherwise -- of the fourth victim, Philippe Braham, 45. According to his brother-in-law, Shai Ben-David, "He was a man who always wore a kippah, a Zionist whose dream was to make aliyah and he never made it. Every time he used to tell me, 'God willing we'll come, we'll make aliyah soon.'"