UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Corresponding Lives: Women Educators of the Alliance Israélite Universelle School for Girls in the City of Tunis, 1882-1914 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic Studies by Joy Land 2006 i The dissertation of Joy Land is approved. _____________________________________ Arnold J. Band _______________________________________ Ghislaine Lydon _______________________________________ Yona Sabar _______________________________________ Michael G. Morony, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2006 ii DEDICATION To the memory of my father and To my mother iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………v Vita………………………………………………………………………………...vii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………..ix Preface……………………………………………………………………………….1 Introduction: The Historical Context……………………………………………….18 PART I FEMALE EDUCATORS: The Directrices of the AIU School for Girls in Tunis Chapter 1 From Paris to Tunis and Back: Local Responses to European Directives……………………………………………………………60 Chapter 2 From the Margins to the Center: The Directrice as Cultural Intermediary of Language and Literacy……………………………95 Chapter 3 “This Little World”: Academic Politics in the Primary School…...132 PART II THE EDUCATION OF FEMALES: Teachers, Students, Parents, and the Community Chapter 4 Implementing the Curriculum: Workshops, World’s Fairs, and Employment………………………………………………….176 Chapter 5 On the Verge of Modernity: The Voluntary Association…………231 Conclusion…………………………………………...............................................264 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………272 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Of the many people involved at all stages of research and writing, my thanks first go to my dissertation committee: to Michael Morony, Chair, for his patience and support; to Arnold Band for his insight, guidance, and humor; to Ghislaine Lydon for her assistance; and to Yona Sabar for his advice. A debt of gratitude goes to Dean John Richardson of UCLA for granting me permission to resume graduate work after a hiatus of many years. I thank Frances Malino of Wellesley College and Joel Blatt of the University of Connecticut, Stamford, for discussions of my topic. The librarians of Widener Library at Harvard provided access to primary and secondary source material, for which I am grateful. The Chief Archivist at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Paris, Jean-Claude Kuperminc, granted me authorization to use the archives, which I appreciate. The untiring efforts of Laurent Zimmern, librarian at the AIU Archives, were a boon to continued research, for which he deserves thanks. Several surgeons, oncologists, and other physicians participated in my medical care over the past fourteen months and enabled me to complete the dissertation. I am especially indebted to Doctors Steven Bramwit, Peter Costantino, Cliff Connery, David Harmon, John Levinson, John Munzenrider and Beverly Drucker. Their skill and expertise saved my life. Among the friends and family who provided invaluable editorial advice and technical support I would like to thank Anne Aubrey, Anne-Marie Foltz, Margaret Freiberg, and Hillel and Barbi Disraelly. Finally, I acknowledge the encouragement and v devotion of my family, Michelle and her husband, Matt David; Joshua; Abigail, and her husband Doron Bracha; Eva; and my husband, Charles. vi VITA Place of Birth New York, N.Y. 1967-68 New York University, New York, N.Y.: Arabic Tuition Fellowship for Arabic, New York University in collaboration with the Center for International Programs and Services of the New York State Department of Education 1968 B.A., History Queens College (CUNY), Flushing, N.Y. 1968-69 History of Islamic Countries, Hebrew University, Jerusalem Fellowship, American Friends of the Hebrew University 1969-1972 NDEA Title IV Fellowship for teaching on the university level 1971 M.A., Islamic Studies University of California, Los Angeles 1972-73 NDEA Title VI Fellowship in Critical Languages: Arabic 1973 C. Phil., Islamic Studies University of California, Los Angeles 1999-2004 Lecturer, University of Connecticut, Stamford 2004-05 The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies, Cambridge, MA: Workshop for Dissertation Writers in Women’s and Gender Studies vii PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS Editor, Proceedings of a Seminar on Muslim-Jewish Relations in North Africa (New York,1975). Land, Joy (June 2004), Corresponding Lives: Women Educators of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Tunisia, 1882-1914. Paper presented at the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS) 2004 Conference, Rethinking Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, Tangier American Legation Museum, Tangier, Morocco. __, (April 2005). From the Margins to the Center: The Directrice as Cultural Intermediary of Language and Literacy. Paper presented at the AIMS 2005 Dissertation Workshop, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Corresponding Lives: Women Educators of the Alliance Israélite Universelle School for Girls in the City of Tunis, 1882-1914 by Joy Land Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2006 Professor Michael G. Morony, Chair The multiple roles of women educators as cross-cultural intermediaries in the realm of language, literacy, dress, employment, and social action are examined in the hybrid Muslim-Jewish culture of Tunisia. Educated in Paris, the women served as catalysts of change at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) School for Girls ix in Tunis for the students, parents, and the community. Sources are based on the correspondence of the women educators, supplemented by that of their male colleagues at the School for Boys. The pioneering initiatives of the women in education, apprenticeships, health, and post-graduate voluntary associations, were closely followed by the Director of Public Education for the schools of the French Protectorate and by the French patroness of the first Muslim School for Girls in Tunis. The model of female secular education advocated by the Alliance, with its emphasis on academic skills and productivity, set important precedents for similar ventures by other religious and ethnic communities. Discussion of female educators and the education of females in the AIU School for Girls is intertwined with the themes of the “civilizing mission”, the educator-mother, and colonialism in an emerging modernity. Parallels are drawn to the education of girls in Muslim Tunisia, France, or other regions, as appropriate. Evidence has revealed that the work of the women educators extended beyond the classroom to the local community. The goal of the teachers was to form a new role for women in the private realm of the household and the public place of employment. The Middle East and North Africa continue to be confronted by these issues today, as first recognized by the women educators of the Alliance more than a century ago. x Preface Women educators fulfilled many complex roles at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) School for Girls in the city of Tunis, 1882 to 1914. From the mid- nineteenth century onward, the AIU established a network of schools in the Ottoman Empire, its Arab provinces, Egypt, Iran, and North Africa. By the turn of the twentieth century there were more than 100 schools with over 26,000 students. The first AIU School was founded in Tetuan, Morocco, in 1862 and served as a model for other schools throughout the Middle East and North Africa.1 By 1878 a school for boys opened in Tunisia and another one for girls followed soon after in 1882.2 The establishment of the School for Girls in Tunis (near ancient Carthage) occurred in tumultuous times: the French occupied Tunisia in 1881 and established a Protectorate there in 1883. The coincidence of these dates underscores the many, shared purposes of the Alliance with the colonial power. Among them was la mission civilisatrice to be spread through the use of the French language and the transmission of Enlightenment culture in the AIU schools. The aims of the schools as stated in the protocols were, above all, to work on the emancipation and “moral progress” of the local Jewish population, and the “regeneration” of their co-religionists.3 These goals, easy to disparage with post-colonial 1 Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society:1991, paperback ed., 2003), 23-25; Aron Rodrigue , Jews and Muslims: Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Modern Times (Seattle: University of Washington Press: 1993, paperback ed., 2003), 12-21. 2 A. Rodrigue, Jews and Muslims,19-20. 3 André Chouraqui, Cent ans d’histoire: l’Alliance Israélite Universelle et la renaissance juive contemporaine, 1860-1960. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France: 1965), 196-200, 38-39,188-190, and 1 hindsight, were a product of their time. However, as suggested by the literature 4 it would be inaccurate to level charges that the Alliance sided with the French Foreign Ministry to promote French penetration of North Africa. Increasingly after World War I, the Alliance accepted subsidies from the French government,5 and became a close supporter of French interests abroad. In Tunisia, however, subsides from the government of the local French Protectorate, la Régence, were paid to the Alliance schools beginning in 1891.6 The teachers of the Alliance, both men and women, spearheaded the creation of a largely urban elite that was