Alliance Israélite Universelle כל ישראל חברים

Founded on 17 May 1860 in Paris; its first president was Adolphe Crémieux, and among the founders were Charles Netter, Narcisse Leven, Isidore Cahen, Joseph Carvallo and Aristide Astruc. Its motto and Hebrew name: Kol Yisrael Ḥaverim, "all Israel are comrades."

The first Alliance school anywhere opened in Tetouan, Morocco, in 1862. Then: Baghdad—1864 or 1865 (both dates are in print in reputable sources; most probably founded in 1864 and opened in 1865), the Baghdad girls' school in 1895 (1893 is sometimes printed). Tehran—1898, the girls' school 1899. Then Hamadan 1900, Isfahan 1901, Shiraz and Sanandaj 1903, Kermanshah 1904, Tuyserkan and Nehavand 1906, Kashan 1911, Golpayegan 1914, Yazd 1928.

Figures worth holding: in Morocco in 1912, fourteen schools and 5,500 pupils; in 1939, forty-five schools and 15,761 pupils. In Baghdad in 1899, 254 boys and 132 girls. In Tehran in 1913–14, 455 boys and 190 girls, from a community of six thousand.

What it changed. Language and orientation: French, then English, alongside Hebrew and Arabic—and a graduate became employable by European banks, shipping firms and consulates, and after 1917 by the British administration. Occupations: access to clerical, commercial, translating and later civil-service work; Iraqi Jewry's over-representation in the Mandate civil service, the railways, customs, the port and the banks is a direct consequence. Girls' education: female literacy in Baghdad and Tehran begins here, decades ahead of Muslim and Christian girls' schooling. Stratification: a francophone educated stratum emerged with interests distinct from the rabbinate's—and the process was not peaceful. In Baghdad the community had already issued a ban in 1845 against those consorting with missionaries, and in 1876 it backed Rabbi Yosef Ḥayyim in a public dispute against a Viennese teacher.

Three corrections. The Alliance did not bring literacy to an ignorant community: Baghdad in the 1860s had thirty-odd synagogues, each with a ḥakham and two teachers, plus Bet Zilkha, and a Hebrew press of its own; what was new was not reading but European reading and a secular curriculum. The Alliance was not the vehicle of Zionism—if anything its competitor: its programme was French-republican régénération and entry into the civic life of one's own country. And Iran received its schools last, not first: Tehran 1898 against Baghdad 1865—a gap of thirty-three years, and a substantial part of the explanation why Iranian Jewry entered the twentieth century poorer and politically weaker than the rest.

One consequence visible only over the long run: it is the French education that explains why a large part of Moroccan Jewry went to France and Canada rather than to Israel. The departure rates by city under Operation Yachin—Tangier 17.9%, Casablanca 54.5%, Marrakesh 77.2%—track class and Alliance penetration exactly, in inverse order.