Country on the coast of North Africa, now a French colony, but
formerly belonging successively to Carthage, Rome, the Saracens,
and the Ottoman Turks. The claim is put forth by several Jewish
Algerian communities that they were established in North Africa
at the time of the destruction of the Temple. Though this is
unwarranted, the presence of Jews there since the first
centuries of the common era is attested by epitaphs ("C. I. L."
viii. 8423, 8499; "Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux
Historiques," No. i. xiii. 64), from which two inferences may be
drawn: first, that since the Jews mentioned bear Latin names,
most of them came from Italy; secondly, that since the
proportion of Jewish inscriptions to the great mass of Latin-
Algerian inscriptions is very small, the number of Jews was not
large. Under the fairly tolerant Vandals the Jews probably
multiplied; for Justinian in his edict of persecution respecting
North Africa, proclaimed by him after the overthrow of the
Vandal empire, mentions them in t