In 1830, the approximately 15,000 Jews of Algeria witnessed the French conquest of the country, believing it would simply replace one ruler (Turkish and Muslim) with another. However, this pivotal event would transform their history in unexpected ways.

For centuries, Jews had lived in Algeria as dhimmis. While they could practice their own religion and manage their own legal disputes within their community, they had to pay an additional tax, the jiza. Additionally, they could not practice numerous professions, own land, weapons, or horses, dress in green (the colour of Islam) or red (the colour of the Turks), or wear shoes other than sandals.

After the French conquest of Algeria, the French government, convinced that Jews were more easily civilised than Arabs, decided to favour and assimilate them, also following the logic of "divide and conquer." Consequently, the government sought to secularise Jewish communities by enrolling children in French schools and reducing the traditional authority of rabbis.

In 1870, Defence Minister Adolphe Cremieux, himself Jewish, granted French citizenship to all Algerian Jews. This accelerated their assimilation process. Jewish elites increasingly spoke French, held prestigious professions, were secularised, and wore Western-style clothing. Their children went to study in France, and women became emancipated. They increasingly identified as French rather than Jewish, viewing France as the Grand Nation that had liberated and emancipated them. Many of them demonstrated great patriotism by enlisting in the French army during World War I.

However, the Vichy regime revoked the Jews' citizenship in 1940. Despite this, they continued to identify with "good France" and its secular and republican values. Many Jews, therefore, collaborated with the Anglo-Americans in the liberation of Algiers in 1942. In 1954, at the outbreak of the Algerian War, they were wary of the idea of ​​an independent Algeria, fearing, despite the FLN's promises, the loss of their rights and the return of discrimination. In 1960, they requested and obtained from De Gaulle the right to be legally assimilated into French citizenship in Algeria.

Following these developments, the birth of independent Algeria prompted the exodus of approximately 135,000 Jews. Almost all chose to emigrate to France, the country they had long since chosen as their homeland.