AJSL outside of Algeria 

There were three main waves of Jewish emigration from Algeria. The first, in the 1940s, was a small wave of 500-600 Jews to Israel and France, with Ghardaian Jews arriving in Israel on the ships Yehuda HaLevi and Shivat Zion (Swatzfox 1989, cited in Lanesman 2011). Jews who had financial means often preferred to move to France, while many of the poorer Jews from Algeria moved to the Land of Israel.

 

The 1950s brought a second wave of immigration, triggered by both the establishment of the State of Israel and the Algerian War of Independence from France, in which Jews were seen as French allies by their Muslim neighbors. The final wave occurred in 1962, and there remain no Jews in Algeria today. Some of the Ghardaians who intended to settle in Israel were relocated to Marseilles, France after their ship failed to dock, and others decided to leave Israel for France because of the poor living conditions in the young country. Studies on AJSL have not been conducted in France, so we only have data on users of AJSL in Israel.

 

The immigration of Algerians to Israel led to dramatic lifestyle changes. This included widespread secularization of a traditionally observant society, incorporation of Deaf children into established schools and vocational training programs, and learning new languages, including Modern Hebrew and Israeli Sign Language. They also interacted with members of outside communities, including intermarriage and other integration into the broader Israeli society. This interaction influenced both the development of ISL, which came to include some AJSL signs in its lexicon, and the preservation of AJSL. Thus, Deaf Algerians began to integrate into broader Deaf Israeli communities in addition to Algerian-Israeli communities.

 

Algerian immigrants recalled being discriminated against by many Israelis, who often thought of them as “dangerous” and “threatening” (Lanesman 2011: 53-55). As a result, they tended to feel shame in their Algerian identity and culture, including their sign language. They especially felt inferior due to their difficulties communicating with the better-educated, more standardized speakers who had gone to Deaf schools in Europe or Israel for many years. Thus, Deaf AJSL users tended to reserve AJSL for internal use and switch to ISL when interacting with people outside the community. AJSL remained in an insular, secluded community, which actually likely helped preserve the language in an environment where it was the minority.

 

One native user of AJSL said that they “prefer to use AJSL in private conversations on the side and not in front of everybody, so that the other [D]eaf people don’t get insulted”.

 

Another said, “When speaking in AJSL, we speak in secret. The other deaf people looked

and asked what it is: 'Is the AJSL secretive?' I told them that this is just the way it is. This is the Algerian sign language.”

 

Hearing Algerian-Israelis have played a unique role in preserving AJSL in Israel. When Deaf Algerians moved to Israel and integrated with other Deaf Israelis, the common language became ISL. Children learned ISL in boarding schools for the Deaf in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and socialized at Deaf clubs. As a result, ISL became their predominant language. However, their hearing family members did not have the same experience. Because they could hear and did not have to rely on sign language, these family members used Hebrew with most Israelis and retained exclusive use of AJSL as a sign language within their own families and communities. Because of this, they were able to pass down “pure” AJSL to their children, without using ISL at the same time.

 

Nowadays, the younger generation has become more interested in learning AJSL even though they did not learn the language natively. They acquire it from their AJSL-speaking parents and then are able to incorporate aspects of the language into the ISL that they often acquire more broadly – in schools and other institutions. Words like “nerd,” “sucker,” and holiday terms have come into Israeli Sign Language from Algerian Jewish Sign Language.

 

AJSL came to Israel with native users who were born using the language in Ghardaia, Algeria. It was used as a native language by both Deaf signers and hearing signers. Other sign languages that immigrated to Israel with its speakers, like Moroccan sign language, disappeared when their speakers began to use ISL instead, but the high incidence of deafness in the Algerian Jewish community allowed hearing signers to preserve the language for future generations.