The 1934 Constantine riots was an anti-Jewish riot that erupted in the Algerian city of Constantine.
The general consensus is that the initial cause of the conflict was a confrontation between Eliahou Khalifa, a Jewish Zouave, and Muslim worshippers in a mosque next to his home. The Muslims said that Khalifa was drunk, and insulted Islam. A report by the Jewish authorities claimed he was not intoxicated, and that after getting into an argument with them, the Muslims had cursed Khalifa's faith and he cursed them and their faith back.
JTA reported on August 8, 1934:
A scene of utter desolation and horror, of Jewish girls with their breasts cut off, of little children with numerous knife wounds and of whole families locked in their homes and burned to death, was described by a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, who succeeded in reaching this city today.
"It will take days before the world will obtain a true picture of all the atrocities committed by the Arabs during the pogrom on the Jewish quarter," the correspondent wired.
"The only comparison I can think of is the Palestine riots of 1929. I found Jewish girls with their breasts cut off, greybearded Jews stabbed to death, little Jewish children dead of numerous knife wounds and whole families locked in their homes and burned to death by the rioters."
"Just as in Palestine in 1929, the lists of the dead and injured run into the hundreds with no official estimates available. The hospitals are filled with Jewish victims and the doors of the hospitals are besieged with half-crazed wives and mothers seeking to ascertain whether their loved ones are among the dead or injured, or whether they succeeded in escaping the pogrom bands".
I've seen estimates of Jews killed from 24 to over 100.
Algerian newspaper Echorouk Online gives a completely different description of the events in an article this week about the "butcher's neighborhood" of Constantine:
The young butcher Ben Amira, telling us about the splendor of the place and its historical charm, spoke about his grandfather who was the first to defend the worshipers in the Constantine catastrophe that occurred in 1934, when a Jew from the Rahbat Al-Souf neighborhood provoked the Muslims by urinating in the courtyard of the Green Mosque. His grandfather quickly responded, planting a dagger in the neck of this Jew, before the great battle between Jews and the Muslims of the city of Constantine broke out, in which knives and machetes of Algerian meat shops were used.
The butchers’ neighborhood was witness to the battle of glory
The spark of events ignited in the mosque, in which Ben Badis was giving his lessons, and it is the Green Mosque in Constantine, located in the neighborhood of butchers, in which Jews and Arabs share the profession of butcher, when a drunk Jew broke into it on a Friday night during the evening prayer, and started cursing the worshipers and claiming that he saw their nakedness, He described them as villains, and it was said, according to what was narrated by Al-Shorouk daily, Sayyid bin Omairah on the authority of his grandfather, that this Jew urinated in the courtyard of the mosque, so they tried to restrain him, but the drunken state of this Jew called Eliyahu Khleifi gave him the freedom to release what was in his heart of hatred, and he began to curse the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace And blessings.
Despite the lawsuit filed by the worshipers with the police services, the Jew refused to comply with the summons, and continued to provoke everyone, accompanied by his wife, in the Rahbat Al-Soof neighborhood and stir up sedition in the Butchers neighborhood, where no sound is louder than the sound of knives, so people gathered at night and some began calling to attack the house of this Jew And they burned it, so the policemen resorted to guarding the Jew's house, so that the rest of the Jews joined the verbal battle and turned it into action, by throwing stones at the Muslims.
The butchers’ neighborhood witnessed the fierce battle, which was announcing the beginning of the end of the Jews in Constantine...
A French policeman asked the Sheikh to extinguish the fire of sedition, and Sheikh Ben Badis replied to him saying that Muslims cannot be patient...
Yes, to Muslims it was a "battle of glory."
Much more about the real story at the Point of No Return blog.
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