After the capture of Laghouat by the French in 1852, the Mozabites concluded a convention in 1853 and accepted to pay an annual contribution of 1,800 francs in return for their independence.

[7] It is not canonically agreed when Jews first came to Southern Algeria, but one theory suggests they were sent there by the Ibadite leadership in the 14th century from Tunisia, as part of a merchant trade route.

They continued as a merchant community, with subsequent waves of immigration during times of anti-Semitism across the Sahara, Europe, and the Middle East.

Unlike their northern Jewish counterparts, many of the Mozabite Berber Jews in Southern Algeria were classified by the French under the “indigenous code”.

Given the diversity of the M'zab Jewish population, the French administration incorporated some “culturally Saharan” but ethnically non-indigenous Jews to the north and gave them citizenship under the Crémieux Decree of 1870.

That perceived distinction by the French between Berber and non-Berber Jews of the Mzab was not a reflection of “technical precision” but rather “a manufactured form of legal difference”.