Alliance Israélite Universelle
The Alliance israélite universelle is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 with the purpose of safeguarding human rights for Jews around the world. It promotes the ideals of Jewish self-defense and self-sufficiency through education and professional development. The organization is noted for establishing French-language schools for Jewish children throughout the Mediterranean, Iran, and the former Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Door detail of Mikveh Israel, 2009
Entrance to the seat of the Société d'histoire des Juifs de Tunisie and the Alliance israélite universelle in Paris.
Adolphe Crémieux, an early supporter of the Alliance and its president 1863-67 and again 1868-80
Medal by Emmanuel Hannaux for the 50th anniversary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (1910) in the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland, Basel (inv no. JMS 557): Female personification with the symbols of the Alliance. The other side shows Narcisse Leven in profile.
Isaac-Jacob Adolphe Crémieux was a French lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Justice under the Second Republic (1848) and Government of National Defense (1870–1871). Raised Jewish, he served as president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, secured French citizenship for Algerian Jews under French rule through the Crémieux Decree (1870), and was a staunch defender of the rights of the Jews of France.
Adolphe Crémieux portrayed by Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ (1878) Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme
