Schreier works at the intersection of Middle Eastern, Algerian, Jewish, and French histories. His research focuses on North African Jews directly before, and in the first decades of the French occupation of Algeria. He is interested in how the invasion disrupted local commercial networks and alliances, how the occupiers turned to local notables for help and expertise, and how pre-colonial elites continued to exercise influence under the new order.  He also looks at how the French deployed the ideology of “civilization” to consolidate colonial rule, even while local actors co-opted, reformulated, or deflected this ideology. He is the author of Arabs of the Jewish Faith: The Civilizing Mission in Colonial Algeria, and more recently The Merchants of Oran: A Jewish Port at the Dawn of Empire. 

Light Lunch Served.