The Vichy Corruption

I am grateful to Michael Doran, David Pryce-Jones, and Michael Marrus for their kind, generous words about my essay, “The Jews Will Have to Wait,” and for endorsing at least two of its three core arguments: that Operation Torch, the November 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, deserves greater attention both for its broader role in the history of World War II and for its narrower role in how, in the course of that conflict, the United States came to approach the “Jewish question.”

In what follows I mean to concentrate mainly on the second of these issues, that is, the “Jewish question,” before ending with a brief reminder of my third argument: that Torch laid the groundwork for key aspects of U.S. Middle East policy for the following two generations.

I’m especially gratified that all three respondents agree with me that, as I was at pains to detail, Algerian Jews were indeed betrayed by the Allies and specifically by the Americans in the aftermath of Torch’s remarkable military success—a success to which Algerian Jews themselves had signally contributed. To the degree that my respondents demur from my portrayal, their (gently worded) critiques focus principally on the source and the circumstances of that betrayal.