Deputy Dr. Jules Molle, the Mayor of Oran, in Algeria, the French possession in Northern Africa, has died suddenly of heart failure.
Dr. Molle was the leader of the violent antisemitie movement in Oran. He was engaged for years in pogromist activity, the “Petit Oranais” which he owned and edited, preaching murder and pillage against the Jewish population to such an extent that in 1925 the Governor-General of Algeria, M. Violette, instructed the Public Prosecutor to take proceedings against him for incitement. Set fire to the Jewish synagogues and school! Destroy the Jewish houses! Chase out the Jew! were the kind of headlines appearing in the “Petit Oranais” It was as a result of the agitation conducted by the Mayor and his paper that serious anti-Jewish pogroms took place in Oran in 1925, in which two Jews were killed and fifty injured when the Jewish quarter was attacked and troops had to be called out before order was restored
Only last month, the antisemitic agitation conducted by Dr. Molle in Oran had again become so formidable, that questions were asked in the French Parliament about it. Deputies Faure and Fevrier urged the Government to intervene and put a stop to Dr. Molle’s practice of delivering speeches on public functions at which he spoke as Mayor of the City, inciting the people to kill the Jews.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.