Elissa Rhaïs
Elissa Rhaïs, Hebrew: אליסה ראיס, born Rosine Boumendil (12 December 1876 – 18 August 1940) was a Jewish-Algerian writer, who adopted the persona of a Muslim woman, who had escaped from a harem to further her literary career. Her novels were popular in her lifetime, but declined; interest in her life was revived in the 1980s by a claim that all her publications had been ghost-written and that she was illiterate. Biography. Early life. Rosine Boumendil was born on 12 December 1876 in Blida to a Jewish family of modest means. Her father, Jacob, was a baker  and her mother, Mazaltov (née Seror) was a housewife. She went to the local school until the age of twelve, when is placed into domestic service with a Jewish family. She later claimed to have attended the École des Religieuses de la Doctrine Chrétienne, although it did not open until she was in her 20s. She married Moïse Amar, a Rabbi, when she was aged 18. The couple had three children: a daughter, who died at the age of eleven; a son Jacob-Raymond (1902-1987); another daughter Mireille (1908-1930). Jacob-Raymond also became a writer and journalist under  the name of Roland Rhaïs, and was one of the few Algerian Jews to obtain Algerian nationality after independence. Rosine Boumendil and Amar divorced when she was 38 and she remarried a merchant, Mordecai Chemouil. They lived in a villa called the "Villa des Fleurs" in Algiers, where she opened a literary salon. Quickly, she became as a storyteller, claiming that her stories were passed down to her by her mother and grandmother, and therefore are part of the rich folk heritage of her native region. She was encouraged by literary critics, such as Louis Bertrand, to send her stories  to literary magazines. Literary career. In 1919 Boumendil moved to Paris to pursue a literary career. The novelist and critic Louis Bertrand had written a letter of introduction for her to René Doumic, the editor of the "Revue des Deux Mondes," who shortly after published five of her short stories. Subsequently, her first novel, "Saada the Moroccan" was published by Plon, a Parisian publishing house, using for the first time her pseudonym, Elissa Rhaïs. "Saada the Moroccan" was a bestseller, eventually running to twenty-six editions. From this time, Rhaïs began to present herself as a Muslim woman who had  escaped from a harem, but how instrumental she was in this new persona's construction, or indeed whether she wrote the book and the others that followed at all, has been questioned. It has been suggested that her new identity was created as marketing ploy orchestrated by Louis Bertrand and René Doumic; alternatively that it was an invention of Rhaïs herself. From 1919 to 1930, numerous novels, novellas and short stories were published under Elissa Rhaïs' name. Mostly romances that are set in an exotic north African settings featuring female heroines and Muslim culture in the period surrounding the First  World War. Some of her work reflected current affairs: for example "La riffaine" (1929) was a novel set in the Rif War. They were translated into Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish and Russian. Rhaïs did establish a literary salon in Paris, which was frequented by writers such as Colette, Paul Morand, Jean Amrouche, as well as the actress Sarah Bernhardt. There, Rhaïs dressed in combinations of Berber and Muslim clothing, suggesting an exotic background which was popularised with a cultural fascination at the time for all things "Oriental". She spoke out against the emancipation of Arab women, noting in Turkey it had  led to "widespread immorality". Her popularity in France waned from around 1930, which coincided with the death of her daughter and increasing criticism of the persona in Algeria. Rhaïs retired from public life. Later life. During the 1930s, Rhaïs' as popularity waned and she returned to live in Blida and she died there on 18 August 1940. Reception. Whilst popular at the time, her novels were not critically acclaimed. They have been accused of perpetuating stereotypes of Muslim sexuality. Her works were more popular in France than Algeria, but she did have support there from Robert Randau (), a leading literary  figure there. At the time there was some doubt about her authenticity, with the novelist Lucienne Favre, writing:“It seems that in France, we love the Moors in all conditions. This is why there is an old Jewess, a former rabbi's wife, who masquerades as an Arab, and falsely tells stories about our race and our traditions. She thus earns a lot of money, she says." Legacy. Regardless of the situation that the novels were produced in, Rhaïs has an important place in Judeo-Maghrebian literature, as an early female Jewish-Algerian writer. However her life has continued to be  a source of intrigue and fantasy in the media, due to the publication of the novel "Elissa Rhaïs, un roman" and the subsequent television production. The Tabet Affair. In 1982, Paul Tabet, the son of Raoul Tabet, who was both the nephew and the lover of Rhaïs, published at Grasset a book in which he affirmed that his father confessed to him that he was the real author of the novels attributed to Rhaïs. This book caused a sensation in the media and Paul Tabet was interviewed by Bernard Pivot on "Apostrophes" on 7 May 1982. However, the majority of  academic critics specializing in French-speaking Maghreb literature, consider Tabet's allegations to be unlikely. Denise Brahimi, writing in the introduction entitled "Lire Elissa Rhaïs" speaks of "a poor scandal". The TV movie "Le secret d'Elissa Rhaïs" was filmed in 1993 by the director Jacques Otmezguine (), based on the book by Paul Tabet but in a romanticized way.