Sidi Bel-Abbès (Ar. Sīdī Bil-ʿAbbās), located at an altitude of 470 meters (1,542 feet), is a city in northwestern Algeria, on the Mekerra River, in the center of the vast plain between Jebel Tessala in the north and the Daya Mountains in the south. Initially the site of a French military outpost during the conquest of Algeria, the town of Sidi Bel-Abbès was established in 1849 and remained an important base for the Foreign Legion. Jews from Oran, Tlemcen, and Mascara began to settle there in 1851. There was also a sizable migration of Jews from Morocco, especially from Tetouan. The Jewish co…