When ‘things go wrong’ in Algeria it is often blamed on a Zionist conspiracy. Such a suggestion has been made about the recent revolts that have significantly altered the political physiognomy of Algeria’s neighbours since 2011. While the financial co-opting of state functionaries has damped-down possibilities for popular social change in Algeria the socio-economic demands in the North African popular uprisings elsewhere has seen an increase in the expression of non-dominant claims and forms of expression. This paper is about the complex nature of anti-Jewish prejudice, to the backdrop of such expressions, in contemporary Algeria and representations of the once-was, but now invisible, Algerian Jewish minority. The analysis will examine the socio-historical processes that underlie the perceptions implicit within these and the dynamics of the dominance of a particular kind of thought that opposes the plurality of voices that make up the region’s cultural heritage. In an attempt to listen to Algerian alterity, this survey will attempt to ascertain the significance of contemporary perspectives, often viewed as past, but always re-interpreted in the present, concerning alliance, affective sympathy and opposition to ‘the Jew’, the ‘Other’, and the fellow Israélite or Yahud addzairi - a local term encompassing ethnic and religious components of Judaism. The purpose of this paper is to try and uncover what lies behind these multiple perceptions of Algerian Jews and what they tell us about the techniques of a political system that appears anxious about an urbanized and young population finding a unifying voice by embracing the cultural diversity of its territory and its history. Behind the references to Zionist plotting seeking to infiltrate the Nation, lie, it will be contended, a number of unresolved issues with the past and narratives surrounding the inception of the State that do not necessarily represent ‘the People’. The empirics of the paper will evaluate whether the current climate of change, which recalls the social movements in Algeria at the end of the 1980s, has modified the discourse surrounding the notion of alterity in Algeria today. I propose to do this by concentrating on the representations of the Jew in Algeria in 2012 emanating from official narratives by selecting and reviewing French and Arabic language written press published in Algeria in 2012. I will include in this review conference proceedings, academic output and Algerian film documentaries of the year in which the 50th anniversary of Algerian Independence was celebrated.