Maghrebi Jews

Antiquity The Jewish community of Ifran, from the Tamazight word ifri meaning cavern, is supposed to date back to 361 BCE and is believed to be the oldest Jewish community in what is now Morocco. Jewish communities settled in Cyrenaica, the eastern coastal region of Libya, as early as the 3rd century BCE. This migration is linked to the policies of Ptolemy I, a successor of Alexander the Great and the first ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt. After Jewish defeat in the First Jewish–Roman War in 70 CE, Roman General Titus deported many Jews to Mauretania, which roughly corresponds to the modern Maghreb, and many of them settled in what is now Tunisia. These settlers engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising, and trade. They were divided into clans, or tribes, governed by their respective heads, and had to pay the Romans a capitation tax of 2 shekels. The Jewish diaspora uprising of 115–117 CE led to a major defeat for the Jews, resulting in the near-total destruction of Jewish communities in Cyrenaica and Egypt. By the third century, Jewish communities began to re-establish themselves in Cyrenaica and Egypt, primarily through immigration from the Land of Israel. In the area of Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, the earliest evidence of Jews is found in inscriptions from the second century CE. After 429 CE, with the fairly tolerant Vandals, the Jewish residents of the North African province increased and prospered to such a degree that African Church councils decided to enact restrictive laws against them. Berber lands east of Alexandria were relatively tolerant and were historically very welcoming for Christians and Jews during the Roman Empire notably. After the overthrow of the Vandals by Belisarius in 534 CE, Justinian I issued his edict of persecution, in which the Jews were classed with the Arians and s. A community settled in Djerba island off the coast of southern Tunisia during the Roman period. Mainly composed of Cohanim, they notably built the Ghriba synagogue with stones coming directly from Jerusalem. 'La Ghriba' is still to this day annually visited by many North African Jews. Early Muslim rule Under Muslim domination Jewish communities developed in important urban centers such as Kairouan and coastal cities of Tunisia, in Tlemcen, Béjaïa and Algiers in the Central Maghreb and as far as in the extreme Maghreb (modern Morocco) especially Fes and in the Atlas Mountains among the Berber populations. The relationships between Muslims and Jews in the Maghreb were relatively good thanks to the Al Andalus peaceful era, until the ascension of the Almohades, who persecuted non-Muslims to a large extent during their early reign. Later Jews were relatively well treated by the Berber Muslim dynasties, namely the Merinids, Zianides and Zirides. In the seventh century, the Jewish population was augmented by Iberian Jewish immigrants, who, fleeing from the persecutions of the Visigothic king Sisebut and his successors, escaped to the Maghreb and settled in the local Byzantine Empire. Fez and Tunis, respectively in Morocco and Tunisia, became important Sephardic rabbinical centers, well until the early 20th century, when most Jewish populations emigrated to Israel, France, Canada and Latin America. Following the massacre of 1391 in Spain, a significant migration of Jews and conversos moved from Iberia and Mallorca to North Africa, including notable rabbis like Isaac ben Sheshet and Simon ben Zemach Duran. The latter, having fled to Algiers, became chief rabbi and authored influential works on Jewish law, philosophy, and science, including Magen Avot, which addresses topics such as physiology, psychology, and natural philosophy. The migration from Spain increased in the latter part of the 15th century due to anti-Converso violence in 1473 and the intensification of the Spanish Inquisition in the 1480s, which led to the expulsion of Jews from Andalusia. As Spanish military forces advanced into Málaga and Granada, many Jews from these regions sought refuge in Morocco and Algiers. Some newcomers integrated into existing communities, while others remained separate due to cultural and leadership differences. The reception of these exiles was shaped more by local conditions and less by religious ideology. Political protection and social status were often precarious, with frequent outbreaks of violence and economic pressures impacting both Jews and Muslims. The Counter-Reformation, being a movement to preserve and strengthen the Catholic influence on society, was opposed not only to Protestantism but to any non-Catholic belief that was seen as a threat to the Catholic society. Thus, the Jews of Spain overwhelmingly moved directly south to the Maghreb Region of North Africa and quickly prospered. == Recent history ==

World War II and the Holocaust countries On the eve of World War II, 400,000 Jews resided in the Maghreb; throughout this time, each country differed in its treatment of its respective Jewish population. Tunisia was the only country with direct contact with the German army; Germany occupied the country for six months from 1942 to 1943 until it was recaptured by the Allied forces. After Morocco declared independence in 1956, most of the 225,000 Jews in Morocco emigrated to Israel, France and Canada. Maghrebi Jews, along with other Mizrahi Jews and Sephardi Jews, did not begin to arrive in masses, though some of the Maghrebi Jews were already in Israel by the 18th century and onwards, like who had laid the foundations to Tel-Aviv; in Israel until after Israel was established as a state. The early Zionists tended to be secular, as Zionism (as Herzl founded it) was a secular nationalist movement that recognized Jews as a whole Nation, and saw the Land of Israel as the ancestral homeland of the Jews. In the mid 20th Century, the Arab World (in this case North Africa) began to undergo some vast internal changes. The notion of Pan-Arabism came about in the earlier years of the 20th Century, and the cultural, linguistic, and political influences of European colonial powers in the region began to sharply decline. As Arab unity increased, so did the opposition to any form of colonialism. With this new sentiment, the 20th century North African and Arab countries heavily opposed Zionism and many Arab leaders saw the movement as simply a continuation of European colonialism, due to the vast majority of early Zionist migrants coming from Europe. and due to falafel's origins in the Middle East and North Africa, Maghrebi Jews, along with other Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, played an enormous role in making falafel an Israeli staple. Mizrahi music, one of Israel's most popular genres, carries a lot of influence from Maghrebi Jews. Some popular Mizrahi music singers of Maghrebi descent include: Eyal Golan, Sarit Hadad, Moshe Peretz, Dana International, Zehava Ben, and Kobi Peretz, all of Moroccan descent. Religiously, Maghrebi Jews (along with Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews as a whole) are heavily classified as Masortim, contrasting Israelis of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, whom are more secular. Politically, Maghrebi Jews tend to vote Likud. == Communities ==

Morocco Morocco, the North African nation with the largest Jewish population both at the start of the 20th Century and today, had a Jewish population of ~275,000 at its peak around the time of the establishment of Israel. A significant number of Moroccan Jews are descendants of the Berber-speaking Jews who once lived in the Atlas Mountains. Since the expulsion from Spain after 1492, Moroccan Jews shared many customs of everyday life and a common spoken language (Berber or Moroccan Arabic) with their Muslim neighbours, which led to a rich mutual cultural heritage of music, poetry, food and crafts. After the establishment of Israel, a mass exodus of the Jewish population began and the vast majority of Moroccan Jews emigrated to Israel, as very few Moroccan Jews had left before to Mandatory Palestine. but most Algerian Jews trace a significant amount of their history back to the culture of al-Andalus. Since 1848, Algeria had been part of the French motherland, and with the 1870 Crémieux Decree Algerian Jews were granted French citizenship. Meanwhile, the indigenous Muslim Arab and Berber populations remained under second-class status, giving rise to Muslim friction that culminated in the 1934 Constantine riots. After the German invasion of France, Algeria came under Vichy rule: Jews had their French citizens’ rights taken away, were sacked from public service jobs and subject to quotas and restrictions. The Crémieux Decree and thereby Jewish citizenship were reinstated after World War II, keeping Algerian Jews committed to their French status throughout the Algerian War, in which an estimated 1.5 million Algerians were killed. In the wake of the war, while most Algerian Muslims supported the independence, the majority of the Algerian Jews tied their fate to France with many of them supporting and even joining the OAS. and the assassination of popular singer Cheikh Raymond on a public market in Constantine in June 1961. At the time of World War II, there were around 130,000 Jews living in Algeria. More recently, their number is estimated by the United States Department of State at less than 200. Algerian Jews are unique in that they are the only community of North African Jews that did not overwhelmingly emigrate to Israel during the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries; instead, the majority of Algerian Jews chose France as their destination. Their "repatriation" represents a unique case in the history of Jewish migration given that even though they were psychologically uprooted, they "returned" to France as citizens and not as refugees. before implementing a regime of forced-labor, property confiscation, hostage-taking, mass extortion, deportations, and executions. Thousands of countryside Jews were forced to wear the yellow badge, but none were transported to the extermination camps in Eastern Europe due to the distance from Tunisia as well as the short time span of the German occupation, which ended in May 1943. While Habib Bourguiba continuously worked to reassure the Jews of their safe and equal position within Tunisian society, going so far as to include a Jewish nationalist, Albert Bessis, in his first cabinet, he failed to curb the increasing instances of violent anti-Jewish outburst, particularly following the Six-Day War in 1967, when the Grand Synagogue of Tunis was looted and burned to the ground. The number of Tunisian Jews decreased to around 20,000 by 1967. A further 7,000 Jews immigrated to France. As of 2021, the population of Jews in Tunisia is numbered at around 1,000. Libya circa 1930 Libyan Jews are the smallest community of all Maghrebi Jews, yet the community is still rich in history, tradition, and culture. The history of Libyan Jews is one that is approximately 2,300 years old, and the population of Jews in Libya peaked at around 40,000 in 1945. As Libya was occupied by Italy throughout most of the first half of the 20th century, the racial laws that targeted Jews and minimized their freedoms were enacted in Libya. As the Italians enacted laws that directly exploited and suppressed Jews, the Jews of Libya were more welcoming to the arrival of the Allies of World War II's entering Libya. Italy saw the Jews as enemies, and Mussolini sought to cleanse Libya of its Jewish population, a movement called Sfollamento. Through the movement of Sfollamento, Libyan Jews were sent to concentration camps; the location of those camps depended on if they had British, French, or Libyan-Italian citizenship. Libya was liberated by the Allies in January 1943, but even with the eradication of the racial laws, the conditions for Jews did not improve a whole lot. Anti-semitism was widespread amongst a Libyan culture that had just been heavily influenced by fascism; as a result, the vast majority of Libyan Jews emigrated, primarily to Israel once it was established as a state. Today, there are no more Jews living in Libya. == Genetics ==

In 2012, a study by Campbel et al. found that North African Jews were more closely related to each other and to European and Middle Eastern Jews than to their non-Jewish host populations. The genome-wide ancestry of North African Jewish groups was compared with respect to European (Basque), Maghrebi (Tunisian non-Jewish), and Middle Eastern (Levant) origins. The Middle Eastern component was found to be comparable across all North African Jewish and non-Jewish groups (around 40%), while North African Jewish groups showed increased European (35-40%) and decreased level of North African (Maghrebi) ancestry (20%) with Moroccan and Algerian Jews tending to be genetically closer to Europeans than Djerban Jews, the latter being a highly endogamous group. ==See also==