Berber Jews

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Berber Jews
Udayen Imaziɣen
Berber Jews.jpg
Languages
•Liturgical: Mizrahi Hebrew
•Traditional: Berber; also Judeo-Arabic with Judeo-Berber as a contact language
•Modern: typically the language of whatever country they now reside in, including Modern Hebrew in Israel
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Jews
Mizrahi Jews
Sephardi Jews
Other Jewish groups

Berber Jews are the Jewish communities of the Maghreb, in North Africa, who historically spoke Berber languages. Between 1950 and 1970 most emigrated to France, the United States, or Israel. [1]

Contents

History

Antiquity

Jews have settled in Maghreb since at least the third century BC. [2] According to one theory, which is based on the fourteenth-century writings of Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun and was influential during the 20th century, Berbers adopted Judaism from these arrived Jews before the Arab conquest of North Africa. [2] [3] For example, French historian Eugène Albertini dates the Judaization of certain Berber tribes and their expansion from Tripolitania to the Saharan oases to the end of the 1st century. [4] Marcel Simon for his part, sees the first point of contact between the western Berbers and Judaism in the great Jewish Rebellion of 66–70 CE. [5] Some historians believe, based on the writings of Ibn Khaldoun and other evidence, that some or all of the ancient Judaized Berber tribes later adopted Christianity and afterwards Islam, and it is not clear if they are a part of the ancestry of contemporary Berber-speaking Jews. [6] According to Joseph Chetrit, recent research has shown weaknesses in the evidence supporting Ibn Khaldun's statement, and "seems to support scholars' hypothesis that Jews came to North Africa from ancient Israel after a stay in Egypt and scattered progressively from East to West, from the Middle East to the Atlantic in the Hellenic-Roman Empire". [2]

Islamic period

It is possible that the Barghawata confederacy had a Judeo-Berber background, though accounts of entire Berber tribes practicing Judaism appear later and are unreliable. [7] : 167 

While most Jewish communities from Ifriqiya westward through the Maghreb, the Sahara, and al-Andalus were primarily urban, the indigenous Judeo-Berbers of the western Maghreb lived in villages. [7] : 167 

After the Arab–Israeli War

Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the tensions between the Jewish and Muslim communities increased. [8] Today, the indigenous Berber Jewish community no longer exists in Morocco. The Moroccan Jewish population rests at about 2,200 persons with most residing in Casablanca, [9] some of whom might still be Berber speakers. [10]

Origin

In the past, it would have been very difficult to decide whether these Jewish Berber clans were originally of Israelite descent and had become assimilated with the Berbers in language and some cultural habits or whether they were indigenous Berbers who in the course of centuries had become Jewish through conversion by Jewish settlers. The second theory was developed mainly in the first half of the 20th century, as part of the quest of French colonial authorities to discover and emphasize pre-Islamic customs among the Berber-Muslim population since such customs and ways of life were believed to be more amenable and assimilable to French rule, legitimizing the policy that the Berbers would be governed by their own "customary" law rather than Islamic law.

Consequently, the main proponents of this theory were scholars such as Nahum Slouschz who worked closely with French authorities. [11] Other scholars such as André Goldenberg and Simon Lévy also favoured it. [12]

Franz Boas wrote in 1923 that a comparison of the Jews of North Africa with those of Western Europe and those of Russia "shows very clearly that in every single instance we have a marked assimilation between the Jews and the people among whom they live" and that "the Jews of North Africa are, in essential traits, North Africans". [13]

Haim Hirschberg, a major historian of North African Jewry, questioned the theory of massive Judaization of the Berbers in an article named "The Problem of the Judaized Berbers". One of the points that Hirschberg raised in his article was that Ibn Khaldoun, the source of the Judaized Berbers theory, wrote only that few tribes "might" have been Judaized in ancient times and stated that in the Roman period the same tribes were Christianized. [6]

The theory of a massive Judaization of the Berber population was further dismissed by a 2008 study on mtDNA (transmitted from mother to children). The study carried out by Behar et al. analysed small samples of North African Jews (Libya (83); Morocco (149); Tunisia (37)) indicates that Jews from North Africa lack typically North African Hg M1 and U6 mtDNAs. [14] Hence, according to the authors, the lack of U6 and M1 haplogroups among the North African Jews renders the possibility of significant admixture, as between the local Arab and Berber populations with Jews, unlikely. The genetic evidence shows them to be distinct from Berber populations, but more similar to Ashkenazi Jewish populations. [14]

Later studies showed that haplogroups M1 and U6 are, in fact, carried on rare occasions by North African Jews. For example, a sample collected by Luisa Pereira et al. for their 2010 paper [15] is labeled a "person of Jewish ancestry" from Tunisia who belongs to haplogroup U6a7 [16] and the same study found haplogroup U6a1 in two Jews from Morocco. [17] [18] It remains unclear whether their source ancestors were Berber converts as opposed to Spaniards or others.

Notable people of Berber Jewish ancestry

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berbers</span> Diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa

Berbers or the Berber peoples, also called by their endonym Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arabs in the Arab migrations to the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible, which are part of the Afroasiatic language family. They are indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger. Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medieval Muslim Algeria</span>

Medieval Muslim Algeria was a period of Muslim dominance in Algeria during the Middle Ages, spanning the millennium from the 7th century to the 17th century. The new faith, in its various forms, would penetrate nearly all segments of society, bringing with it armies, learned men, and fervent mystics; in large part, it would replace tribal practices and loyalties with new social norms and political idioms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maghreb</span> Major region of Northern Africa; western half of Arab world

The Maghreb, also known as the Arab Maghreb and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb also includes the disputed territory of Western Sahara. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people.

Tamazgha is a fictitious entity and neologism in the Berber languages denoting the lands traditionally inhabited by the Berber peoples within the Maghreb. The term was coined in the 1970s by the Berber Academy in France and, since the late 1990s, has gained particular significance among speakers of Berber languages. Although Berberists see Tamazgha as the geographic embodiment of a Berber imaginary of a once unified language and culture that had its own territory, it has never been a single political entity, and Berbers across the Maghreb did not see themselves as a single cultural or linguistic unit, nor was there a greater "Berber community" due to their differing cultures and languages. Despite this, certain Berberists such as members of the Algerian separatist Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia use the term to imagine and describe a hypothetical federation spanning between the Canary Islands and the Siwa Oasis, a large swathe of territory including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Egypt, the Western Sahara, Burkina Faso and Senegal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ifriqiya</span> Historic region of Northern Africa

Ifriqiya, also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna, was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia and eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania. It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of Africa Proconsularis and extended beyond it, but did not include the Mauretanias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barghawata</span> Beber tribal confederation in Morocco

The Barghawatas were a Berber tribal confederation on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, belonging to the Masmuda confederacy. After allying with the Sufri Kharijite rebellion in Morocco against the Umayyad Caliphate, they established an independent state in the area of Tamesna on the Atlantic coast between Safi and Salé under the leadership of Tarif al-Matghari.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Africa</span> Ethnic and religious groups history

African Jewish communities include:

The Zenata are a group of Berber tribes, historically one of the largest Berber confederations along with the Sanhaja and Masmuda. Their lifestyle was either nomadic or semi-nomadic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kahina</span> 7th century Berber queen who resisted the Umayyads

Al-Kahina, also known as Dihya, was a Berber queen of the Aurès and a religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, the region then known as Numidia, notably defeating the Umayyad forces in the Battle of Meskiana after which she became the uncontested ruler of the whole Maghreb, before being decisively defeated at the Battle of Tabarka. She was born in the early 7th century AD and died around the end of the 7th century in modern-day Algeria. She is considered one of the most famous figures in the history of the Berber resistance to the Arab conquest in the 7th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Tunisia</span>

The history of the Jews in Tunisia extends nearly two thousand years to the Punic era. The Jewish community in Tunisia is no doubt older and grew up following successive waves of immigration and proselytism before its development was hampered by anti-Jewish measures in the Byzantine Empire. The community formerly used its own dialect of Arabic. After the Muslim conquest of Tunisia, Tunisian Judaism went through periods of relative freedom or even cultural apogee to times of more marked discrimination. The arrival of Jews expelled from the Iberian peninsula, often through Livorno, greatly altered the country. Its economic, social and cultural situation has improved markedly with the advent of the French protectorate before being compromised during the Second World War, with the occupation of the country by the Axis. The Nakba and the creation of Israel in 1948 provoked a widespread anti-Zionist reaction in the Arab world, to which was added nationalist agitation, nationalization of enterprises, Arabization of education and part of the administration. Jews left Tunisia en masse from the 1950s onwards because of the problems raised and the hostile climate created by the Bizerte crisis in 1961 and the Six-Day War in 1967. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the Jewish population of Tunisia, was estimated at about 105,000 individuals in 1948. These Jews lived mainly in Tunis, with communities present in Djerba. The 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom by The U.S Department of State stated that "according to members of the Jewish community, there are approximately 1,500 Jewish citizens in the country".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Moroccan Jews</span>

Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community. Before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, there were about 265,000 Jews in the country, which gave Morocco the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, but by 2017 only 2,000 or so remain. Jews in Morocco, originally speakers of Berber languages, Judeo-Moroccan Arabic or Judaeo-Spanish, were the first in the country to adopt the French language in the mid-19th century, and unlike the Muslim population French remains the main language of members of the Jewish community there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laghouat</span> City in Laghouat Province, Algeria

Laghouat is the capital of the Laghouat Province, Algeria, 400 km (250 mi) south of the Algerian capital Algiers. Located in the Amour Range of the Saharan Atlas, the town is an oasis on the north edge of the Sahara Desert. It is an important administrative and military center and marketplace, and is known for rug and tapestry weaving.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jews of Bilad el-Sudan</span> Historical communities of Jews in West Africa

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moroccans</span> Citizens and nationals of Morocco

Moroccans are the citizens and nationals of the Kingdom of Morocco. The country's population is predominantly composed of Arabs and Berbers (Amazigh). The term also applies more broadly to any people who are of Moroccan nationality, sharing a common culture and identity, as well as those who natively speak Moroccan Arabic or other languages of Morocco.

The Berber Revolt or the Kharijite Revolt of 740–743 AD took place during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate. Fired up by Kharijite puritan preachers, the Berber revolt against their Umayyad Arab rulers began in Tangiers in 740, and was led initially by Maysara al-Matghari. The revolt soon spread through the rest of the Maghreb and across the straits to al-Andalus.

The Berbers are an indigenous ethnic group of the Maghreb region of North Africa. Following the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, most Berber tribes eventually became Muslims. Presently, about one-sixth of the population of Maghreb speaks one of the Berber languages, but most of them also speak some form of Arabic. Berbers are the first non-Arab people to have established an Islamic state.

The Banu Ifran or Ifranids, were a Zenata Berber tribe prominent in the history of pre-Islamic and early Islamic North Africa. In the 8th century, they established a kingdom in the central Maghreb, with Tlemcen as its capital.

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Zawi ibn Ziri as-Sanhaji or Al-Mansur Zawi ibn Ziri ibn Manad as-Sanhaji, was a chief in the Berber Sanhaja tribe. He arrived in Spain in 1000 (391) during the reign of Almanzor. He took part in the rebellion against the Caliphate of Córdoba and settled in the Cora of Elvira with followers from his Sanhaja tribe. He founded the Taifa of Granada, and founded the Zirid dynasty of Granada as its first Emir, reigning from 1013 to 1019.

North African Sephardim are a distinct sub-group of Sephardi Jews, who descend from exiled Iberian Jewish families of the late 15th century and North African Maghrebi Jewish communities.

References

  1. ↑ Shokeid, Moshe. The Dual Heritage: Immigrants from the Atlas Mountains in an Israeli Village.
  2. 1 2 3 Patai, Raphael & Bar-Itzhak, Haya (eds.): Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions, p. 389. M.E. Sharpe, 2013.
  3. ↑ Berber tribes converted to Judaism:
    • "many Berber tribes converted to Judaism". Reuven Firestone, Children of Abraham: an introduction to Judaism for Muslims , Ktav Publishing House, April 2001, p. 138.
    • "In addition, a number of Berber tribes converted to Judaism." Taru Bahl, M.H. Syed. Encyclopaedia of the Muslim World, Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., 2003, p. 50.
    • "...entire Berber tribes converted to Judaism." Marvine Howe. Morocco: the Islamist awakening and other challenges, Oxford University Press US, 2005, p. 184.
    • "...they had mounting influence among the Berber tribes of North Africa, some of which were converted to Judaism." Michael Maas. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 411.
    • "a significant number of North African Jews descend from Berber tribes who converted to Judaism in late antiquity." Daniel J. Schroeter, Vivian B. Mann. Morocco: Jews and art in a Muslim land, Merrell, 2000, p. 27.
    • "It was in response to this violent repression that many Cyrenaican Jews fled deep into the Sahara and lived there among the Berber tribes, some of whom they later converted to Judaism". Martin Gilbert. In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, McClelland & Stewart, 2010, p. 4.
    • "Their influence spread among the pagan Berber population so that by the sixth century many Berber tribes had converted to Judaism. In some cases entire Berber tribes in the Atlas Mountains became Judaized." Ken Blady. Jewish communities in exotic places, Jason Aronson, 2000, p. 294.
  4. ↑ Eugène Albertini, L'empire romain, 1929, p.165
  5. ↑ Marcel Simon, « Le judaïsme berbère dans l'Afrique ancienne », in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuse, XXVI, 1946, p.69
  6. 1 2 Hirschberg, H. Z. (1963). "The Problem of the Judaized Berbers". The Journal of African History . 4 (3). Cambridge University Press: 313–339. doi:10.1017/s0021853700004278. JSTOR   180026. S2CID   162261998.
  7. 1 2 Bennison, Amira K. (2016). The Almoravid and Almohad Empires. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN   978-0-7486-4681-4. JSTOR   10.3366/j.ctvhrczbp.
  8. ↑ "Return to Morocco". www.aljazeera.com. Archived from the original on 2017-09-24. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  9. ↑ "Jews in Islamic Countries: Morocco". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 2020-08-22.
  10. ↑ "Return to Morocco". www.aljazeera.com. Archived from the original on 2017-09-24. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  11. ↑ Schroeter, Daniel J. (2008). "The Shifting Boundaries of Moroccan Jewish Identities" (PDF). Jewish Social Studies . 15 (1): 148.
  12. ↑ Goldenberg, André (1992). Les juifs du Maroc. Paris: Editions du Scribe. ISBN   2-86765-013-5.
  13. ↑ Franz Boas, Are the Jews a Race?, The World of Tomorrow, 1923, reprinted in Race and Democratic Society, New York, Augustin, 1945, pp. 39–41
  14. 1 2 Behar, Doron M.; et al. (2008). "Counting the Founders. The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora". PLoS ONE . 3 (4): e2062. Bibcode:2008PLoSO...3.2062B. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002062 . PMC   2323359 . PMID   18446216.
  15. ↑ Pereira, Luisa; et al. (December 21, 2010). "Population expansion in the North African Late Pleistocene signalled by mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6". BMC Evolutionary Biology . 10 (1). BioMed Central: 390. Bibcode:2010BMCEE..10..390P. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-10-390 . PMC   3016289 . PMID   21176127.
  16. ↑ GenBank Accession number:  HQ651709.1
  17. ↑ GenBank Accession number:  HQ651705.1
  18. ↑ GenBank Accession number:  HQ651708.1
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