Maghrebi Jews

Maghrebi Jews
(Magrebim)

Interior of El Ghriba synagogue
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Jews   * Maghrebim   * Sephardi Jews   * Mizrahi Jews   * Ashkenazi Jews

Maghrebi Jews (in Hebrew Maghrebim מַגּרֶבִּים or מַאגרֶבִּים) are Jews who traditionally lived in the Maghreb region of North Africa (al-Maghrib, Arabic for "the west"), established Jewish communities long before the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain; see Alhambra decree. The oldest communities were present by Roman times (in Roman Cyrenaica) as well as in Punic colonies (Carthage).

History

After the dissolution of the Jewish state a great number of Jews were sent by Titus to Mauretania, and many of them settled in Tunis. These settlers were 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. Under the dominion of the Romans and (after 429) of the fairly tolerant Vandals, the Jewish inhabitants of Tunis increased and prospered to such a degree that African Church councils deemed it necessary to enact restrictive laws against them. After the overthrow of the Vandals by Belisarius in 534, Justinian I issued his edict of persecution, in which the Jews were classed with the Arians and heathens.^{[citation needed]}

In the seventh century the Jewish population was largely augmented by Spanish Jewish immigrants, who, fleeing from the persecutions of the Visigothic king Sisebut² and his successors, escaped to the Maghreb and settled in the Byzantine cities. Another migration of Iberian Jews took place in 1492, by the Alhambra decree.

See also

• History of the Jews in Algeria
• History of the Jews in Libya
• History of the Jews in Morocco
• History of the Jews in Tunisia
• History of the Jews in Spain
• History of Jews in France
• Jewish ethnic divisions
• Arab Jews
• Sephardi Jews
• Mizrahi Jews
• Berber Jews
• Hebrew
• Judeo-Arabic
• Judeo-Berber
• Ladino
• Haketia
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands

References

² A l'arrivée des Juifs espagnols : Mutation de la communauté. Richard Ayoun.

[1] Jewish encyclopedia.