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118-600: The vast majority of Tunisian Jews have relocated to Israel and have shifted to Hebrew as their home language . Those in France typically use French as their primary language, while the few still left in Tunisia tend to use either French or Tunisian Arabic in their everyday lives. Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is one of the Judeo-Arabic languages , a collection of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in

236-562: A special garb, with a yellow cloth for a head-covering . The living conditions of the Jews in Tunisia were relatively favorable during the reign of the Aghlabids and then Fatimid dynasties . Of the three principal Jewish communities that came into prominence by the 10th century, Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia) was the first to flourish, beginning with the establishment of the Shi'ite caliphate of

354-705: A "Scholars’ Forum" ( בימת חוקרים ) on "The Jewish Languages – the Common, the Unique and the Problematic" ( הלשונות היהודיות – המשותף, המיוחד והבעייתי ) with articles from Chaim Menachem Rabin " מה מייחד את הלשונות היהודיות " ('What Distinguishes the Jewish Languages') and Yehoshua Blau " הערבית-היהודית הקלאסית " ('Classical Judeo-Arabic'). This project explicitly sought to describe the Arabic of Jews as

472-477: A Jewish governor, and the political influence of the Jews made itself felt in the administration of the country. Especially prosperous at that time was the community of Kairwan ( Kairouan ), which was established soon after the foundation of that city by Uqba bin Nafi in the year 670. Nevertheless, the attitude of Islamic authorities regarding ghiyār (differentiation of non-Muslims from Muslims) begun to harden and in

590-623: A common dialect. Baghdad Jewish Arabic is reminiscent of the dialect of Mosul . For example, "I said" is qeltu in the speech of Baghdadi Jews and Christians, as well as in Mosul and Syria, as against Muslim Baghdadi gilit . Some Judeo-Arabic writers, such as Maimonides, were able to switch between varieties of Judeo-Arabic and the Standard Arabic dialect. Like other Jewish languages and dialects, Judeo-Arabic languages contain borrowings from Hebrew and Aramaic . This feature

708-680: A distinct, Jewish language, equating it with Yiddish . According to Esther-Miriam Wagner, the case of Judeo-Arabic reified a Zionist 'Arab vs. Jew' dichotomy. The Arabic spoken by Jewish communities in the Arab world differed from the Arabic of their non-Jewish neighbors. Particularly in its later forms, Judeo-Arabic contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic, such as grammar, vocabulary, orthography, and style. For example, most Jews in Egypt lived in Cairo and Alexandria and they shared

826-715: A few kharjas with a combination of Hebrew and Arabic. During the 15th century, as Jews, especially in North Africa, gradually began to identify less with Arabs, Judeo-Arabic would undergo significant changes and become Later Judeo-Arabic. This coincided with increased isolation of Jewish communities and involved greater influence of Hebrew and Aramaic features. Some of the most important books of medieval Jewish thought were originally written in medieval Judeo-Arabic, as were certain halakhic works and biblical commentaries. Later they were translated into medieval Hebrew so that they could be read by contemporaries elsewhere in

944-605: A first development entirely devoted to the history of this community. In Tunisia, following the thesis of Abdelkrim Allagui, a group under the direction of Habib Kazdaghli and Abdelhamid Largueche brought the subject into the field of national academic research. Founded in Paris on June 3, 1997, the Society of Jewish History of Tunisia contributes to the research on the Jews of Tunisia and transmits their history through conferences, symposia and exhibitions. According to Michel Abitbol ,

1062-688: A minority of the Jews of Tunisia. On the other hand, indigenous elites didn't wish to give up their power to newcomers, unlike their Maghreb neighbors, probably due to the later arrival of the Granas in Tunisia. The Granas also differed geographically from the Tuansa, settling in the European district of Tunis, thus avoiding the Hara , and more culturally approach the Europeans than their co-religionists. However,

1180-562: A modest social position. This is why, contrary to what was happening elsewhere in the Maghreb, these new populations were hardly accepted, which gradually leads to the division of the Jewish community into two groups. In this context, the Jews played a major role in the economic life of the country, in commerce and crafts, but also in trading and banking. Despite the tariffs being higher than those paid by Muslim or Christian traders (10% vs. 3%),

1298-403: A night in either of these cities; and only by special permission of the governor were they allowed to enter them during the day. Although the difficulty of the economic context leads to a surge of probabilism , the triumph of Maliki Sunnism with little tolerance towards the "people of the book" meant material and spiritual misery. The massive settlement of Jewish-Spanish scholars fleeing from

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1416-662: A number of religious writings by Saadia Gaon , Maimonides and Judah Halevi , were originally written in Judeo-Arabic, as this was the primary vernacular language of their authors. Jewish use of Arabic in Arabia predates Islam . There is evidence of a Jewish Arabic dialect, similar to general Arabic but including some Hebrew and Aramaic lexemes, called al-Yahūdiyya , predating Islam. Some of these Hebrew and Aramaic words may have passed into general usage, particularly in religion and culture, though this pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic

1534-685: A saddle. From the 16th century Tunisia and more particularly Tunis had an influx of Sephardi Jewish families, who initially settled in Livorno ( Tuscany , Italy), and who later moved to work in other trading centers. These new settlers, called granas in Arabic or gorneyim (Hebrew: גורנים ) in Hebrew after the name of the city in both languages, were wealthier than the Jewish natives called tuansa . They spoke and wrote in Italian but gradually adopted

1652-453: A separate cemetery. This state of affairs was endorsed by a takkanah (rabbinic decree) signed in July 1741 between the great rabbis Abraham Taïeb and Isaac Lumbroso . This agreement was renewed in 1784 before being annulled in 1899. This takkanah sets, among other rules, the fact that every Israelite from a Muslim country was attached to the Tuansa, while every Israelite from a Christian country

1770-491: A steady influx of Jewish immigrants from the Levant to the end of the eleventh century, and their communities participated in these economic and intellectual exchanges. Monopolizing the goldsmiths' and jewelers' crafts, they also worked in the textile industry, as tailors, tanners and shoemakers, while the smallest rural communities practiced agriculture (saffron, henna, vine, etc.) or breeding of nomadic animals. The departure of

1888-524: A tradition, the Jews of the island of Djerba are the descendants of that tribe. In 793 Imam Idris was poisoned at the command of caliph Harun al-Rashid (it is said, by the governor's physician Shamma, probably a Jew), and circa 800 the Aghlabite dynasty was established. Under the rule of this dynasty, which lasted until 909, the situation of the Jews in Tunis was very favorable. As of old, Bizerta had

2006-514: Is Arabic , in its formal and vernacular varieties, as it has been used by Jews , and refers to both written forms and spoken dialects. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam , has been in some ways distinct from its use by other religious communities, it is not a uniform linguistic entity. Varieties of Arabic formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arab world have been, in modern times, classified as distinct ethnolects . Under

2124-490: Is Nissim B. Ya‘aqov b. Nissim ibn Shahin of Kairouan (990–1062) [1] . An influential rabbinical personality of his time, Nissim of Kairouan wrote a collection of folks stories intended for moral encouragement, at the request of his father-in-law on the loss of his son. Nissim wrote "An Elegant Compilation concerning Relief after Adversity" ( Al-Faraj ba‘d al-shidda) first in an elevated Judeo-Arabic style following Sa‘adia Gaon's coding and spelling conventions and later translated

2242-567: Is a term for non-Muslims, originally Jews and Christians as People of the Book , living an Islamic state and refers to the state's obligation to protect the lives of these communities as well as their freedom of religion and right to administer their own laws in certain regards (i.e. the Jewish halakhic courts), in return for the payment of the jizya , the poll tax. Jews were economically, culturally and linguistically integrated into society, while retaining their cultural and religious peculiarities. If it

2360-613: Is also Judeo-Arabic videos on YouTube . A collection of over 400,000 of Judeo-Arabic documents from the 6th-19th centuries was found in the Cairo Geniza . The movie Farewell Baghdad would be released in 2013 entirely in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic Judeo-Arabic orthography uses a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet called the Judeo-Arabic script. It is written from right to left horizontally like

2478-539: Is believed to be vulnerable with only 500 speakers in Tunisia and with about 45,000 speakers in Israel Language variations: In Tunisia, geography plays a huge role in how Judeo-Tunisian Arabic varies between speakers. In fact, Tunisian Judeo-Arabic can vary depending on the region in which it is spoken. Accordingly, the main dialects of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic are: In addition, Judeo-Tunisian can vary within

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2596-564: Is clear that the purpose of the patch was not merely ghiyār, but also dhull (humiliation) in keeping with the koranic injunction (Sura 9:29) that non-Muslims should be humbled. A period of reaction set in with the accession of the Zirite Al-Mu'izz (1016–62), who persecuted all heterodox sects, as well as the Jews. The persecution was especially detrimental to the prosperity of the Kairwan community, and members thereof began to emigrate to

2714-497: Is less marked in translations of the Bible , as the authors clearly took the view that the business of a translator is to translate. Most literature in Judeo-Arabic is of a Jewish nature and is intended for readership by Jewish audiences. There was also widespread translation of Jewish texts from languages like Yiddish and Ladino into Judeo-Arabic, and translation of liturgical texts from Aramaic and Hebrew into Judeo-Arabic. There

2832-757: Is slow, arabization is faster in urban areas, following the arrival of Jews from the East in the wake of the Arabs , and in the wealthy classes. In 788, when Idris I of Morocco proclaimed Mauritania 's independence of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad , the Tunisian Jews joined his army under the leadership of their chief, Benjamin ben Joshaphat ben Abiezer. They soon withdrew, however; primarily because they were loath to fight against their coreligionists of other parts of Mauritania, who remained faithful to

2950-589: 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,

3068-679: The Castile in 1391 and again in 1492 was mainly carried out in Algeria and Morocco , and the Tunisian Jews, abandoned by this phenomenon, were led to consult Algerian scholars such as Simeon ben Zemah Duran . In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Jews of Tunis were treated more cruelly than those elsewhere in the Maghreb. While refugees from Spain and Portugal flocked to Algeria and Morocco , only some chose to settle in Tunis. The Tunisian Jews had no eminent rabbis or scholars and had to consult those of Algeria or Morocco on religious questions. In

3186-605: The Hafsid dynasty , which was established in 1236 as a breakaway from the Almohad dynasty , the condition of the Jews improved. Jews could again practice their religion and thus reconstituted the communities that existed before the Almohad period. Systematic persecution, social exclusion and hindrance to worship disappeared, but the dhimma was strict, especially in matters of dress. The Hafsids followed late Almohad practice and forced

3304-496: The ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encompassing four languages: Judeo-Moroccan Arabic (aju), Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (jye), Judeo-Egyptian Arabic (yhd), and Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic (yud). Judeo-Arabic, particularly in its later forms, contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic. Many significant Jewish works, including

3422-671: 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 Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948 and following 1948 Arab–Israeli War provoked a widespread anti-Zionist reaction in

3540-693: The Israel Folktale Archives in University of Haifa , the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Ben Zvi Institute , collect material evidence (traditional clothing, embroidery, lace, jewelry, etc.), traditions (folk tales, liturgical songs, etc.) and manuscripts as well as Judeo-Arabic books and newspapers. Paul Sebag is the first to provide in his 1991 book History of the Jews of Tunisia: from origins to our days

3658-557: The Jarawa and Nefzaouas quoted were of Christian confession before the arrival of Islam . In any case, even if the hypothesis of the massive conversion of whole tribes appears fragile, individual conversions seem more probable. With the Arab conquest and the arrival of Islam in Tunisia in the eighth century, the " People of the Book " (including Jews and Christians) were given a choice between conversion to Islam (which some Jewish Berbers have done) and legal status as dhimmi . The dhimmi

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3776-471: The Pagans Stigmatized again, they are excluded from any public office, their synagogues were to be transformed into churches, their worship is proscribed and their meetings forbidden, though the legislation was hardly enforced. If the emperor Maurice attempts to repeal these measures, his successors return there and an imperial edict imposes baptism on them. Nevertheless, in the 7th century,

3894-592: The Roman Empire , the Jews of Roman Africa were romanized after hundreds of years of subjection and would have adopted Latinized names, worn togas , and spoken Latin. According to St. Augustine , only their morals, modeled by Jewish religious precepts ( circumcision , kashrut , observance of Shabbat , modesty of dress ), distinguish them from the rest of the population. On the intellectual level, they devote themselves to translation for Christian clients and to

4012-523: The Romans a capitation tax of 2 shekels . Under the dominion of the Romans and (after 429) of the fairly tolerant Vandals , the Jews of Tunis increased and prospered to such a degree that early African church councils deemed it necessary to enact restrictive laws against them. Al-Qayrawani relates that at the time of the conquest of Hippo Zaritus (Arabic: Bizerta ) by Hasan ibn al-Nu'man in 698

4130-481: The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain such as Judah Halevi , composed poetry with Arabic. The muwaššaḥ , an Andalusi genre of strophic poetry, typically included kharjas , or closing lines often in a different language. About half of the corpus of the more than 250 known muwaššaḥāt in Hebrew have kharjas in Arabic, compared to roughly 50 with Hebrew kharjas , and about 25 with Romance. There are also

4248-468: The messiah had not come, they were to be forced to embrace Islam . Accordingly, Jews as well as Christians were compelled either to embrace Islam or to leave the country. 'Abd al-Mu'min's successors pursued the same course, and their severe measures resulted either in emigration or in forcible conversions. Soon becoming suspicious of the sincerity of the new converts, the Almohadis compelled them to wear

4366-536: The qaid charge of the Jews (qdyd el yihud) and that of Receiver General of Finance under the authority of the Treasurer of the Kingdom (khaznadar). He was an intermediary between the bey and his community and therefore enjoyed entry to the court. He had a very important bureaucratic power over those co-religionaries in whom he apportioned the payment of the jizya – of which they were collectively liable – according to

4484-563: The souks of Tunis , thus shipping imported products from Europe under the leadership of a Muslim amine, or in the Jewish quarter. In 1710, a century of friction between the two groups led to a coup de force of the Livornese community, with a tacit agreement of the authorities. By creating its own community institutions, it creates a schism with the indigenous population. Each of them had their council of notables, their grand rabbi, their rabbinical court , synagogues, schools, butcher's shop and

4602-573: The 2nd or 4th century, was discovered in Naro (present Hammam Lif ) in 1883. The mosaic covering the floor of the main hall, which includes a Latin inscription mentioning sancta synagoga naronitana ("holy synagogue of Naro") and motifs practiced throughout Roman Africa, testified to the ease of its members and the quality of their exchanges with other populations. Other Jewish communities are attested by epigraphic or literary references to Utique, Chemtou, Hadrumète or Thusuros (present Tozeur ). As elsewhere in

4720-651: The 3rd–5th century CE was discovered by the French captain Ernest De Prudhomme in his Hammam-Lif residence in 1883 called in Latin as sancta synagoga naronitana ("holy synagogue of Naro"). After the fall of the Second Temple , many exiled Jews settled in Tunis and engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising, and trade. They were divided into clans governed by their respective heads ( mokdem ), and had to pay

4838-644: The Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza . Shohat identifies linguist Yehoshua Blau as a key figure in the development of the notion of Judeo-Arabic, within what she describes as a Zionist linguistic project invested in prioritizing the uniqueness and separateness of isolatable ' Jewish languages '. Shohat cites the first issue of the Israeli journal Pe'amim , which featured

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4956-538: The Arab world. A Jewish community existed in what is today Tunisia even prior to Roman rule in Africa . After the Arabic conquest of North Africa , this community began to use Arabic for their daily communication. They had adopted the pre-Hilalian dialect of Tunisian Arabic as their own dialect. As Jewish communities tend to be close-knit and isolated from the other ethnic and religious communities of their countries, their dialect spread to their coreligionists all over

5074-630: The Beylic Court, they performed executive functions of court – collectors of taxes, treasurers and intermediaries without authority over Muslims – and noble professions in medicine, finance or diplomacy. Even if they settled in the same neighborhoods, they had virtually no connection with the Tuansa, to which Jews from the rest of the Mediterranean Basin have assimilated. The Tuansa spoke the Judeo-Tunisian dialect, and occupied

5192-485: The Fatimids in 909. The Fatimids, in general, were more tolerant towards dhimmi subjects than interpretations in orthodox Sunni Islam. Jews were employed in the civil service, sumptuary laws for non-Muslims were repealed, and the discriminatory tariffs were not imposed. Jews worked in the service of the dynasty, as treasurers, doctors, or tax collectors but their situation remained precarious. Kairouan (Qayrawan), now

5310-464: The Fatimids to Egypt in 972 led their Zirid vassals to seize power and eventually break their bonds of political and religious submission in the middle of the eleventh century. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym , were sent in retaliation against Tunisia by the Fatimids, took Kairouan in 1057 and plundered it, which empties it of all its population then plunges it into the doldrums. Combined with

5428-454: The Granas managed to control and prosper trade with Livorno. Their trading houses also engaged in credit banking activities and participated in the purchase of Christian slaves captured by privateers and resold. The Tuansa saw themselves conceding the monopoly of the leather trade by the Muradid and then Husainid beys . Jews who were traveling as Tunisians worked in the retail trade in

5546-604: The Hebrew alphabet. By around 800 CE, most Jews within the Islamic Empire (90% of the world's Jews at the time) were native speakers of Arabic like the populations around them. This led to the development of early Judeo-Arabic. The language quickly became the central language of Jewish scholarship and communication, enabling Jews to participate in the greater epicenter of learning at the time, which meant that they could be active participants in secular scholarship and civilization. The widespread usage of Arabic not only unified

5664-467: The Jewish community located throughout the Islamic Empire but also facilitated greater communication with other ethnic and religious groups, which led to important manuscripts of polemic, like the Toledot Yeshu , being written or published in Arabic or Judeo-Arabic. By the 10th century Judeo-Arabic would transition from Early to Classical Judeo-Arabic. In al-Andalus , Jewish poets associated with

5782-702: The Jewish population was augmented by Spanish immigrants, who, fleeing from the persecutions of the Visigothic king Sisebut and his successors, escaped to Mauritania and settled in Byzantine cities. Some Jews have fled the Byzantine-controlled cities to settle in the mountains or on the confines of the desert and fight there with the support of the Berber tribes, many of whom would have been won by their proselytism. According to other historians,

5900-462: The Jewish world, and by others who were literate in Hebrew. These include: Sharch ( šarḥ , pl. šurūḥ , šarḥanim ) is a literary genre consisting of the translation of sacred texts, such as Bible translations into Arabic , the Talmud or siddurim , which were composed in Hebrew and Aramaic, into Judeo-Arabic, prevalent starting in the 15th century, and exhibiting a number of mixed elements. The term sharḥ sometimes came to mean "Judeo-Arabic" in

6018-459: The Jews a privileged status confirmed by the Magna Charta pro Judaeis under the Roman Empire . These Jews were joined by Jewish pilgrims , expelled from Rome for proselytizing, 20 by a number of defeated in the First Jewish–Roman War , deported and resold as slaves in North Africa, and also by Jews fleeing the repression of revolts in Cyrenaica and Judea under the reigns of the emperors Domitian , Trajan , and Hadrian . According to Josephus,

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6136-402: The Jews and collection of Jewish taxes . Three kinds of taxes were imposed on Tunisian Jews: In addition to these, every Jewish tradesman and industrialist had to pay an annual tax to the guild . After the 13th century, taxes were collected by a qaid , who also served as an intermediary between the government and the Jews. His authority within the Jewish community was supreme. The members of

6254-429: The Jews of Tunisia (until the establishment of the French protectorate) was first studied by David Cazès in 1888 in his Essay on the History of the Israelites of Tunisia ; André Chouraqui (1952) and later by Haim Zeev Hirschberg (1965), in the more general context of North African Judaism . The research on the subject was then enriched by Robert Attal and Yitzhak Avrahami. In addition, various institutions, including

6372-406: The Jews, who were the only non-Muslim religionists left, to wear yellow turban and garments and caliph Muhammad I al-Mustansir renewed these regulations in 1250. The yellow patch Tunisian Jews wore from this time until the nineteenth century became so emblematic that they became commonly referred to as shikliyyun . Besides Kairwan, there were at that time important communities in Mehdia , Kalaa ,

6490-410: The Judaization of the Berbers would have taken place four centuries earlier, with the arrival of Jews fleeing the repression of the Cyrenaic revolt; The transition would have been made progressively through a Judeo-Pagan syncretism with the cult of Tanit , still anchored after the fall of Carthage. Whatever the hypothesis, the historian of the fourteenth century Ibn Khaldun confirms their existence on

6608-464: The Muslims sometimes did. Moreover, they were periodically obliged to carry out public works and were subjected to forced labor which affected mainly the poorest of the communities. Regarding dress code, the chechia that served as their headdress had to be black and wrapped in a dark turban, unlike the Muslims who wore a red chechia surrounded by a white turban. The Granas, dressed in European fashion, wore wigs and round hats like Christian merchants. At

6726-492: The Pentateuch. This period includes a wide array of literary works. Scholars assume that Jewish communities in Arabia spoke Arabic as their vernacular language, and some write that there is evidence of the presence of Hebrew and Aramaic words in their speech, as such words appear in the Quran and might have come from contact with these Arabic-speaking Jewish communities. Before the spread of Islam, Jewish communities in Mesopotamia and Syria spoke Aramaic, while those to

6844-434: The Romans deported 30,000 Jews to Carthage from Judea after the First Jewish-Roman War. It is very likely that these Jews founded communities on the territory of present-day Tunisia. A tradition among the descendants of the first Jewish settlers was that their ancestors settled in that part of North Africa long before the destruction of the First Temple in the 6th century BCE. The ruins of an ancient synagogue dating back to

6962-418: The Talmudic academies of Babylonia, acting as intermediaries between them and his own community. Jacob ibn Shahin was succeeded by his son, Nissim ben Jacob , considered the greatest of the Qayrawan sages. Another academy was founded by Chushiel ben Elchanan , originally from Bari , developed the simultaneous study of the Talmud of Babylon and the Jerusalem Talmud . His son and disciple Chananel ben Chushiel

7080-458: The Tuansa . The socio-cultural and economic differences between these two communities have increased in the nineteenth century. The Granas, due to their European origins and higher standard of living, but also to their economic, family and cultural ties with Livorno, found it difficult to cope with their indigenous coreligionists, the Tuansa, who were considered less "civilized". The Granas were an important contributions whereas they represented only

7198-416: The Tunisian Jewish community in Hebrew are printed in Livorno , Italy. Educated leaders within the Tunisian Jewish community like ceramic merchant Jacob Chemla translated several works into Judeo-Tunisian, including The Count of Monte Cristo . However, its emergence has significantly declined since 1948 due to the creation of Israel . In fact, the Jewish community of Tunisia has either chosen to leave or

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7316-427: The United States consul in Tunis, Mordecai Manuel Noah , gave the following account of the situation of the Tunisian Jews: With all the apparent oppression, the Jews are the leading men; they are in Barbary the principal mechanics, they are at the head of the custom-house, they farm the revenues; the exportation of various articles, and the monopoly of various merchandise, are secured to them by purchase, they control

7434-539: The West spoke Romance and Berber . With the Early Muslim conquests , areas including Mesopotamia and the eastern and southern Mediterranean underwent Arabization , most rapidly in urban centers. Some isolated Jewish communities continued to speak Aramaic until the 10th century, and some communities never adopted Arabic as a vernacular language at all. Although urban Jewish communities were using Arabic as their spoken language, Jews kept Hebrew and Aramaic, traditional rabbinic languages, as their languages of writing during

7552-405: The agreement of the authorities, under a law of 423. However, various councils held by the Church of Carthage , recommending Christians not to follow certain practices of their Jewish neighbors, testify to the maintenance of their influence. At the beginning of the 5th century the arrival of the Vandals has opened a period of respite for the Jews. The Arianism of the new masters of Roman Africa

7670-442: The authorities didn't seem to intervene. An observer declared that the Jews were recognized "not only in their black costume, but also in the imprint of a curse they carry on their foreheads". At the end of the eighteenth century, Hammouda Pasha denied Jews the right to acquire and possess real estate properties, while the learning of literal Arabic and the use of the Arabic alphabet was also prohibited during this period. Finally,

7788-484: The authors attached to this community, and that the associations of Jews originating from one or another community (Ariana, Bizerte, etc.) or Tunisia multiply. As for the fate of the Jewish community during the period of the German occupation of Tunisia (1942–1943), it remains relatively uncommon, and the Symposium on the Jewish Community of Tunisia held at the University of La Manouba in February 1998 (the first of its kind on this research theme) does not mention it. However,

7906-504: The beginning of the eighteenth century, the political status of the Jews improved somewhat thanks to the growing influence of the political agents of the European powers who, seeking to improve the living conditions of the Christian residents, also pleaded the Jews. But if the wealthy Jews – who held positions in administration or trade – succeeded in being respected, especially through the protection of influential Muslim personalities, poor Jews were often victims of bullying and even murder, and

8024-411: The behavior of the Muslim population towards the communities varied from the will to rigorous application of the dhimma by the Ulama to the absence of hostility of the rural population, marginalized urban fringes but assured of impunity. Communities were structured under the authority of a leader of the "Jewish nation" with the title of hasar ve ha-tafsar, a prestigious and powerful post containing both

8142-418: The caliphate of Baghdad; and secondarily, because of some indignities committed by Idris against Jewish women. The victorious Idris avenged this defection by attacking the Jews in their cities. The Jews were required to pay a capitation-tax and provide a certain number of virgins annually for Idris' harem . The Jewish tribe 'Ubaid Allah preferred to migrate to the east rather than to submit to Idris; according to

8260-441: The capital of the Aghlabids, was the seat of the most important community in the territory, attracting migrants from Umayyad, Italy, and the Abbasid Empire. This community would become one of the major poles of Judaism between the ninth and eleventh centuries, both economically, culturally and intellectually, ensuring, through correspondence with the Talmudic academies in Babylonia . Many major figures of Judaism are associated with

8378-476: The caprices of princes and outbursts of fanaticism. Petty officials were allowed to impose upon them the most difficult drudgery without compensation. They were obliged to wear a special costume, consisting of a blue frock without collar or ordinary sleeves (loose linen sleeves being substituted), wide linen drawers, black slippers, and a small black skull-cap; stockings might be worn in winter only. They might ride only on asses or mules, and were not permitted to use

8496-612: The city of Tunis, which speedily gained in population and in commercial importance. The conquest of Tunisia by the Almohad Caliphate in the 1150s proved disastrous to the Jews of Tunis. The rise of the Almohad Caliphate shaked both the Jewish communities of Tunisia and the Muslims attached to the cult of the saints, declared by the new sovereigns as heretics . Jews were forced to apostasy by Caliph Abd al-Mu'min . Many massacres took place, despite many formal conversions by

8614-820: The city. Among them is Isaac Israeli ben Solomon , a private doctor of the Aghlabide Ziadet Allah III and then of the Fatimids Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah and Al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah and author of various medical treatises in Arabic which would enrich the medieval medicine through their translation by Constantine the African , adapting the teachings of the Alexandrian school to the Jewish dogma. Israeli's works in Arabic were studied in their Hebrew and Latin translations in both medieval and Renaissance Europe. Dunash ibn Tamim , his disciple,

8732-448: The city. This quarter, called the "Hira," constituted until 1857 the ghetto of Tunis; it was closed at night. In 1270, in consequence of the defeat of Louis IX of France , who had undertaken a crusade against Tunis, the cities of Kairwan and Ḥammat were declared holy; and the Jews were required either to leave them or to convert to Islam. From that year until the conquest of Tunis by France (1857), Jews and Christians were forbidden to pass

8850-695: The council of elders, as well as the rabbis, were nominated at his recommendation, and no rabbinical decision was valid unless approved by him. During the conquest of Tunis by the Spaniards in 1535, many Jews were made prisoners and sold as slaves in several Christian countries. After the victory of the Ottomans over the Spaniards in 1574, Tunisia became a province of the Ottoman Empire led by deys, from 1591, then by beys, from 1640. In this context, Jews arriving from Italy have played an important role in

8968-743: The country and had not been in contact with the languages of the communities that invaded Tunisia in the middle age. The primary language contact with regard to Judeo-Tunisian Arabic came from the languages of Jewish communities that fled to Tunisia as a result of persecution like Judeo-Spanish . This explains why Judeo-Tunisian Arabic lacks influence from the dialects of the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym , and has developed several phonological and lexical particularities that distinguish it from Tunisian Arabic. This also explains why Judeo-Tunisian words are generally less removed from their etymological origin than Tunisian words. The most famous author in Judeo-Arabic

9086-444: The end of the fifteenth century, converted back to Judaism at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and left Tuscany to settle in Tunisia, in the framework of the establishment of commercial relations. They spoke and wrote Tuscan and sometimes Spanish, and constituted a highly influential economic and cultural elite in the rest of the Italian community. Their surnames recalled their Spanish or Portuguese origin. Quickly introduced to

9204-517: The entire group of Judeo-Arabic dialects being considered endangered languages . There remain small populations of speakers in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, the United States, and Israel. Cultural critic Ella Shohat notes that Jewish speakers of Arabic did not refer to their language as 'Judeo-Arabic' but simply as 'Arabic'. In the period of ' massive dislocation ' from

9322-459: The eve of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb on the basis of eleventh-century Arab chronicles. However, this version is fairly questioned: Haim Zeev Hirschberg recalls that the historian wrote his work several centuries after the facts, Mohamed Talbi that the French translation is not totally exact since it does not render the idea of the contingency expressed by the author, and Gabriel Camps that

9440-435: The fifteenth century, each community was autonomous – recognized by power from the moment it counts at least ten major men – and has its own institutions; Their communal affairs were directed by a chief (zaken ha-yehudim) nominated by the government, and assisted by a council of notables (gdolei ha-qahal) made up of the most educated and wealthy family heads. The chief's functions consisted in the administration of justice among

9558-498: The first three centuries of Muslim rule, perhaps due to the presence of the Sura and Pumbedita yeshivas in rural areas where people spoke Aramaic. Jews in Arabic, Muslim majority countries wrote—sometimes in their dialects, sometimes in a more classical style—in a mildly adapted Hebrew alphabet rather than using the Arabic script , often including consonant dots from the Arabic alphabet to accommodate phonemes that did not exist in

9676-536: The governor of that district was a Jew. When Tunis came under the dominion of the Arabs , or of the Arabian caliphate of Baghdad , another influx of Arabic-speaking Jews from the Levant into Tunis took place. The first documents attesting to the presence of Jews in Tunisia date from the second century. Tertullian describes Jewish communities alongside which Pagan Jews of Punic, Roman and Berber origin and, initially, Christians; The success of Jewish proselytism led

9794-404: The island of Djerba , and the city of Tunis. Considered at first as foreigners, the Jews were not permitted to settle in the interior of Tunis, but had to live in a building called a funduk . Subsequently, however, a wealthy and humane Muslim , Sidi Mahrez , who in 1159 had rendered great services to the Almohad caliph Abd al-Mu'min , obtained for them the right to settle in a special quarter of

9912-690: The land presently known as Tunisia: However, if these hypotheses were verified, it is probable that these Israelites would have assimilated to the Punic population and sacrificed to their divinities, like Baal and Tanit . Thereafter, Jews from Alexandria or Cyrene could have settled in Carthage following the Hellenization of the eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin . The cultural context allowed them to practice Judaism more in keeping with ancestral traditions. Small Jewish communities existed in

10030-476: The late 1940s through the 1960s, Jewish speakers of Arabic in diaspora and their descendants gradually adopted the term 'Judeo-Arabic' and its equivalents in French and Hebrew. The 19th century rediscovery of the Cairo Geniza gave the study of Judeo-Arabic prominence within Judaic Studies , leading to publications such as Shelomo Dov Goitein's series A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of

10148-475: The late ninth century the Aghlabid ruler but also Maliki qadi of Kairuoan issued decrees that ordered dhimmis to wear a white patch on the shoulder of their garment. The patch for Jews had the image of an ape, an image based on koranic interepretation that became standard in-anti-dhimmi propaganda and was polemic when referring to Jews. It is not clear how long these humiliating decree remained in force, but it

10266-427: The later days of Punic domination over North Africa, without it being possible to say whether they developed or disappeared later. Jews have in any case settled in the new Roman province of Africa , enjoying the favors of Julius Caesar . The latter, in recognition of the support of King Antipater in his struggle against Pompey , recognized Judaism and the status of Religio licita , and according to Josephus granted

10384-566: The life of the country and in the history of Tunisian Judaism. During the Spanish occupation of the Tunisian coasts (1535–74) the Jewish communities of Bizerte , Susa , Sfax , and other seaports suffered greatly at the hands of the conquerors; while under the subsequent Turkish rule the Jews of Tunis enjoyed a fair amount of security. They were free to practice their religion and administer their own affairs. Nevertheless, they were subject to

10502-585: The local Arabic while introducing their traditional liturgy to their new host country. From the beginning of the 18th century the political status of the Jews in Tunis improved. This was due to the increasing influence of the political agents of the European powers, who, while seeking to ameliorate the condition of the Christian residents, had to plead also the cause of the Jews, whom Muslim legislation classed with Christians. Haim Joseph David Azulai , who visited Tunis in 1772, praised this development. In 1819,

10620-404: The mint and regulate the coinage of money, they keep the bey's jewels and valuable articles, and are his treasurers, secretaries, and interpreters; the little known of arts, science, and medicine is confined to the Jews. If a Jew commits a crime, if the punishment affects his life, these people, so national, always purchase his pardon; the disgrace of one affects the whole community; they are ever in

10738-482: The morals and doctrines of the Jews of Tunisia, meant they as 'dhimmis' (after the disappearance of Christianity in the Maghreb around 1150) isolated from their other coreligionists, and was strongly criticized by the Maimonides . The first Almohad, ' Abd al-Mu'min , claimed that Muhammad had permitted the Jews free exercise of their religion for only five hundred years, and had declared that if, after that period,

10856-611: The pagan authorities to take legal measures, while Tertullian wrote a pamphlet against Judaism at the same time. On the other hand, the Talmud mention the existence of several Carthaginian rabbis. In addition, Alfred Louis Delattre demonstrates towards the end of the nineteenth century that the Gammarth necropolis , made up of 200 rock chambers, each containing up to 17 complex tombs (kokhim), contains Jewish symbols and funerary inscriptions in Hebrew , Latin and Greek . A synagogue of

10974-405: The part of the judicial system which was arbitrary in their regard, with the exception of the more tolerant Hanafi courts. Jews were still subjected to the collective payment of the jizya – the annual amount of which varied according to the year, from 10,332 piastres in 1756 to 4,572 piastres in 1806 – and had to pay additional taxes (ghrâma) whenever the sovereign's treasury was in difficulty, as

11092-491: The people studying Judeo-Tunisian Arabic, Daniel Hagege listed a significant amount of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic newspapers from the early 1900s in his essay The Circulation of Tunisian Judeo-Arabic Books . in 1903, David Aydan prints in Judeo-Arabic "Vidu-i bel arbi" , a translation of the ritual text recited by the community on Yom Kippur's eve. The text is printed in Djerba , a significant point to mention as many works published by

11210-418: The political level, the community emancipated itself from the exile of Baghdad at the beginning of the eleventh century and acquired its first secular chief. Each community was placed under the authority of a council of notables headed by a chief (naggid) who, through the faithful, disposes of the resources necessary for the proper functioning of the various institutions: worship, schools, a tribunal headed by

11328-465: The presence of the bey, every minister has two or three Jewish agents, and when they unite to attain an object, it cannot be prevented. These people, then, whatever may be said of their oppression, possess a very controlling influence, their friendship is worthy of being preserved by public functionaries, and their opposition is to be dreaded. Marrano families, which have been settling in Livorno from

11446-480: The pronunciation of the Shahada . Indeed, many Jews, while outwardly professing Islam, remained faithful to their religion, which they observed in secret, as advocated by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon . Jewish practices disappeared from the Maghreb from 1165 to 1230; Still they were saddened by the sincere adherence of some to Islam, fears of persecution and the relativization of any religious affiliation. This Islamization of

11564-627: The rabbi-judge ( dayan ), etc. The maggid of Kairouan undoubtedly had the ascendancy over those of the communities of smaller size. The Jews participate greatly in the exchanges with Al-Andalus , Egypt , and the Middle East. Grouped in separate quarters (although many Jews settled in the Muslim districts of Kairouan during the Fatimid period), they had house of prayer, schools and a court. The port cities of Mahdia , Sousse , Sfax and Gabès saw

11682-742: The reign of Abu l-Hasan Ali I (1735–1756), he also served as treasurer of the Bey and many of the key posts in the administration of finance – collection of taxes and customs duties, scheduling of expenditure, handling of cash, keeping books of account or paying the salaries of the Janissaries – were occupied by Jewish agents. Judeo-Arabic languages Judeo-Arabic ( Judeo-Arabic : ערביה יהודיה , romanized: ‘Arabiya Yahūdiya ; Arabic : عربية يهودية , romanized :  ʿArabiya Yahūdiya (listen) ; Hebrew : ערבית יהודית , romanized :  ‘Aravít Yehudít (listen) )

11800-406: The resources of each household. It also refers to those who performed the duties imposed by the authorities. A state farmer, surrounded by some of the most fortunate and educated notables, also collected taxes such as the tithes, the tax on kosher meat and the offerings of the faithful. These allow him to pay for his services, those of his deputies and the rabbis-judges104 and finance the synagogues,

11918-513: The same region based on the town in which it is spoken. Like all other Judeo-Arabic languages , Judeo-Tunisian Arabic does not seem to be very different from the Arabic dialect from which it derives, Tunisian Arabic . Tunisian Jews The history of the Jews in Tunisia extends nearly two thousand years to the Punic era . The Jewish community in Tunisia grew following successive waves of immigration and proselytism before its development

12036-687: The same way that "Targum" was sometimes used to mean the Aramaic language . The texts of the sharh are based on and dependent on Hebrew. The significant emigration of Judeo-Arabic speakers in the 1940s and 1950s to Israel, France, and North America has led to endangerment or near-extinction of the ethnolects. Judeo-Arabic was viewed negatively in Israel as all Arabic was viewed as an "enemy language". Their distinct Arabic dialects in turn did not thrive, and most of their descendants now speak French or Modern Hebrew almost exclusively; thus resulting in

12154-464: The schools linked to them, the ritual abattoir , the cemetery , the relief fund for the needy and the sick and the rabbinical court , which were only in large cities under the presidency of the Grand Rabbi. Administrator of the affairs of the community designated the local secular or religious leaders – with the written approval of the Tunisian authorities – and gives them broad orientations. From

12272-409: The sphere of influence of the modernist currents, plays a dominant role. The vast majority of Tunisian Jews have relocated to Israel and have switched to using Hebrew as their home language . Tunisian Jews living in France typically use French as their first language, while the few still left in Tunisia tend to use either French or Judeo-Tunisian Arabic in their everyday lives. The history of

12390-474: The study of Judaism in Tunisia has grown rapidly during the progressive dissolution of the Jewish community in the context of decolonization and the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict while Habib Kazdaghli believes that the departure of the Jewish community is the cause of the low number of studies related to the topic. Kazdaghli, however, points out that their production increases since the 1990s, due to

12508-494: The study of the Law, many Rabbis were originally from Carthage. From an economic point of view, they worked in agriculture, livestock and trade. Their situation is modified from the edict of Milan (313) which legalized Christianity. Jews were gradually excluded from most public functions and proselytism was severely punished. The construction of new synagogues was forbidden towards the end of the fourth century and their maintenance without

12626-585: The triumph of Sunnism and the end of the Babylonian gaonate , these events marked the end of the Kairouan community and reversed the migratory flow of the Jewish populations towards the Levant , with the elites having already accompanied the Fatimid court in Cairo . Jews have migrated to the coastal cities of Gabes, Sfax, Mahdia, Sousse and Tunis, but also to Béjaïa , Tlemcen and Beni Hammad Fort . Under

12744-432: The two groups keep the same rites and uses with only a few variants and, outside Tunis, the same community institutions continue to serve all the faithful. Moreover, all the Jews remain under the authority of a single qaid chosen from the Tuansa, presumably to avoid interference with foreigners. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jews were still subjected to harassing and discriminatory measures, particularly on

12862-422: The work into Hebrew. The first Judeo-Arabic printing house opens in Tunis in 1860. A year after, the 1856 Fundamental Pact is translated and printed in Judeo-Arabic (in 1861 before its translation into Hebrew in 1862). In 1901, Judeo-Tunisian became one of the main spoken Arabic dialects of Tunisia, with thousands of speakers. Linguists noted the unique character of this dialect, and subjected it to study. Among

12980-413: The work of memory of the community exists, with the testimonies of Robert Borgel and Paul Ghez, the novels "The Statue of Salt" by Albert Memmi and Villa Jasmin by Serge Moati as well as the works of some historians. Presently, the earliest verifiable record of the presence in Jews in Tunisia is from the second century. However, there are other, mostly speculative, ideas about when Jews first arrived to

13098-748: Was closer to the Jewish religion than the Catholicism of the Church Fathers . The Jews probably thrived economically, backing the Vandal kings against the armies of Emperor Justinian , who had set out to conquer North Africa. After the reconquest of Tunisia by Belisarius in 534, the region became part of the Exarchate of Africa . Under the Code of Justinian , Jews were classed with the Arians and

13216-673: Was estimated at 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". The Jewish diaspora of Tunisia is divided between Israel and France, where it has preserved its community identity through its traditions, mostly dependent on Sephardic law and customs , but retaining its own specific characteristics. Djerbian Judaism in particular, considered to be more faithful to tradition because it remained outside

13334-425: Was forced to leave Tunisia and immigrate to France or Israel . Nowadays, the language is largely extinct throughout most of Tunisia, even if it is still used by the small Jewish communities in Tunis, Gabes and Djerba, and most of the Jewish communities that have left Tunisia have chosen to change their language of communication to the main language of their current country. Language vitality: Judeo-Tunisian Arabic

13452-404: Was from the Granas. Moreover, the Granas – a richer community, although only 8% of the total population – then accounted for one third of the payment of the jizya against two-thirds for the Tuansa. This last point indicated that the Livornese community, previously protected by the European consuls, has sufficiently integrated into Tunisia so that its members were considered dhimmis and taxed like

13570-466: Was hampered in late antiquity by anti-Jewish measures in the Byzantine Empire . After the Muslim conquest of Tunisia , Tunisian Judaism went through periods of relative freedom or even cultural apogee to times of more marked discrimination, with Jews being treated as second-class citizens ( dhimmi ). The community formerly used its own dialect of Arabic . The arrival of Jews expelled from

13688-671: Was not the basis of a literature. There were Jewish Pre-Islamic Arabic poets , such as al-Samawʾal ibn ʿĀdiyā , though surviving written records of such Jewish poets do not indicate anything that distinguishes their use of Arabic from non-Jewish use of it, and their work according to Geoffrey Khan is generally not referred to as Judeo-Arabic. This work is similar to and tends to follow Classical Arabic, and Benjamin Hary, who calls it Classical Judeo-Arabic, notes it still includes some dialectal features, such as in Saadia Gaon 's translation of

13806-621: Was one of the major commentators of the Talmud in the Middle Ages. After his death, his work was continued by another disciple of his father whom Ignác Goldziher calls Jewish mutazilite: Nissim ben Jacob, the only one among the sages of Kairouan to bear the title of Gaon , also wrote an important commentary on the Talmud and the Hibbour Yafe Mehayeshoua, which is perhaps the first tales collection in Jewish literature. On

13924-533: Was the author (or final editor) wrote, along other works, a philosophical commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah , where he developed conceptions close to his master's thought. Another disciple, Ishaq ibn Imran is considered the founder of the philosophical and medical school of Ifriqiya . Jacob ben Nissim ibn Shahin, rector of the Center of Studies at the end of the tenth century, is the official representative of

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