Mauretania ( / ˌ m ɒr ɪ ˈ t eɪ n i ə , ˌ m ɔːr ɪ -/ ; Classical Latin : [mau̯.reːˈt̪aː.ni.a] ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb . It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic , encompassing northern present-day Morocco , and from the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlas Mountains . Its native inhabitants, of Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli .
160-565: Maghrebi Jews ( מַגּרֶבִּים or מַאגרֶבִּים , Maghrebim ), are a Jewish diaspora group with a long history in the Maghreb region of North Africa, which includes present-day Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia , and Libya . These communities were established long before the Arab conquest , and continued to develop under Muslim rule during the Middle Ages. Maghrebi Jews represent
320-540: A pogrom that killed 140 Jews. Riots and anti-semitic violence did not subside, leaving the Jews of Libya with very little choice but to leave. Today, there are no more Jews living in Libya. 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
480-721: A praetorian prefect and the military authority of a magister militum , and enjoyed considerable autonomy from Constantinople . Two exarchates were established, one in Italy, with seat at Ravenna (hence known as the Exarchate of Ravenna ), and one in Africa, based at Carthage and including all imperial possessions in the Western Mediterranean. The first African exarch was the patricius Gennadius . Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Sitifensis were merged to form
640-542: A procurator Augusti , or a legatus Augusti pro praetore ). In the 1st century AD, Emperor Claudius divided the Roman province of Mauretania into Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana along the line of the Mulucha ( Muluya ) River, about 60 km west of modern Oran : Mauretania gave the empire one emperor, the equestrian Macrinus . He seized power after the assassination of Caracalla in 217 but
800-508: A Roman colonia and foreign cults. It is commonly held that this was done as an insult to the Jews and as a means of erasing the land's Jewish identity, Others argued that this project was expressive of an intention of establishing administratively and culturally a firm Roman imperial presence, and thus incorporating the province, now called Syro-Palaestina, into the Roman world system. These political measures were, according to Menachem Mor, devoid of any intention to eliminate Judaism, indeed,
960-604: A clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant." "The most parsimonious explanation for these observations is a common genetic origin, which is consistent with an historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant." In conclusion the authors are stating that the genetic results are concordant "with the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout
1120-511: A community, animated by a remarkable religious ardor and a tenacious attachment to the Torah as the focus of their identity. As this little nucleus increased in numbers with the accession of recruits from various quarters, it awoke to a consciousness of itself, and strove once again for national independence and political enfranchisement and sovereignty. The first Jewish diaspora in Egypt arose in
1280-676: A degree of Roman culture, including the local cities, and usually nominally acknowledged the suzerainty of the Roman Emperors. The Western kingdom more distant from the Vandal kingdom was the one of Altava, a city located at the borders of Mauretania Tingitana and Caesariensis....It is clear that the Mauro-Roman kingdom of Altava was fully inside the Western Latin world, not only because of location but mainly because it adopted
1440-694: A disputed province of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria. In the early part of the 2nd century BCE, a revolt against the Seleucids led to the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans adopted a deliberate policy of imitating and reconstituting the Davidic kingdom, and as part of this forcibly converted to Judaism their neighbours in the Land of Israel. The conversions included Nabateans ( Zabadeans ) and Itureans ,
1600-572: A figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world. Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing. The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in the mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman . However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens and thus, included non-Jews. The figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon . Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of
1760-533: A firm Christian majority. Judaism was the only non-Christian religion tolerated, but the Jews were discriminated against in various ways. They were prohibited from building new houses of worship, holding public office, or owning slaves. The 7th century saw the Jewish revolt against Heraclius , which broke out in 614 during the Byzantine–Sasanian War . It was the last serious attempt by Jews to gain autonomy in
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#17327652587461920-411: A full one-tenth (10%) of the population of the ancient city of Rome itself. Finally, if the sums confiscated by the governor Lucius Valerius Flaccus in the year 62/61 BCE represented the tax of a didrachma per head for a single year, it would imply that the Jewish population of Asia Minor numbered 45,000 adult males, for a total of at least 180,000 persons. The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave
2080-476: 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 . Morocco,
2240-589: A majority of the population until some time after Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century. The ban on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem was maintained. There was a minor Jewish rebellion against a corrupt governor from 351 to 352 which was put down. In the 5th century, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire resulted in Christian migration into Palestine and the development of
2400-592: A massive and definitive exodus mainly to France due to increased animosity towards Jews. The early Zionists were majority Ashkenazi Jews who affiliated themselves strongly with Theodor Herzl , the founder of modern Zionism . 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 Aharon Moyal [ he ] who had laid
2560-610: A particular psychological outlook. The Greek word διασπορά (dispersion) first appears as a neologism in the translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint , where it occurs 14 times, starting with a passage reading: ἔση διασπορὰ ἐν πάσαις βασιλείαις τῆς γῆς (‘thou shalt be a diaspora (or dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth’, Deuteronomy 28:25 ), translating 'ləza‘ăwāh', whose root suggests 'trouble, terror'. In these contexts it never translated any term in
2720-407: A positive nuance. Galut is more teleological , and connotes a sense of uprootedness. Daniel Boyarin defines diaspora as a state where people have a dual cultural allegiance, productive of a double consciousness , and in this sense a cultural condition not premised on any particular history, as opposed to galut, which is more descriptive of an existential situation, that properly of exile, conveying
2880-541: A reminder of the hallowed past, and, through most of the era, a Jewish regime existed in Palestine. Yet the Jews of the diaspora, from Italy to Iran, far outnumbered those in the homeland. Although Jerusalem loomed large in their self-perception as a nation, few of them had seen it, and few were likely to. Israel Yuval contends the Babylonian captivity created a promise of return in the Jewish consciousness which had
3040-494: A result, many Jews emigrated to Babylon under the more tolerant Sassanid Empire , where autonomous Jewish communities continued to flourish, lured by the promise of economic prosperity and the ability to lead a full Jewish life there. Between the 3rd and 7th centuries, estimates indicate that the Babylonian Jewish community numbered approximately one million, which may have been the largest Jewish diaspora population of
3200-473: A series of operations to bring Jews, who were facing persecution, to Israel from various Middle Eastern and North African countries. A famous operation that brought nearly 100,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel from 1961 to 1964 was Operation Yachin . Today, Jews of Moroccan descent in Israel tend to identify with their background and remain in touch with their traditional culture. A part of Moroccan Jewish culture revolves around Sephardic music and food. Shakshouka ,
3360-554: A study by Doron Behar and Karl Skorecki of the Technion and Ramban Medical Center in Haifa, Israel demonstrated that the vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews, both men and women, have Middle Eastern ancestry. According to Nicholas Wades' 2010 Autosomal study Ashkenazi Jews share a common ancestry with other Jewish groups and Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews have roughly 30% European ancestry with the rest being Middle Eastern. According to Hammer,
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#17327652587463520-612: A theological category The modern Hebrew concept of Tefutzot תפוצות, "scattered", was introduced in the 1930s by the Jewish-American Zionist academic Simon Rawidowicz , who to some degree argued for the acceptance of the Jewish presence outside the Land of Israel as a modern reality and an inevitability. The Greek term for diaspora (διασπορά) also appears three times in the New Testament , where it refers to
3680-543: A traditional Maghrebi dish, has become popular in Israel through the influence of Moroccan Jews. Algerian Jews are quite similar to Moroccan Jews in many regards due to the proximity of Algeria and Morocco. Both communities were intertwined linguistically, culturally, and historically. A Jewish presence in Algeria existed since before the Roman-era, but most Algerian Jews trace a significant amount of their history back to
3840-768: 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. Like its neighboring Algeria, Tunesia came under Vichy rule in July 1940, subjecting Tunesian Jews to
4000-875: Is no direct link between the two communities. They have similar histories of Arabic-speaking background and a parallel exodus and expulsion from Arab and Muslim countries: the Mizrahim left nations of the Middle East, and the Maghrebi-Sephardics left nations of North Africa in the mid-20th century. Among Arab countries, the largest Jewish community now exists in Morocco with about 2,000 Jews and in Tunisia about 1,000. The term Maghrebi Jews often refers to communities such as Moroccan Jews , Algerian Jews , Tunisian Jews , and Libyan Jews . The term Musta'arabi
4160-540: Is no doubt of a Middle Eastern origin. In June 2010, Behar et al. "shows that most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster with common genetic origin, that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews ( Beta Israel ) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini ) cluster with neighboring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite
4320-531: Is only after the destruction of Jerusalem that Jews are found in northern Europe and along the western Mediterranean coast. Howard Adelman and Elazar Barkan challenge the "widespread notion" the Jews in Judea were only expelled after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Jewish defeat during Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE. They also contend it is "misleading" that the expulsion from Judea created
4480-610: Is particular about the Jewish instance is the pronounced negative, religious, indeed metaphysical connotations traditionally attached to dispersion and exile ( galut ), two conditions which were conflated. The English term diaspora , which entered usage as late as 1876, and the Hebrew word galut though covering a similar semantic range, bear some distinct differences in connotation. The former has no traditional equivalent in Hebrew usage. Steven Bowman argues that diaspora in antiquity connoted emigration from an ancestral mother city, with
4640-489: Is written a declaration in the name of Cyrus referring to restoration of temples and repatriation of exiled peoples, has often been taken as corroboration of the authenticity of the biblical decrees attributed to Cyrus, but other scholars point out that the cylinder's text is specific to Babylon and Mesopotamia and makes no mention of Judah or Jerusalem. Lester L. Grabbe asserted that the "alleged decree of Cyrus" regarding Judah, "cannot be considered authentic", but that there
4800-595: The "Crisis under Caligula" (37–41) was the "first open break between Rome and the Jews". Meanwhile, the Kitos War , a rebellion by Jewish diaspora communities in Roman territories in the Eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, led to the destruction of Jewish communities in Crete, Cyprus, and North Africa in 117 CE, and consequently the dispersal of Jews already living outside of Judea to further reaches of
4960-587: 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 . In the last 15 months of the war, over 130 attacks against Jews or Jewish establishments occurred; the two most symbolically significant being
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5120-602: The Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East . These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from England in 1290 , the expulsion from Spain in 1492 , and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973 . Although
5280-565: The Cremieux Decree in 1870. France's Vichy Regime , then, oversaw the Jewish community in Algeria during World War II and imposed anti-Semitic measures such as stripping Jews of their civil rights, forcing them to wear identification markers, and putting quotas on their admission to primary schools. 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
5440-553: 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. In 2018, the first Jewish minister since Bessis, René Trabelsi , was appointed to lead the Ministry of Tourism. Libyan Jews are the smallest community of all Maghrebi Jews, yet
5600-489: The Land of Israel prior to modern times. Jewish rebels aided the Persians in capturing Jerusalem , where the Jews were permitted autonomous rule until 617, when the Persians reneged on their alliance. After Byzantine Emperor Heraclius promised to restore Jewish rights, the Jews aided him in ousting the Persians. Heraclius subsequently went back on his word and ordered a general massacre of the Jewish population, devastating
5760-441: The Middle East . These groups have parallel histories sharing many cultural similarities as well as a series of massacres, persecutions and expulsions, such as the expulsion from England in 1290 , the expulsion from Spain in 1492 , and the expulsion from Arab countries in 1948–1973 . Although the two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for
5920-606: The Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II . A Jewish diaspora existed for several centuries before the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Jewish diaspora in the second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) was created from various factors, including through the creation of political and war refugees, enslavement, deportation, overpopulation, indebtedness, military employment, and opportunities in business, commerce, and agriculture. Before
6080-680: The diaspora uprisings of 116–117 CE resulted in the near-total destruction of Jewish communities in Cyrenaica and Egypt. By the third century, Jewish communities began to re-establish themselves in Egypt and Cyrenaica, primarily through immigration from the Land of Israel. Roman rule in Judea began in 63 BCE with the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey . After the city fell to Pompey's forces, thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought from Judea to Rome and sold into slavery. After these Jewish slaves were manumitted, they settled permanently in Rome on
6240-555: 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. The population of Tunisian Jews stood at around 105,000 in 1948. Shortly after independence in 1956 , a government decree meant to eliminate all confessional tribunals, including courts based on Sharia law, also abolished rabbinical tribunal and Jewish community councils, which
6400-865: The last century of pharaonic rule , apparently with the settlement there, either under Ashurbanipal or during the reign of Psammeticus of a colony of Jewish mercenaries, a military class that successively served the Persian , the Ptolemaic and Roman governments down to the early decades of the second century CE, when the revolt against Trajan destroyed them. Their presence was buttressed by numerous Jewish administrators who joined them in Egypt's military and urban centres. According to Josephus , when Ptolemy I took Judea, he led 120,000 Jewish captives to Egypt, and many other Jews, attracted by Ptolemy's liberal and tolerant policies and Egypt's fertile soil, emigrated from Judea to Egypt of their own free will. Ptolemy settled
6560-583: The 530s. In the 7th century there were eight Romano-Moorish kingdoms: Altava , Ouarsenis , Hodna , Aures , Nemenchas , Capsa , Dorsale (ar) and Cabaon . The last resistance against the Arab invasion was sustained in the second half of the 7th century mainly by the Roman-Moorish kingdoms -with the last Byzantine troops in the region- under the leadership of the Christian king of Altava Caecilius , but later ended in complete defeat in 703 AD (when
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6720-587: The Ashkenazi population expanded through a series of bottlenecks—events that squeeze a population down to small numbers—perhaps as it migrated from the Middle East after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, to Italy, reaching the Rhine Valley in the 10th century. David Goldstein, a Duke University geneticist and director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation, has said that the work of
6880-526: The Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from the late Roman period to the present. Diaspora has been a common phenomenon for many peoples since antiquity, but what
7040-497: The Babylonian destruction of Judah, the Roman destruction of Judea, and the subsequent rule of Christians and Muslims. After the revolt, the Jewish religious and cultural center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars. For the generations that followed, the destruction of the Second Temple event came to represent a fundamental insight about the Jews who had become a dispossessed and persecuted people for much of their history. Erich S. Gruen contends that focusing on
7200-586: The Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE. After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (see Babylonian captivity ) and the deportation of a considerable portion of its inhabitants to Mesopotamia , the Jews had two principal cultural centers: Babylonia and the land of Israel . Deportees returned to the Samaria after the Neo-Babylonian Empire
7360-679: 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
7520-720: 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
7680-536: The Crusaders. The majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population was killed during the Crusader Siege of Jerusalem and the few thousand survivors were sold into slavery. Some of the Jews sold into slavery later had their freedom bought by Jewish communities in Italy and Egypt, and the redeemed slaves were taken to Egypt. Some Jewish prisoners of war were also deported to Apulia in southern Italy. Relief for
7840-477: The Empire. Jerusalem had been left in ruins from the time of Vespasian . Sixty years later, Hadrian, who had been instrumental in the expulsion from Palestine of Marcius Turbo after his bloody repression of Jews in the diaspora in 117 CE, on visiting the area of Iudaea , decided to rebuild the city in 130 CE, and settle it, circumstantial evidence suggesting it was he who renamed it Ælia Capitolina , with
8000-532: The Euphrates and in Adiabene (Kurdistan). In Josephus' own words, he had informed "the remotest Arabians" about the destruction. Jewish communities also existed in southern Europe, Anatolia, Syria, and North Africa. Jewish pilgrims from the diaspora, undeterred by the rebellion, had actually come to Jerusalem for Passover prior to the arrival of the Roman army, and many became trapped in the city and died during
8160-452: The Great Revolt, a Jewish uprising to fight for independence, which began in 66 CE and was eventually crushed in 73 CE, culminating in the Siege of Jerusalem and the burning and destruction of the Temple, the centre of the national and religious life of the Jews throughout the world. The Jewish diaspora at the time of the Temple's destruction, according to Josephus , was in Parthia (Persia), Babylonia (Iraq), Arabia, as well as some Jews beyond
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#17327652587468320-467: The Jewish academies of Palestine, and by the end of the third century they were reliant on donations from Babylon. The effect that the destruction of Jerusalem had on the Jewish diaspora has been a topic of considerable scholarly discussion. David Aberbach has argued that much of the European Jewish diaspora, by which he means exile or voluntary migration, originated with the Jewish wars which occurred between 66 and 135 CE. Martin Goodman states that it
8480-442: The Jewish communities of Jerusalem and the Galilee. As a result, many Jews fled to Egypt. In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant . One estimate placed the Jewish population of Palestine at between 300,000 and 400,000 at the time. However, this is contrary to other estimates which place it at 150,000 to 200,000 at the time of the revolt against Heraclius. According to historian Moshe Gil ,
8640-409: The Jewish community understood as a curtailment of their autonomy. 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
8800-400: The Jewish people to tribute. As early as the third century BCE Jewish communities sprang up in the Aegean islands, Greece, Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, Italy and Egypt. In Palestine, under the favourable auspices of the long period of peace—almost a whole century—which followed the advent of the Ptolemies, the new ways were to flourish. By means of all kinds of contacts, and particularly thanks to
8960-444: The Jewish population of Palestine came when the Ayyubid dynasty defeated the Crusaders and conquered Palestine (see 1187 Battle of Hattin ). Some Jewish immigration from the diaspora subsequently took place, but this came to an end when Mamluks took over Palestine (see 1291 Fall of Acre ). The Mamluks severely oppressed the Jews and greatly mismanaged the economy, resulting in a period of great social and economic decline. The result
9120-478: The Jewish population remained substantial. The geographer Strabo , writing in the early first century BCE, described Cyrene as comprising four groups, including Jews, indicating the community's size and importance at the time. A notable figure among the Cyrenaic Jews was Simon of Cyrene , referenced in the New Testament . After Jewish defeat in the First Jewish-Roman War in 70 CE, Roman General Titus deported many Jews to Mauretania , which roughly corresponds to
9280-453: The Jews in China for pre-Roman (and post-) diasporic populations. King Agrippa I , in a letter to Caligula , enumerated among the provinces of the Jewish diaspora almost all the Hellenized and non-Hellenized countries of the Orient. This enumeration was far from complete as Italy and Cyrene were not included. The epigraphic discoveries from year to year augment the number of known Jewish communities but must be viewed with caution due to
9440-424: The Jews in Egypt to employ them as mercenaries. Philadelphus subsequently emancipated the Jews taken to Egypt as captives and settled them in cleruchs , or specialized colonies, as Jewish military units. Jews began settling in Cyrenaica (modern-day eastern Libya) around the third century BCE, during the rule of Ptolemy I of Egypt, who sent them to secure the region for his kingdom. By the early first century BCE,
9600-442: The Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. Jewish prisoners sold as slaves in the diaspora and their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free communities. It has been argued that
9760-419: 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
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#17327652587469920-495: The Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. By the end of the 11th century the Jewish population of Palestine had declined substantially. During the First Crusade , Jews in Palestine, along with Muslims, were indiscriminately massacred and sold into slavery by
10080-606: The Middle Ages. The Ashkenazi Jews later migrated from Germany (and elsewhere in Central Europe) into Eastern Europe as a result of persecution. Some Ashkenazi Jews also have minor ancestry from Sephardi Jews exiled from Spain, first during Islamic persecutions (11th–12th centuries) and later during Christian reconquests (13th–15th centuries) and the Spanish Inquisition (15th–16th centuries). Ashkenazi Jews are of mixed Middle Eastern and European ancestry, as they derive part of their ancestry from non-Jewish Europeans who intermixed with Jews of migrant Middle Eastern origin. In 2006,
10240-412: 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 . Today, the Jewish population in Morocco is estimated to be just about 2,000. Since
10400-430: The Old World". Regarding the samples he used Behar points out that "Our conclusion favoring common ancestry (of Jewish people) over recent admixture is further supported by the fact that our sample contains individuals that are known not to be admixed in the most recent one or two generations." A 2013 study of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA by Costa et al., reached the conclusion that the four major female founders and most of
10560-464: The Roman Legions during their conquests. However, for the most part, modern Ashkenazi Jews originated with Jews who migrated or were forcibly taken from the Middle East to southern Europe in antiquity, where they established Jewish communities before moving into northern France and lower Germany during the High and Late Middle Ages . They also descend to a lesser degree from Jewish immigrants from Babylon, Persia, and North Africa who migrated to Europe in
10720-411: The Roman city of Volubilis . 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
10880-439: The Technion and Ramban team served only to confirm that genetic drift played a major role in shaping Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited in a matrilineal manner. Goldstein argues that the Technion and Ramban mtDNA studies fail to actually establish a statistically significant maternal link between modern Jews and historic Middle Eastern populations. This differs from the patrilineal case, where Goldstein said there
11040-521: The Vandals in 442, confirming their control of Proconsular Africa. For the next 90 years, Africa was firmly under the Vandal control. The Vandals were ousted from Africa in the Vandalic War of 533–534, from which time Mauretania at least nominally became a Roman province once again. The old provinces of the Roman Diocese of Africa were mostly preserved by the Vandals, but large parts, including almost all of Mauretania Tingitana , much of Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Sitifensis and large parts of
11200-445: The archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman genocide taking place during the Second revolt. A significant movement of gentiles and Samaritans into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter. During the Crisis of the Third Century , civil wars in the Roman Empire caused great economic disruption, and taxes imposed to finance these wars impacted the Jewish population of Palestine heavily. As
11360-419: The area was annexed to Rome and divided into two provinces: Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis . Christianity spread there from the 3rd century onwards. After the Muslim Arabs subdued the region in the 7th century, Islam became the dominant religion. Mauretania existed as a tribal kingdom of the Berber Mauri people . In the early 1st century Strabo recorded Maûroi (Μαῦροι in Greek ) as
11520-675: The authority of the Vicarius of the diocese of Hispaniae : During the crisis of the 3rd century , parts of Mauretania were reconquered by Berber tribes. Direct Roman rule became confined to a few coastal cities (such as Septem in Mauretania Tingitana and Cherchell in Mauretania Caesariensis ) by the late 3rd century. Historical sources about inland areas are sparse, but these were apparently controlled by local Berber rulers who, however, maintained
11680-403: The commencement of the reign of Caesar Augustus , there were over 7,000 Jews in Rome (though this is only the number that is said to have escorted the envoys who came to demand the deposition of Archelaus ; compare: Bringmann: Klaus: Geschichte der Juden im Altertum, Stuttgart 2005, S. 202. Bringmann talks about 8,000 Jews who lived in the city of Rome.). Many sources say that the Jews constituted
11840-515: The community emigrated. In recent decades, the Jewish community has continued to shrink as many emigrated to Israel, France, and other countries. After Morocco declared independence in 1956, most of the 225,000 Jews in Morocco emigrated to Israel, France and Canada. In Algeria, the National Liberation Front fought and won independence from France in 1961. After Algeria won independence, the Jewish population of 140,000 began
12000-512: 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,
12160-496: The concept of galut.’ In Zionist debates a distinction was made between galut and golus/gola . The latter denoted social and political exile, whereas the former, while consequential on the latter, was a psycho-spiritual framework that was not wholly dependent on the conditions of life in diasporic exile, since one could technically remain in galut even in Eretz Israel . Whereas Theodor Herzl and his follows thought that
12320-812: 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
12480-577: The day of Tisha B'Av . There was a further shift of the center of religious authority from Yavne , as rabbis regrouped in Usha in the western Galilee, where the Mishnah was composed. This ban struck a blow at Jewish national identity within Palestine, while the Romans however continued to allow Jews in the diaspora their distinct national and religious identity throughout the Empire. The military defeats of
12640-564: The destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, more Jews lived in the Diaspora than in Israel. Jonathan Adelman estimated that around 60% of Jews lived in the diaspora during the Second Temple period. According to Gruen: Perhaps three to five million Jews dwelled outside Palestine in the roughly four centuries that stretched from Alexander to Titus . The era of the Second Temple brought the issue into sharp focus, inescapably so. The Temple still stood,
12800-600: The destruction of the Temple misses the point that already before this, the diaspora was well-established. Gruen argues compulsory dislocation of Jews during the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) cannot explain more than a fraction of the eventual diaspora. Rather, the Jewish diaspora during this time period was created from various factors, including through the creation of political and war refugees, enslavement, deportation, overpopulation, indebtedness, military employment, and opportunities in business, commerce, and agriculture. Avrum Ehrlich also states that already well before
12960-577: The development of commerce, Hellenism infiltrated on all sides in varying degrees. The ports of the Mediterranean coast were indispensable to commerce and, from the very beginning of the Hellenistic period, underwent great development. In the Western diaspora Greek quickly became dominant in Jewish life and little sign remains of profound contact with Hebrew or Aramaic, the latter probably being
13120-471: The diaspora. Israel Bartal contends that Shlomo Sand is incorrect in his claim that the original Jews living in Israel were not exiled by the Romans, instead arguing that this view is negligible among serious Jewish study scholars. These scholars argue that the growth of diaspora Jewish communities was a gradual process that occurred over the centuries, starting with the Assyrian destruction of Israel,
13280-458: The dispersion in question has not occurred yet: it is potential, conditional on the Jews not respecting the law of God. . . It follows that diaspora belongs, not to the domain of history, but of theology.' In Talmudic and post-Talmudic Rabbinic literature, this phenomenon was referred to as galut (exile), a term with strongly negative connotations, often contrasted with geula (redemption). Eugene Borowitz describes Galut as "fundamentally
13440-433: 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
13600-543: 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 . This migration increased in the latter part of the 15th century due to anti-Converso violence in 1473 and
13760-537: The early Roman period, particularly in Alexandria. It was not least for this reason that the Jewish people became a major political factor, especially since the Jews in the diaspora, notwithstanding strong cultural, social and religious tensions, remained firmly united with their homeland. Smallwood writes that, 'It is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BCE went back to
13920-408: The effect of enhancing the Jewish self-perception of Exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, albeit their dispersion was due to an array of non-exilic factors. According to Hasia R. Diner , the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, followed by the dissolution, in 132 CE, of Jewish sovereignty over the territory renamed Syria Palaestina, had launched the second dispersion of the diaspora,
14080-533: The emigrant community maintaining its cultural ties with the place of origin. Just as the Greek city exported its surplus population, so did Jerusalem, while remaining the cultural and religious centre or metropolis ( ir-va-em be-yisrael ) for the outlying communities. It could have two senses in Biblical terms, the idea of becoming a ' guiding light unto the nations ' by dwelling in the midst of gentiles, or of enduring
14240-416: The emigration of Jews from the countries of the Maghreb. This exodus was a combination of push and pull, augmented with the independence of the Maghreb countries in the 1950s and early 1960s, as Jews were seen as being supportive of the previous colonial French. Tunisia was a French protectorate since 1881, and the country fought for independence from 1952 to 1956, after which many of the 105,000 Jews within
14400-466: The establishment of a Jewish state would put an end to the diasporic exile, Ahad Ha-am thought to the contrary that such a state's function would be to 'sustain Jewish nationhood' in the diaspora. In 722 BCE, the Assyrians , under Sargon II , successor to Shalmaneser V , conquered the Kingdom of Israel , and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia . The Jewish proper diaspora began with
14560-488: 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 . Israel launched
14720-538: The expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V . The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity , in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by
14880-456: The figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Philo gives a figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. John R. Bartlett rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of the Land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The suppression of
15040-546: The first being the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE. She writes that, "Although many Jews had lived outside Judea even before that [the destruction of Judea], the ending of home rule set in motion the world’s longest diaspora." In the 4th century, the Roman Empire split and Palestine came under the control of the Byzantine Empire . There was still a significant Jewish population there, and Jews probably constituted
15200-594: The following period of Jewish–Roman Wars . Ashkenazi Jews is a general category of Jewish populations who immigrated to what is now Germany and northeastern France during the Middle Ages and until modern times used to adhere to the Yiddish culture and the Ashkenazi prayer style . There is evidence that groups of Jews had immigrated to Germania during the Roman Era ; they were probably merchants who followed
15360-443: The formation of distinct communities. Key areas of settlement included major cities in coastal areas like Tlemçen and Oran , as well as inland centers such as Fez . Sephardi Jews quickly dominated Jewish communal life in Morocco due to their scholarly and mercantile elite status. Some newcomers integrated into existing communities, while others remained separate due to cultural and leadership differences. The reception of these exiles
15520-521: 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
15680-592: The geographer Strabo identified Jews as one of the four main groups residing in the city of Cyrene . While communities in Alexandria and Rome dated back to before the Maccabean Revolt , the population in the Jewish diaspora expanded after the Pompey's campaign in 62 BCE. Under the Hasmonean princes, who were at first high priests and then kings, the Jewish state displayed even a certain luster and annexed several territories. Soon, however, discord within
15840-648: The globe. In terms of the Hebrew Bible , the term "Exile" denotes the fate of the Israelites who were taken into exile from the Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BCE, and the Judahites from the Kingdom of Judah who were taken into exile during the 6th century BCE. While in exile, the Judahites became known as "Jews" ( יְהוּדִים , or Yehudim ). The first exile was the Assyrian exile ,
16000-421: The history of the people of Israel, when the latter was subjected to a foreign occupation, such as that of Babylon, in which most of the occurrences are found. The second, perhaps with a single exception that remains debatable, is never used to speak of the past and does not concern Babylon; the instrument of dispersion is never the historical sovereign of another country. Diaspora is the word for chastisement, but
16160-575: 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. North Africa became a primary refuge for Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, along with other destinations such as Portugal , Italy , and the Ottoman Empire . Contemporary accounts describe
16320-594: The interior of Numidia and Byzacena , had been lost to the inroads of Berber tribes, now collectively called the Mauri (later Moors ) as a generic term for "the Berber tribes in the province of Mauretania". In 533, the Roman army under Belisarius defeated the Vandals. In April 534, Justinian published a law concerning the administrative organization of the newly acquired territories. Nevertheless, Justinian restored
16480-583: The lack of precise evidence of their numbers. According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, the next most dense Jewish population after the Land of Israel and Babylonia was in Syria , particularly in Antioch , and Damascus , where 10,000 to 18,000 Jews were massacred during the great insurrection. The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo gives the number of Jewish inhabitants in Egypt as one million, one-eighth of
16640-464: The late (pre-Roman Empire) Roman Republic or early Empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce." Many Jews migrated to Rome from Alexandria due to flourishing trade relations between the cities. Dating the numerous settlements is difficult. Some settlements may have resulted from Jewish emigration following the defeat of Jewish revolts. Others, such as the Jewish community in Rome, were far older, dating back to at least
16800-568: The late Roman period to the present. By 1764 there were about 750,000 Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . The worldwide Jewish population (comprising the Middle East and the rest of Europe) was estimated at 1.2 million. After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, Judah ( יְהוּדָה Yehuda ) became a province of the Persian empire . This status continued into the following Hellenistic period , when Yehud became
16960-446: The latter being a highly endogamous group . Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( Hebrew : גוֹלָה , romanized : gōlā ), dispersion ( Hebrew : תְּפוּצָה , romanized : təfūṣā ) or exile (Hebrew: גָּלוּת gālūṯ ; Yiddish : golus ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel ) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of
17120-680: The looting of the Great Synagogue of Algiers in December 1960, and the assassination of popular singer Cheikh Raymond on a public market in Constantine in June 1961. These two incidents in particular gave the impetus for Jewish immigration from Algeria, albeit subsumed into the great mass of pieds-noirs leaving Algeria for France. At the time of World War II, there were around 130,000 Jews living in Algeria. More recently, their number
17280-445: The majority of the population was Jewish or Samaritan . The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected
17440-473: The mid second century BCE, although it expanded greatly following Pompey’s campaign in 62 BCE. In 6 CE the Romans annexed Judaea. Only the Jews in Babylonia remained outside of Roman rule. Unlike the Greek speaking Hellenized Jews in the west the Jewish communities in Babylonian and Judea continued the use of Aramaic as a primary language. As early as the middle of the 2nd century BCE the Jewish author of
17600-571: The mid-20th century as part of the Jewish exodus from Arab countries , moving mostly to Israel, France, Canada and Venezuela. Today, descendants of Maghrebi-Sephardic Jews in Israel have largely embraced the modern Israeli Jewish identity and in many cases intermix with Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jewish communities there. Most of the Maghrebi-Sephardic Jews ( Western Jews) also consider themselves as part of Mizrahi Jewish community ( Eastern , or Babylonian Jews ), even though there
17760-537: The middle of the first century CE, in addition to Judea, Syria and Babylonia, large Jewish communities existed in the Roman provinces of Egypt, Crete and Cyrenaica , and in Rome itself. In 6 CE the region was organized as the Roman province of Judaea . The Judean population revolted against the Roman Empire in 66 CE in the First Jewish–Roman War , which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. During
17920-554: The military-religious-sociocultural-administrative organization of the Roman Empire... In an inscription from Altava in western Algeria, one of these rulers, Masuna , described himself as rex gentium Maurorum et Romanorum (king of the Roman and Moorish peoples). Altava was later the capital of another ruler, Garmul or Garmules, who resisted Byzantine rule in Africa but was finally defeated in 578. The Byzantine historian Procopius also mentions another independent ruler, Mastigas , who controlled most of Mauretania Caesariensis in
18080-463: The minor female founders had ancestry in prehistoric Europe, rather than the Near East or Caucasus. According to the study these findings 'point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities" and their intermarriage with Jewish men of Middle Eastern origin. Mauretania In 25 BC, the kings of Mauretania became Roman vassals until about 44 AD, when
18240-448: 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 116–117 CE led to a major defeat for the Jews, resulting in the near-total destruction of Jewish communities in Cyrenaica and Egypt. By
18400-544: The more prevalent. Jews migrated to new Greek settlements that arose in the Eastern Mediterranean and former subject areas of the Persian Empire on the heels of Alexander the Great 's conquests, spurred on by the opportunities they expected to find. The proportion of Jews in the diaspora in relation to the size of the nation as a whole increased steadily throughout the Hellenistic era and reached astonishing dimensions in
18560-544: The native name of a people opposite the Iberian Peninsula . This appellation was adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was Mauroúsii (Μαυρούσιοι). The Mediterranean coast of Mauretania had commercial harbours for trade with Carthage from before the 4th century BC, but the interior was controlled by Berber tribes, who had established themselves in the region by the Iron Age . King Atlas
18720-617: The new province of Mauretania Prima , while Mauretania Tingitana, effectively reduced to the city of Septem , was combined with the citadels of the Spanish coast ( Spania ) and the Balearic Islands to form Mauretania Secunda . The African exarch was in possession of Mauretania Secunda , which was little more than a tiny outpost in southern Spain, beleaguered by the Visigoths . The last Spanish strongholds were conquered by
18880-581: The newer sect of Christianity, Protestantism , throughout Europe. The Counter-Reformation mostly took place in Southern Europe, which is a large reason as to why Southern Europe is, for the most part, far more Catholic and far less Protestant than the majority of Northern Europe. 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
19040-514: The old administrative division, but raised the overall governor at Carthage to the supreme administrative rank of praetorian prefect , thereby ending the Diocese of Africa's traditional subordination to the Prefecture of Italy (then still under Ostrogoth rule). The emperor Maurice sometime between 585 and 590 AD created the office of "Exarch", which combined the supreme civil authority of
19200-607: The original Tanakh drawn from the Hebrew root glt ( גלה ), which lies behind galah, and golah , nor even galuth. Golah appears 42 times, and galuth in 15 passages, and first occurs in the 2 Kings 17:23 's reference to the deportation of the Judean elite to Babylonia. Stéphane Dufoix, in surveying the textual evidence, draws the following conclusion: galuth and diaspora are drawn from two completely different lexicons. The first refers to episodes, precise and datable, in
19360-844: 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 heathens . 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. Under Muslim domination Jewish communities developed in important urban centers such as Kairouan and coastal cities of Tunisia, in Tlemcen , Béjaïa and Algiers in
19520-564: The pagan reframing of Jerusalem may have been a strategic move designed to challenge, rather, the growing threat, pretensions and influence of converts to Christianity, for whom Jerusalem was likewise a crucial symbol of their faith. Implementation of these plans led to violent opposition, and triggered a full-scale insurrection with the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), assisted, according to Dio Cassius , by some other peoples, perhaps Arabs who had recently been subjected by Trajan. The revolt
19680-526: The pain of exile from one's homeland. The conditions of diaspora in the former case were premised on the free exercise of citizenship or resident alien status. Galut implies by comparison living as a denigrated minority, stripped of such rights, in the host society. Sometimes diaspora and galut are defined as 'voluntary' as opposed to 'involuntary' exile. Diaspora, it has been argued, has a political edge, referring to geopolitical dispersion, which may be involuntary, but which can assume, under different conditions,
19840-553: The peoples of the former Philistine cities, the Moabites , Ammonites and Edomites . Attempts were also made to incorporate the Samaritans , following takeover of Samaria. The success of mass-conversions is however questionable, as most groups retained their tribal separations and mostly turned Hellenistic or Christian, with Edomites perhaps being the only exception to merge into the Jewish society under Herodian dynasty and in
20000-670: The population. Alexandria was by far the most important of the Egyptian Jewish communities. The Jews in the Egyptian diaspora were on a par with their Ptolemaic counterparts and close ties existed for them with Jerusalem. As in other Hellenistic diasporas, the Egyptian diaspora was one of choice not of imposition. To judge by the later accounts of wholesale massacres in 115 CE , the number of Jewish residents in Cyrenaica , Cyprus , and Mesopotamia must also have been large. At
20160-399: The prophetic call of Israel to be a 'light unto the nations' and establish homes and families among the gentiles. The prophet Jeremiah issues this call to the preexilic emigrants in Egypt. . . Galut is a religious–nationalist term, which implies exile from the homeland as a result of collective sins, an exile that will be redeemed at YHWH’s pleasure. Jewish messianism is closely connected with
20320-406: The queen Kahina died in battle). The Vandals conquered the Roman province beginning in the 420s. The city of Hippo Regius fell to the Vandals in 431 after a prolonged siege, and Carthage also fell in 439. Theodosius II dispatched an expedition to deal with the Vandals in 441, which failed to progress farther than Sicily . The Western Empire under Valentinian III secured peace with
20480-566: The region from 33 BC to 25 BC. Mauretania eventually became a client kingdom of the Roman Empire in 25 BC when the Romans installed Juba II of Numidia as their client-king. On his death in AD 23, his Roman-educated son Ptolemy of Mauretania succeeded him. The Emperor Caligula had Ptolemy executed in AD 40. The Roman Emperor Claudius annexed Mauretania directly as a Roman province in AD 44, placing it under an imperial governor (either
20640-607: The region. However, they also faced periods of persecution, notably under the Almohads . Before and after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution settled in North Africa. Over time, Maghrebi Jews largely mixed with the newly arrived Sephardic Jews, and in most cases, they adopted the Sephardic Jewish identity . The mixed Maghrebi-Sephardic Jewish communities collapsed in
20800-543: The right bank of the Tiber as traders. In 37 BCE, the forces of the Jewish client king Herod the Great captured Jerusalem with Roman assistance, and there was likely an influx of Jewish slaves taken into the diaspora by Roman forces. In 53 BCE, a minor Jewish revolt was suppressed and the Romans subsequently sold Jewish war captives into slavery. Roman rule continued until the First Jewish-Roman War , or
20960-426: The royal family and the growing disaffection of the pious towards rulers who no longer evinced any appreciation of the real aspirations of their subjects made the Jewish nation easy prey for the ambitions of the now increasingly autocratic and imperial Romans, the successors of the Seleucids. In 63 BCE Pompey invaded Jerusalem, the Jewish people lost their political sovereignty and independence, and Gabinius subjected
21120-505: The same antisemitic Statut des Juifs as in mainland France which restricted Jews in the public service, in educational institutions and journalism, and in liberal professions. In May 1941, the worst outbreak of violence against Jews in North Africa during World War II occurred in Gabès in a riot that killed seven Jews and wounding twenty . After the Allied invasion of North Africa , Tunisia
21280-556: The scattering of Israel, i.e., the Ten Northern Tribes of Israel as opposed to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, although James (1:1) refers to the scattering of all twelve tribes. In modern times, the contrasting meanings of diaspora/galut have given rise to controversy among Jews. Bowman states this in the following terms, (Diaspora) follows the Greek usage and is considered a positive phenomenon that continues
21440-537: The second-largest Jewish diaspora group, with their descendants forming a major part of the global Jewish population. Maghrebi Jews lived in multiple communities in North Africa for over 2,000 years, with the oldest Jewish communities present during Roman times and possibly as early as within Punic colonies of the Ancient Carthage period. Under early Muslim rule, Jews flourished in major urban centers across
21600-788: The severe hardships initially faced by these refugees in North African lands. Solomon ibn Verga recorded instances of starvation so extreme that people resorted to eating grass, while Judah ibn Hayyat described seeking refuge from the cold by burrowing into garbage heaps. Jewish refugees from Spain were later joined by those fleeing Portugal, especially after the mass forced conversions of 1497. Upon arrival, Spanish and Portuguese Jews found North African cities already home to Jewish communities of diverse backgrounds. These included both long-established Jewish populations (" Toshavim ") and recent arrivals from earlier expulsions (" Megorashim "). The newcomers often faced integration issues, leading to
21760-482: The siege, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and most of Jerusalem . This watershed moment, the elimination of the symbolic centre of Judaism and Jewish identity motivated many Jews to formulate a new self-definition and adjust their existence to the prospect of an indefinite period of displacement. In 132 CE, Bar Kokhba led a rebellion against Hadrian , a revolt connected with the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina . After four years of devastating warfare,
21920-430: The siege. According to Josephus, about 97,000 Jewish captives from Judea were sold into slavery by the Romans during the revolt. Many other Jews fled from Judea to other areas around the Mediterranean. Josephus wrote that 30,000 Jews were deported from Judea to Carthage by the Romans. Exactly when Roman Anti-Judaism began is a question of scholarly debate, however historian Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson has proposed that
22080-685: The third book of the Oracula Sibyllina addressed the "chosen people," saying: "Every land is full of thee and every sea." The most diverse witnesses, such as Strabo , Philo , Seneca , Luke (the author of the Acts of the Apostles ), Cicero , and Josephus , all mention Jewish populations in the cities of the Mediterranean basin . See also History of the Jews in India and History of
22240-425: The third century BCE. Originally colonized by Greeks , this region became home to a significant Jewish population under Ptolemy I of Egypt . Ptolemy, who governed a major diaspora center in Egypt where Jews had been migrating from Judah since the sixth century BCE, sent Jews to Cyrene and other cities in Cyrenaica to secure these territories for his kingdom. By 95 BCE, when Cyrenaica came under Roman control,
22400-477: 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. Although some theories suggest a Jewish presence during the Punic period, there is no archaeological or literary support for this earlier timeline. A Jewish necropolis, possibly dating to
22560-499: The third century, was discovered at Gamart, north of Carthage, including numerous burial chambers and features Hebrew inscriptions and Jewish symbols such as the menorah and shofar . The oldest known synagogue in western North Africa, found in Hammam-Lif , in modern Tunisia, dates to the late fourth or early fifth century. In Morocco , Hebrew -language epitaphs and menorah-decorated lamps from late antiquity have been found in
22720-602: The time, possibly outnumbering those in the Land of Israel. Palestine and Babylon were both great centers of Jewish scholarship during this time, but tensions between scholars in these two communities grew as many Jewish scholars in Palestine feared that the centrality of the land to the Jewish religion would be lost with continuing Jewish emigration. Many Palestinian sages refused to consider Babylonian scholars their equals and would not ordain Babylonian students in their academies, fearing they would return to Babylon as rabbis. Significant Jewish emigration to Babylon adversely affected
22880-432: The two branches comprise many unique ethno-cultural practices and have links to their local host populations (such as Central Europeans for the Ashkenazim and Hispanics and Arabs for the Sephardim), their shared religion and ancestry, as well as their continuous communication and population transfers, has been responsible for a unified sense of cultural and religious Jewish identity between Sephardim and Ashkenazim from
23040-402: The uprising was suppressed, and Jews were forbidden access to Jerusalem. During the Middle Ages , due to increasing migration and resettlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups that today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings: the Ashkenazi of Northern and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardic Jews of Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and
23200-473: The vast majority of early Zionist migrants coming from Europe. Maghrebi Jews have an enormous cultural influence in Israel. Falafel is widely known as the National Food of Israel, 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
23360-473: The wealthy families, were to be found in Babylonia, the existence they led there, under the successive rulers of the Achaemenids , the Seleucids , the Parthians , and the Sassanians , was obscure and devoid of political influence. The poorest but most fervent of the exiles returned to Judah / the Land of Israel during the reign of the Achaemenids (c. 550–330 BCE). There, with the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem as their center, they organized themselves into
23520-413: Was directly occupied by German forces in November 1942. The Nazis immediately arrested Moise Borgel , the president of the Tunis Jewish community, along with other prominent Jews, 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
23680-410: Was a "general policy of allowing deportees to return and to re-establish cult sites". He also stated that archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle" taking place over decades, rather than a single event. There is no sudden expansion of the population base of 30,000 and no credible indication of any special interest in Yehud . Although most of the Jewish people during this period, especially
23840-400: Was a legendary king of Mauretania credited with inventing the celestial globe . The first known historical king of the Mauri, Baga , ruled during the Second Punic War of 218–201 BC. The Mauri were in close contact with Numidia . Bocchus I ([fl.] 110 BC) was father-in-law to the redoubted Numidian king Jugurtha . After the death of king Bocchus II in 33 BC Rome directly administered
24000-428: Was also used by medieval Jewish authors to refer to Jews who had traditionally lived in the Maghreb. Due to proximity, the term 'Maghrebi Jews' sometimes refers to Egyptian Jews as well, though there are important cultural differences between the history of Egyptian and Maghrebi Jews. The earliest known Jewish communities in North Africa , excluding Egypt, emerged in Cyrenaica (modern-day eastern Libya ) as early as
24160-471: 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,
24320-433: Was crushed, with the Jewish population of Judea devastated. Jewish war captives were again captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to Jewish tradition, the Romans deported twelve boatloads of Jews to Cyrenaica . Voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea in the aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba revolt also expanded Jewish communities in the diaspora. Jews were forbidden entrance to Jerusalem on pain of death, except for
24480-409: Was himself defeated and executed by Elagabalus the next year. Emperor Diocletian's Tetrarchy reform (293) further divided the area into three provinces, as the small, easternmost region of Sitifensis was split off from Mauretania Caesariensis. The Notitia Dignitatum (c. 400) mentions them as still existing, two being under the authority of the Vicarius of the diocese of Africa: And, under
24640-409: Was in turn conquered by Cyrus the Great . The biblical book of Ezra includes two texts said to be decrees allowing the deported Jews to return to their homeland after decades and ordering the Temple rebuilt. The differences in content and tone of the two decrees, one in Hebrew and one in Aramaic, have caused some scholars to question their authenticity. The Cyrus Cylinder , an ancient tablet on which
24800-471: Was large-scale migration from Palestine, and the population declined. The Jewish population shrunk especially heavily, as did the Christian population. Though some Jewish immigration from Europe, North Africa, and Syria also occurred in this period, which potentially saved the collapsing Jewish community of Palestine from disappearing altogether, Jews were reduced to an even smaller minority of the population. The result of these waves of emigration and expulsion
24960-419: 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. The 1945 Anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania sparked
25120-455: Was recaptured by the Allied forces . Under German occupation, the Jewish population, then 89,000, endured the Nazi regime and were subjected to harsh mistreatment. In Morocco, there were anti-Jewish laws put into effect and at least 2,100 Jews were forcibly interned in work camps. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 led to many countries promoting anti-Jewish behavior especially in Muslim-majority areas. This contributed significantly to
25280-411: 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. 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. Algerian Jews (approximately 35,000) had been granted French citizenship by
25440-441: 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. Around the time of the Spanish Inquisition the Counter-Reformation was taking place. The Counter-Reformation was the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation , a movement in Europe that strived to popularize
25600-590: Was that the Jewish population of Palestine was reduced to a few thousand by the time the Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine, after which the region entered a period of relative stability. At the start of Ottoman rule in 1517, the estimated Jewish population was 5,000, composed of both descendants of Jews who had never left the land and migrants from the diaspora. During the Middle Ages , due to increasing geographical dispersion and re-settlement, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two primary geographical groupings:
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