The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement [Paperback]

Maurice M. Roumani (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2009 | ISBN-10: 1845193679 | ISBN-13: 978-1845193676

This book investigates the transformative period in the history of the Jews of Libya (1938-52), a period crucial to understanding Libyan Jewry's evolution into a community playing significant roles in Israel, Italy and in relation with Qaddhafi's Libya. Against a background of a reform conscious Ottoman administration (1835-1911) and subsequent stirrings of modernisation under Italian colonial influence (1911-43), the Jews of Libya began to experience rapid change following the application of fascist racial laws of 1938, the onset of war-related calamities and violent expressions of Libyan pan-Arabism, culminating in mass migration to Israel in the period 1949-52. By focusing on key socio-economic and political dimensions of this process, the author reveals the capacity of Libyan Jewry to adapt to and integrate into new environments without losing its unique and historical traditions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dr Roumani uses a wide range of archival and oral sources, many of which have never been used before. Throughout the book, he reveals a mastery of the social and political history, and a fine understanding of the lives, hopes, fears and aspirations of Libyan Jews. His book is a testimony to their suffering and their fortitude." -- From the Foreword by Sir Martin Gilbert. "Maurice Roumani has given us an impeccably researched, richly documented, and keenly insightful survey of Libyan Jewry's social and political evolution in the twentieth century. He brings to the study not merely the observations of a trained scholar with all of the requisite linguistic and methodological skills, but also the real life experience of someone who lived through the turbulent events of the period and was an actual witness to some of them. It is to Roumani's great credit that he is able to achieve an admirable balance of overall scholarly dispassion with the intimate poignancy of personal engagement. The Jews of Libya will surely take its place alongside the pioneer studies of Renzo De Felice and Harvey Goldberg." -- Norman A Stillman, Schusterman/Josey Professor of Judaic History, University of Oklahoma.

Product Details

• Paperback: 310 pages
• Publisher: Sussex Academic Pr (June 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845193679
• ISBN-13: 978-1845193676
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,342,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #90 in Books > History > Africa > Libya

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement, September 2, 2008

By 

Michael Rubin "Middle East Quarterly" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement (Hardcover)

In 1948, 36,000 Jews lived in Libya. Today, none do. Roumani, a Ben-Gurion University political scientist born in Libya, has created a masterful account of the last decades of this vanished community.
In 1911, the Italian army conquered Libya. The resulting Italian administration approached the Libyan Jewish community through its experience of Rome's positive relations with its Jewish community. There were marked differences between the two communities, however, leading to tumultuous relations for the ensuing two decades. Libyan Jews resisted both Italian rabbis and the reforms they sought to oversee as they fought to preserve their identity. Italian society did influence Libyan Jewry, however, catalyzing Zionism, for example. Hebrew classes became a fixture in Libyan Jewish communities in the 1920s and 1930s. Bad accompanied good, though; as anti-Semitism grew in Italy during the fascist period, anti-Jewish incidents increased in Libya, and as the Axis oriented its foreign policy toward the Arabs, Italian leaders privileged Libya's Arabs over its Jews. As the Axis solidified in the late 1930s, Rome imposed anti-Semitic race laws on both Italy and Libya. Libyan Jews were interned in local labor camps, deported, and, in some cases, transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

As postwar Arab nationalism grew, anti-Jewish rioting and pogroms worsened. Arab hostility increased as independence neared, forcing Libyan Jews to choose between emigration to Israel or Europe or life under a hostile Arab government. Most chose the former, but a hardy core remained. Here, Roumani's detail is stellar. Exploring archives from Jerusalem to Rome to New York, as well as contemporary Arabic and Hebrew newspaper accounts, he recounts the organizational involvement of international Jewish agencies comprehensively and without sacrificing readability.

Roumani's final chapter, tracing the Libyan Jews who chose to remain in their country after Israel's independence, is one of the best case studies of Arab nationalist intolerance. Tripoli closed Jewish schools, forced Jews with relatives in Israel to register, and even placed the Jewish community's administration under Muslim trusteeship. Jews could not vote, serve in public capacities, or purchase property. Violence was commonplace. On the first day of the Six-day War in June 1967, Libyan mobs destroyed 60 percent of Jewish communal property. The Libyan government placed Jews in protective custody in a detainment camp from which they were quickly evacuated by air and sea. With Mu`ammar al-Qadhafi's rise two years later, the final nail was put into the community's coffin.

Libya had a Jewish community for millennia. Within a matter of years, it collapsed. The Libyan Jewish community may not have been the Arab world's largest or most prominent, but The Jews of Libya, nevertheless, should become standard reading not only for students of Jewish history but for those professing expertise in modern Arab or North African history as well.

Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2008