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Hara Sghira (Small Quarter), Tripoli, Libya
The Hara Sghira (Small Quarter, חארה זג'ירה) in Tripoli, Libya. This was the smallest of the three Jewish quarters, the others being the Kabira and Wastia.
Description
Prior to the Italian conquest in 1911, the Jewish population of Tripoli, Libya was concentrated in the Jewish quarters of the Medina (city center). The Medina is outlined by a pentagonal border that traces the fortifications built by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. The street plan resembles classic Roman design, centered around a cardo (main north-south-running street) and two decumans (main east-west-running streets).1 The Jewish quarters Kabira and Sghira were bordered by the decuman Bab el-Jedid on the south, the Medina wall on the west, the decuman Erbaat Saat on the north, and the arch of Marcus Aurelius and the Arba’a Arsat (four Roman columns) on the west.2 The arch of Marcus Aurelius and the Arba’a Arsat marked major intersections between the cardo and the two decumans – key points of contact between different communities that were frequented by all residents of the Medina including Jews.3
Most Jewish homes, synagogues, yeshivot, and community schools were inside the quarters, but businesses matters such as shops, warehouses, offices, and workshops were located in the business districts south of the Medina, such as in Suk el-Turk, Suk el-Najjara, and Suk el-Mushir.”4
Tripoli's Jewish Community
Roman and Byzantine Tripoli
Jews have inhabited Libya since at least the 3rd century BCE, and potentially as early as the First Temple.5 The first Jews of Libya mostly settled in coastal cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi, which were, at the time, within the larger Roman regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.6 Some Berber tribes, including the Nafusa of the western Tripolitanian mountains, adopted Judaism.7
Arab Tripoli
According to Jewish and Arab traditions, the Jews and Berbers resisted the Islamic Arabs who captured Tripolitania from Byzantine rule in 642.8 In addition to the residential population, Tripoli is mentioned in the records of Jewish merchants as a stop on their trade routes across north Africa.9 Upon the Spanish occupation of Tripoli from 1510-1530 followed by the Knights of Malta from 1530-1551, the Jews of Tripoli fled to other regions, such as Tajura, Gharian, and Italy.10 Some of them returned after 1551, and with them arrived Jewish refugees from Spain and Italy.11
Ottoman Tripoli
The Ottomans government (1551-1911) was relatively tolerant of Jews, although levels of street conflict (e.g robberies and arson) between Jews and Muslims worsened.12 During an interruption in Ottoman rule by the independent Qaramanlis monarchy (1711-1835), the Jews of Tripoli began to distinguish their culture from Tunisian Jewry.13
Italian Tripoli to Gaddafi
By the time of the Italian occupation of Libya in 1911, the Jewish population of Tripoli was 8,509 out of approximately 30,000 people in the city.14 The occupation led to struggles between traditional and modernizing factions in the community; in an effort to defuse the struggle, the colonial authorities invited Italian Rabbi Elia Artomo to serve as chief rabbi of Tripoli.15 Relations between the Jewish community and the colonial government began to deteriorate after the Fascists took power in Italy. In 1942 Mussolini ordered that Jews of foreign nationalities living in Libya be sent to camps in Libya or Europe. Anti-Jewish riots swept the country in 1945 and 1948; between 1949 and 1951 most of the Jewish population emigrated to Europe or Israel.16 Most of the remaining Jews were forcibly expelled in 1967, the year of the Six Day War. At the start of Muammar Gaddafi (Quaddafi)’s regime, the synagogues in Tripoli were destroyed, all Jewish property was confiscated, and all debts to Jews canceled.17
After Gaddafi
Today there are Jews living in Libya. On October 10th, 2003, Rina Debach, an eighty–one year old woman in an elderly home, was the last Jew to leave the country, when her nephew who had left in 1967 finally got permission from the Libyan and Italian authorities for her to be evacuated.18
Sources
Endnotes
1. Jack Arbib, “The Vanishing Landscape: A Retrospective Glance at the Topos of Libyan Jews,” in Jewish Libya, ed. Jacques Roumani, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani, Memory and Identity in Text and Image (Syracuse University Press, 2018), 108–10, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.14.
2. Arbib, 110; H.S. Cowper, The Hill of the Graces (London: Methuen & co, 1897), 29, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049825451&view=1up&seq=37&skin=2021.
3. Arbib, “The Vanishing Landscape,” 108–10.
4. Arbib, 110.
5. Associated Press, “Libya’s ‘revolutionary Jew’ Returns to Restore Tripoli Synagogue,” The Guardian, October 3, 2011, sec. World news, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/03/libyas-revolutionary-jew-restore-synagogue; Jacques Roumani, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani, eds., “Introduction,” in Jewish Libya, Memory and Identity in Text and Image (Syracuse University Press, 2018), 17, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.7.
6. Press, “Libya’s ‘revolutionary Jew’ Returns to Restore Tripoli Synagogue”; “Tripolitania - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia,” Alchetron.com, August 18, 2017, https://alchetron.com/Tripolitania.
7. Maurice M. Roumani, “Libyan Jews in the Islamic Arab and Ottoman Periods,” in Jewish Libya, ed. Jacques Roumani, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani, Memory and Identity in Text and Image (Syracuse University Press, 2018), 39, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.9.
8. Roumani, 39.
9. Roumani, 40.
10. Roumani, 41.
11. Roumani, 41.
12. Roumani, 42.
13. Roumani, 41.
14. Maurice Roumani, “Tripoli,” in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (Brill Online), accessed July 23, 2014, http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/tripoli-libya-COM_0021620.
15. Roumani.
16. Roumani.
17. “Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries,” accessed July 14, 2022, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries.
18. Maurice Roumani, “The Final Exodus of the Libyan Jews in 1967,” Jewish Political Studies Review 19, no. 3/4 (2007): 95.
Bibliography
Arbib, Jack. “The Vanishing Landscape: A Retrospective Glance at the Topos of Libyan Jews.” In Jewish Libya, edited by Jacques Roumani, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani, 107–52. Memory and Identity in Text and Image. Syracuse University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.14.
Cowper, H.S. The Hill of the Graces. London: Methuen & co, 1897. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049825451&view=1up&seq=37&skin=2021.
“Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries.” Accessed July 14, 2022. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries.
Press, Associated. “Libya’s ‘revolutionary Jew’ Returns to Restore Tripoli Synagogue.” The Guardian, October 3, 2011, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/03/libyas-revolutionary-jew-restore-synagogue.
Roumani, Jacques, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani, eds. “Introduction.” In Jewish Libya, 17–18. Memory and Identity in Text and Image. Syracuse University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.7.
Roumani, Maurice. “The Final Exodus of the Libyan Jews in 1967.” Jewish Political Studies Review 19, no. 3/4 (2007): 77–100.
———. “Tripoli.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Brill Online. Accessed July 23, 2014. http://0-referenceworks.brillonline.com.luna.wellesley.edu/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/tripoli-libya-COM_0021620.
Roumani, Maurice M. “Libyan Jews in the Islamic Arab and Ottoman Periods.” In Jewish Libya, edited by Jacques Roumani, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani, 39–42. Memory and Identity in Text and Image. Syracuse University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.9.
Alchetron.com. “Tripolitania - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia,” August 18, 2017. https://alchetron.com/Tripolitania.
Coordinates courtesy of Merkaz Or Shalom, www.or-shalom.org.il.
Image:
Moise Baptiste Fouard, map of Tripoli in 1685 when it was bombarded by a French squadron
https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/amp/media/bombardement-de-tripoli-en-1685-033ba1