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Slat and Ishibet Dar Bibi (Bibi Synagogue and Yeshiva), Tripoli, Libya
The Dar Bibi Synagogue and Yeshiva (צלאת דאר ביבי / לביבי) was built in 1901 by Mordechai Angelo Arbib (Bibi). It was one of several house-synagogue-yeshiva complexes in Tripoli, and contained a library of 800 books.
Description
The Dar Bibi Synagogue and Yeshiva were founded in 1901 by Mordechai Angelo Arbib (Bibi).1 They were adjacent to Hush Angelo, the Bibi family home, on Hara el Kebira Street No. 141. The ishibet (yeshiva) contained a library of eight hundred books and was staffed by librarian Saul Tesciuba.2 When the Bibi family moved to a new house in the Italian Quarter, Mordechai’s son Jacob Giacomo donated the Dar Bibi Synagogue to the kehillah (Jewish community), who maintained its original functions and added a gherfa (old people’s hospice). The building was looted after the Six Day War in 1967, and leveled under Qaddafi’s rule along with all other Jewish buildings in the hara (Jewish quarter).3 Some memorial plaques (including the 1901 dedication inscription) and other religious objects have been removed and are now exhibited in the Dar Al-Serussi.4
Prior to the late 19th century, Jewish education in Libya generally occurred in synagogues and private homes such as Slat Dar Bibi, and was considered to be on a low level, according to Maurice Roumani, a researcher of Libyan Jewry.5 However, Ishibet Dar Bibi was built after a general reform of Jewish education in 1874 under the administration of chief Rabbi Eliahu Bekhor Hazan.6 This reform included the introduction of Italian and French schools with more european lesson content, notably nonreligious subjects and foreign language.7 It is unclear to what degree Ishibet Dar Bibi followed this educational reform. Most likely, the student body at Ishibet Dar Bibi was mostly male, because public education (i.e. outside of Italian and French schools) for girls only started in the 1930s.8 Only in a few rare cases did girls attend public classes arranged for boys; most girls were educated at their homes.9 Ishibet Dar Bibi was one of six yeshivot listed in the 1926 directory published by the Italian Administration for Tripolitania. Of the four libraries at yeshivot that were inventorized, Slat Dar Bibi had the third most books.10
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.11 The first Jews of Libya mostly settled first arrived in Libya more than 2000 years ago, settling mostly in coastal cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi, which were, at the time, within the larger Roman regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.12 Some Berber tribes, including the Nafusa of the western Tripolitanian mountains, adopted Judaism.13
Arab Tripoli
According to Jewish and Arab traditions, the Jews and Berbers resisted the Islamic Arabs who captured Tripolitania from Byzantine rule in 642.14 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.15 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.16 Some of them returned after 1551, and with them arrived Jewish refugees from Spain and Italy.17
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.18 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.19
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.20 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.21 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.22 Most of tThe 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.23
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.24
Tripoli, Libya
© Mapbox, © OpenStreetMap
Sources
For images see:
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), page 118. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.14
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), 117, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.14.
2. Arbib, 124.
3. Arbib, 126.
4. Arbib, 117.
5. “Forgotten Memories of Libya’s Vibrant Jewish Community,” Haaretz, accessed July 9, 2022, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-08-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/forgotten-memories-of-libyas-vibrant-jewish-community/0000017f-f96a-d884-a17f-fdffa8890000.
6. 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), 42, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.9.
7. “Forgotten Memories of Libya’s Vibrant Jewish Community”; Rachel Simon, “Libyan Jewish Women’s Lore: From Homeschooling to Formal Education,” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary e-Journal 17, no. 2 (2020): 2, https://doi.org/10.33137/wij.v17i2.36883.
8. Simon, “Libyan Jewish Women’s Lore,” 2.
9. Simon, 2.
10. Arbib, “The Vanishing Landscape,” 124.
11. 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), 7, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p574k.7.
12. 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.
13. Roumani, “Libyan Jews in the Islamic Arab and Ottoman Periods,” 39.
14. Roumani, 39.
15. Roumani, 40.
16. Roumani, 41.
17. Roumani, 41.
18. Roumani, 42.
19. Roumani, 41.
20. 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.
21. Roumani.
22. Roumani.
23. “Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries,” accessed July 14, 2022, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries.
24. 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.
Haaretz. “Forgotten Memories of Libya’s Vibrant Jewish Community.” Accessed July 9, 2022. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-08-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/forgotten-memories-of-libyas-vibrant-jewish-community/0000017f-f96a-d884-a17f-fdffa8890000.
“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.
Simon, Rachel. “Libyan Jewish Women’s Lore: From Homeschooling to Formal Education.” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary e-Journal 17, no. 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.33137/wij.v17i2.36883.
Alchetron.com. “Tripolitania - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia,” August 18, 2017. https://alchetron.com/Tripolitania.
Further resources:
Arbib family genealogy chart: https://farhi.org/genealogy/descend.php?personID=I194211&tree=Farhi
Interview with Bendetto Arbib, a descendant of Mordechai Angeli Arbib: http://www.jewsoflibya.com/LibyanJews/testimonies/testimonydavidbenedetto.html
Coordinates courtesy of Merkaz Or Shalom, www.or-shalom.org.il.