History of the Jews in Africa
African Jewish communities include:
- Sephardi Jews and Mizrahi Jews who primarily live in the Maghreb of North Africa, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia, as well as Sudan and Egypt. Some were established early in the diaspora; others after the expulsion from Iberia in the late 15th century.
- South African Jews, who are mostly Ashkenazi Jews descended from pre-Holocaust immigrant Lithuanian Jews.
- Beta Israel living primarily in the Amhara and Tigray regions of Ethiopia and sparsely in Eritrea.
- Berber Jews, the majority of whom were assimilated and converted to Islam, especially during the historical persecutions of the Almohadic Caliphate in the Middle Ages. The modern population of Berber Jews in Africa now numbers about 8,000 people in Morocco, with the majority having emigrated to Israel since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, along with smaller numbers scattered throughout Europe and North America.
- Lemba Jews in Southern Africa
- Historical communities which no longer exist in Africa due to assimilation, such as the Jews of Bilad el-Sudan in West Africa, who existed before the introduction of Islam to the region during the 14th century.
- Various relatively modern groups throughout Africa, most of whom claim some form of a Judaic or Israelite identity, and/or ancestry.
Ancient communities
In the seventh century, many Spanish Jews fled from the persecution which was occurring under the rule of the Visigoths and migrated to North Africa, where they made their homes in the Byzantine-dominated cities along the Mediterranean coast. Others arrived after the expulsion from Iberia. Remnants of longstanding Jewish communities remain in Morocco, Tunisia, and the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla. There is a much-diminished but still vibrant community on the island of Djerba in Tunisia. Since 1948 and the war to establish Israel, which aroused hostility in Muslim lands, most other North African Jews emigrated to Israel.
Of the seventh-century immigrants, some of them moved inland and proselytized among the Berber tribes. A number of tribes, including the Jarawa, Uled Jari, and some tribes of the Daggatun people, converted to Judaism. Ibn Khaldun reported that Kahina, a female Berber warlord who led the resistance against the Muslim Arab conquests of North Africa in the 680s and 690s, was a Jew of the Jarawa tribe. With the defeat of the Berber rebellion, none of the Jewish communities was initially forced to convert to Islam.
Ethiopia
In 1975, the Israeli religious authorities and the Israeli government both recognized the Beta Israel of Ethiopia as an officially Jewish community. Hundreds of persons who wanted to emigrate to Israel were air-lifted under the leadership of Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Begin had obtained an official ruling from the Israeli Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef that the Beta Israel were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes. Rabbis believed that they were probably descendants of the Tribe of Dan; rabbinical responsa discussing issues related to the people date back hundreds of years. With this endorsement, in later decades, tens of thousands of Beta Israel Jews were air-lifted to Israel. Significant immigration to Israel continues into the 21st century, producing an Ethiopian Jewish community of around 81,000 immigrants, who with their 39,000 children who were born in Israel itself, numbered around 120,000 by early 2009.Due to certain aspects of Orthodox Jewish marital laws, Rabbi Yosef ruled that upon their arrival in Israel, the Beta Israel had to undergo a pro forma conversion to Judaism. They had to declare their allegiance to a halachic way of life and the Jewish people, in conformity with practices which are followed by adherents of Orthodox Rabbinical Judaism. He did not demand the normal formal requirements that the halacha imposes on potential gentile proselytes,. Few Ashkenazi rabbinic authorities consider the conversions to be actual conversions, not pro forma.
Over time, due to their community's isolation from those in Europe and the Middle East, the practices of the Beta Israel developed to differ significantly from those of other forms of Judaism. In Ethiopia, the Beta Israel community was for the most part isolated from the Talmud. They did have their own oral law. In some cases, they had practices similar to those of Karaite Judaism, and in others more similar to rabbinical Judaism.
In many instances, their religious elders, or their priestly class, known as kessim or qessotch, interpreted the Biblical Law of the Tanakh in a way which is similar to the way in which it is interpreted by rabbinite Jewish communities in other parts of the world. In that sense, the Beta Israel had a tradition analogous to that of the Talmud, although at times at variance with the practices and teachings of other Jewish communities.
One significant difference is the fact that the Beta Israel lacked the festivals of Purim and Hanukkah, probably because they branched off from the main body of Judaism before these non-Biblical holidays began to be commemorated. Today, most members of the Beta Israel community living in Israel do observe these holidays.
They are a community which is in transition. Some of the kessim accept the rabbinic/Talmudic tradition that is practiced by non-Ethiopian Orthodox Jews. Many members of the younger generation of Ethiopian-Israelis have been educated in yeshivas and they have also received rabbinical ordination. A certain segment of traditionalist kessim insist on maintaining their separate and distinct form of Judaism, as it had been practiced in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Many of the Ethiopian Jewish youth who have immigrated to Israel or been born there have assimilated either to the dominant form of Orthodox Judaism, or to a secular lifestyle.
The Beit Avraham of Ethiopia consists of some 50,000 members. This community also claims to have a Jewish heritage. Several scholars think that they broke off from the Beta Israel community several centuries ago, hid their Jewish customs, and outwardly adopted Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.
The Beit Avraham have traditionally been on the lower rungs of Ethiopian social life. They have held occupations which are similar to those which have been held by the Beta Israel, such as crafts. Recently, the Beit Avraham community has attempted to reach out to the worldwide Jewish community. They formed the Ethiopian North Shewa Zionist Organization in an attempt to save their Jewish identity. The members of this group refer to themselves as the Falashmura. Because they do not have any reliable proof of Jewish ancestry, Israeli religious authorities and other religious Jewish communities require them to complete a formal conversion to Judaism before they recognize them as Jews. Those Falashmura who do so are considered converts to Judaism.
The Gefat people are a southern Ethiopian tribe which is descended from Beta Israel.
Somalia
The Yibir are a tribe that lives in Somalia, eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti, and northern Kenya. Though they have been Muslim for centuries, some of them assert they are descendants of Hebrews who arrived in the Horn of Africa long before the arrival of Somali nomads. These individuals assert that Yibir means "Hebrew" in their language.Bilad el-Sudan
The historical presence of Jewish communities in Africa is well-attested to. Today, the descendants of these Jews live in nations such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, and many other areas. According to the 17th century Tarikh al-Fattash and the Tarikh al-Sudan, several Jewish communities existed as parts of the Ghana, Mali, and later Songhai empires. One such community was formed by a group of Egyptian Jews, who allegedly traveled by way of the Sahel corridor through Chad into Mali. Manuscript C of the Tarikh al-Fattash described a community called the Bani Israel; in 1402, it lived in Tindirma, possessed 333 wells, and had seven princes as well as an army.Another such community was that of the Zuwa ruler of Koukiya. His name was known only as Zuwa Alyaman, meaning "He comes from Yemen". According to an isolated local legend, Zuwa Alyaman was a member of one of the Jewish communities transported from Yemen by Abyssinians in the 6th century CE after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas. Zuwa Alyaman was said to have traveled into West Africa along with his brother. They established a community in Kukiya at the banks of the Niger River downstream from Gao. According to the Tarikh al-Sudan, after Zuwa Alyaman, there were 14 Zuwa rulers of Gao before the rise of Islam in the second half of the eleventh century.
Other sources stated that other Jewish communities in the region developed from people who migrated from Morocco and Egypt; others later came from Portugal. Some communities were said to have been populated by certain Berber Jews, like a group of Tuareg known as Dawsahak or Iddao Ishaak. They speak a language related to Songhai, live in Ménaka Region in northeastern Mali and were formerly herders for Tuareg nobles. In addition, some migrated into the area away from the Muslim rule of North Africa.
The well-known 16th Century geographer Leo Africanus - an Andalusian Berber convert to Christianity - mentions a mysterious small village of African Jews southwest of Timbuktu, who traded in exotic spices, weapons, and poisons.