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Berber Jews
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Berber Jews are the Berber Jewish communities inhabiting the region of the Maghreb in North Africa. The region coincides with the Atlas Mountains in what today is Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Between 1950 and 1960 most emigrated to Israel. Some 2,000 of them, all elderly, still speak Judeo-Berber.
Their garb and culture was similar to neighbouring Berbers.
all pre-Islamic presence of Jews in that region is historically attested to, and these Jewish settlers are said to have mingled with the indigenous Berber population.
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Encyclopedia
Berber Jews are the Berber Jewish communities inhabiting the region of the Maghreb in North Africa. The region coincides with the Atlas Mountains in what today is Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Between 1950 and 1960 most emigrated to Israel. Some 2,000 of them, all elderly, still speak Judeo-Berber.
Their garb and culture was similar to neighbouring Berbers.
History
A small pre-Islamic presence of Jews in that region is historically attested to, and these Jewish settlers are said to have mingled with the indigenous Berber population. The acceptance by the Berbers of Judaism as a religion, and its embrace by many, including many powerful tribes, occurred over time.
The theory of berber population massive judaization is called into question by the recent study on the mtDNA (transmited from mother to children). In the study carried out by Doron et al. indicate that Jews from north Africa lack typically North African Hg M1 and U6 mtDNAs. Hence, the lack of U6 and M1 chromosomes among the North African renders the possibilty of significant admixture between the local Arab and Berber populations with Jews unlikely.
At the time of the Arab conquests in northwestern Africa, there were, according to Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun, some Berber tribes that professed Judaism. Supposedly, the female Berber military leader, Dihya, was a Berber Jew. She is said to have aroused the Berbers in the Aures (Chaoui territory), in the eastern spurs of the Atlas Mountains in modern day Algeria, to a last, although fruitless resistance to the Arab general Hasan ibn Nu'man.
Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the tensions between the indigenous Jewish communities and the Arab communities increased. Jews in the Maghreb were compelled to leave due to these increased tensions. Today, the indigenous Berber Jewish community no longer exists in Morocco. The Moroccan Jewish population rests at about 4,000 persons with most residing in Casablanca, some of them might be still Berber speakers.
Origin
In the past, it would have been very difficult to decide whether these Jewish Berber tribes were originally of Jewish descent and had become assimilated with the Berbers in language and some cultural habits — or whether they were native Berbers who in the course of centuries had been converted by Jewish settlers. Most Moroccan scholars, such as André Goldenberg or Simon Lévy, favour the second interpretation.
The question on the origins of the Berber Jews is also further complicated by the likelihood of intermarriage. However this may have been, they shared much with their non-Jewish brethren in the Berber territory, and, like them, fought against the Arab conquerors. However, it is difficult to understand how there were so many tribes professing Judaism had conversion not taken place, so the truth of the Jewish Berber origins must lie between the two theories, descent and conversion.
See also
External links
- article in French about Berber Jews
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