Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:20, 12 September 2007

Arab Jews (Arabic: يهود العرب, Hebrew: יהודים ערבים) refers to Jews of Arab ancestry or those who speak Arabic. The term was in wide use prior to the introduction of Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel, when the Arab World contained a Jewish population of around 1 million, most of which has since moved to Israel and Western Europe, and to a much smaller degree the United States. They were typically Arabic-speaking, having one of many varieties of Arabic (see also Judæo-Arabic languages) as their primary community language, with Hebrew reserved as a liturgical language. These Jews and their descendants span a range of religious observances, from the ultra religious to the large segment of Jews that are entirely secular.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the term has largely fallen out of use and been replaced by the terms Sephardic Jew and Mizrahi Jew. In recent times, some scholars - like Ella Shohat, a Middle East scholar at New York University, David Shasha, Director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage, and Amiel Alcalay, a professor at Queen's College in New York - have been emphasizing the importance of their identity as Arab Jews. In contrast, many Mizrahi Jews strictly oppose the term for various reasons.

Overview

In most places in the world today, the term Arab Jew in considered an oxymoron. According to Salim Tamari, it generally refers to a period of history when some Eastern Jews (Sephardic and Mizrahi) identified with the Arab national movement that emerged in the lead up to the dismantlement of the Ottoman empire. Arab Jews, who shared in the language and culture of their Muslim and Christian compatriots in Greater Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, began identifying with this movement as early as the Ottoman administrative reforms of 1839.

David Rabeeya, a self-identified Arab Jew, extends that identification back even further, noting the long history of Arab Jews in the Arab world that remained in place after the dawn of Islam in the 7th century until midway through the 20th century. He writes that Arab Jews, like Arab Muslims and Arab Christians, were culturally Arab with religious commitments to Judaism. He notes that Arab Jews named their progeny with Arabic names and "Like every Arab, Arab Jews were proud of their Arabic language and its dialects, and held a deep emotional attachment to its beauty and richness."

Terminology

The term "Arab Jew" is sometimes used by newspapers and official bodies in Arab countries, to express the belief that Jewish identity is a matter of religion rather than ethnicity. Many Jews disagree with this, and therefore do not use the term; but some Mizrahi activists, even those not born in Arab countries, define themselves as Arab Jews either because they identify as such, or to make a cultural or political statement. Notable persons espousing such identities include Naeim Giladi, Ella Habiba Shohat, Sami Shalom Chetrit and David Rabeeya.

The proponents of the term "Arab Jews" argue that "Arab" is a linguistic and cultural rather than a racial or a religious term, and that the Jews in Arab countries fully participated in that culture. On this view, the correct distinction is between "Jews" and "Muslims", rather than between "Jews" and "Arabs". Similarly the Christian population of countries such as Egypt and Syria are quite unproblematically described as "Arabs", even though most of them (and indeed many of the Muslims) are descended from the pre-Islamic population of those countries.

One argument against the term "Arab Jews" is that some of the communities referred to originated as early as the Babylonian captivity (6th century BCE), thus antedating the Arab Muslim conquest by a millennium. Furthermore, in actual usage in North African and Near and Middle Eastern countries, people spoke of Arab Muslims and Arab Christians, but never of Arab Jews: the Jews were regarded as an ethnic as well as a religious minority. No one in fact ever spoke of "Arab Jews" until the rise of secular ethnic nationalism in the early twentieth century, when many Jews sought integration into the new national identities (Iraqi, Tunisian etc.) as an escape from their previous minority status, in much the same way as some nineteenth century German Jews preferred to identify as "Germans of the Mosaic faith" rather than as "Jews".

Proponents of this view do not seek to deny the strong Arabic cultural influence on Jews in those countries. In North Africa, some Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic languages while others spoke French; and in some areas there are still Jews who dress quite like Arabs. Their argument is that “Arabness” referred to more than just a common shared culture. One could therefore legitimately speak of “arabized” Jews, or "Jews of Arab countries", but not of "Arab Jews"; just as one can speak of "English Jews" or "British Jews", but not of "Saxon Jews" or "Celtic Jews". What is needed is an equivalent of the traditional term Musta'arabim (Arabizers), which was used to distinguish the older Arabic-speaking communities of those countries from post-1492 Sephardim.

A third view is that the term "Arab Jew" has a certain legitimacy, but should only describe the Jewish communities of Arabia itself, such as the Banu Qaynuqa of the time of Muhammad and, possibly, the Yemenite Jews: see Arab Jewish tribes. This stems from the view of Arabism as ethnicity and rejection of political/linguistic definitions of Arabism.

Opposition

• Some jews frequently identified with the ethnically non-arab populace of their native country, such as the berbers in morocco and the kurds in iraq.
• There is considerable opposition because of political rivalry and different opinions regarding Zionism and issues concerning Israel/Palestine.
• The term defies the ethos of "The Melting Pot", such defiance widely considered a taboo in Israel.
• The term is widely used by politically left-wing or anti-Zionist activists in israel, as opposed to the commonly Zionist right-wing voting preference of Mizrahi Jews in israel.

Arab Jews by nation

Arabian Peninsula

There had been, for some long but uncertain period, a significant number of Jews in Arabia. Some Arab historians claim that very large numbers of Jews - as high as 80,000 - arrived after the destruction of the First Temple, to join others already long established in places such as the oasis of Khaybar as well as the trading colonies in Medina and Mecca (where they even had their own cemetery). Another theory posits that these Jews were refugees from Byzantine persecutions. Regardless, Arab historians mention some 20 Jewish tribes, including two tribes of Kohanim. The Jews spoke Arabic, were organised into clans and tribes like the Arabs, and seem to have fully assimilated the values and customs of Arab desert society in all forms save for religion.

According to Islam, the Muhammad had contact with the Jews of Arabia, and they feature prominently in the early history of the Muslim movement. The founder of Islam paid great respect to the Torah itself, as seen in the Hadith of Sunan Abu Dawud, where Muhammad is portrayed putting the Torah onto a cushion on which he at first sat and saying: "I believe in you and the one who revealed you (meaning God)". How these professions by the Islamic founder can be reconciled with later changes made in the fundamental readings in the Jewish Torah are hard to understand. But The importance of the father of Judiasm and the Jewish Nation, Abraham, within Islam can be further highlighted in the common belief of the shared tribal connection between the Jews and the tribes of Arabi, although Muhammad downplayed Abraham's Jewish or Christian credentials and instead portrayed him as a common forefather. The Constitution of Medina, written shortly after hijra, addressed some points regarding the civil and religious situation for the Jewish communities living within the city from an Islamic perspective. For example, the constitution stated that the Jews "will profess their religion, and the Muslims theirs", and they "shall be responsible for their expenditure, and the Muslims for theirs". Rarely did Jews live with such freedom.

But whatever influence Jewish religious practice had on Muhammad, politically the Jews did not fare well under his growing influence as a result of political conflicts regarding the city's tribal alliances, as well as theological tension from their rejection of Muhammad's claims to prophethood. After the Battle of Badr, the Jewish tribe of Banu Qaynuqa allegedly breached treaties and agreements with Muhammad. The Islamic founder regarded this as casus belli and besieged the Banu Qaynuqa. Upon surrender the tribe was expelled. The following year saw the expulsion of the second tribe, the Banu Nadir, accused of planning to kill the founder of Islam by dropping a rock on his head as he rested under a wall outside its village--Muhammad, who received 'divine warning', evaded the plot. According to Islamic mythos, Banu Nadir aligned themselves with the Arab idolators of Mecca after being evicted from their mansions in Medina. The Banu Nadir chief unsuccessfully attempted to recruit the third Jewish tribe of Medina to breach treaties with Muhammad. The third major Jewish tribe in Medina, Banu Qurayza was eliminated when the Muslims besieged their fortifications. They were judged after having surrendered by a Muslim judge named Saad "under the laws of the Torah". Capital punishment befell and all adult males were executed and their women and children were taken into indetured servitude, an event reported in Surah 33:25-27 of the Qur'an.

Muhammad invaded the other Jewish tribes in Arabia including Khaybar and Fadak. They remained, in a weakened but tolerated status as 'People of the book', but the harsh conditions that came with dhimmi status caused them to quickly lose power until they were expelled from the peninsula a few years later by the Caliph Umar. While the idea of dhimmi status comes from the Quran, the particulars of the legal rights and limitations were derived from the imposition of inferior status on the Jews of Khaybar after the Muslims had captured it.

The development of the Mohamand's teaching may be linked to the changing relationship with the Jews of Medina. Although they formed part of his original alliance with the tribes of Medina, their position inevitably eroded as as Muhammad's claim for his divine mission expanded. The Jews could not accept him as a genuine messenger of God within their own tradition due to his not being of Jewish lineage. Muhammad, in turn, seems to have viewed the nature of Jewish religious practice as a corruption or perversion of the revelation entrusted to them by the one God: "you have concealed what you were ordered to make plain", said Muhammad of the Jews, noting their exclusive societal nature and reluctance to proselytize. They had, in his view, greedily held onto a revelation that was meant to be spread to all peoples.

With such official attitudes towards Judaism it is not surprising that the limited tolerance shown towards the Jews in Arabia did not last. In year 20 of the Muslim era, or the year 641 AD, Muhammad's successor the Caliph 'Umar decreed that Jews and Christians should be removed from all but the southern and eastern fringes of Arabia--a decree based on the (sometimes disputed) uttering of the Prophet: "Let there not be two religions in Arabia". The two populations in question were the Jews of the Khaybar oasis in the north and the Christians of Najran. Other sources report the forced deportation of Jews and Christians occurring in 634 AD, with the last remnants of these two monotheistic religions being removed from the Arabian peninsula by the year 650.

Some provisions were made for the expelled Jews. The Arabian Jews were assigned lands in Syria and Palestine (while the Christian were sent to Iraq), and they were given time to effect the move. The expulsion was eventually completed, and from then forward the Holy Land of the Hijaz was forbidden to non-Muslims. Only the Red Sea port of Jedda was permitted as a "religious quarantine area" and continued to have a small complement of Jewish merchants.

Syria

In 1948, there were approximately 30,000 Jews in Syria. The Syrian government placed severe restrictions on the Jewish community, including on emigration. Over the next decades, many Jews managed to escape, and the work of supporters, particularly Judy Feld Carr, in smuggling Jews out of Syria, and bringing their plight to the attention of the world, raised awareness of their situation. Following the Madrid Conference of 1991 the United States put pressure on the Syrian government to ease its restrictions on Jews, and on Passover in 1992, the government of Syria began granting exit visas to Jews on condition that they do not emigrate to Israel. At that time, the country had several thousand Jews; today, under a hundred remain. The rest of the Jewish community have emigrated, mostly to the United States and Israel. There is a large and vibrant Syrian Jewish community in South Brooklyn, New York. In 2004, the Syrian government attempted to establish better relations with the emigrants, and 12 Syrian-Jews visited Syria.

Lebanon

In 1948, there were approximately 5,000 Jews in Lebanon, with communities in Beirut, and on villages near Mount Lebanon, Deir al Qamar, Barouk, and Hasbayah. While the French mandate saw a general improvement in conditions for Jews, the Vichy regime placed restrictions on them. The Jewish community actively supported Lebanese independence after World War II and had mixed attitudes toward Zionism.

After 1948, the amount of Lebanese jews was Quadrupled, from 5,000 to 20,000, mainly due to immigration from Syria and Iraq due to persecution. While negative attitudes toward Jews increased after 1948, the situation was considerably better than in Syria and Iraq. by 1967, however, many Lebanese Jews had gradually emigrated - to the United States, Canada, France, and Israel. The remaining Jewish community was particularly hard hit by the civil wars in Lebanon, More so as Syrian involvement became stronger. In 1971, Albert Elia, the 69-year-old Secretary-General of the Lebanese Jewish community was kidnapped in Beirut by Syrian agents and imprisoned under torture in Damascus along with Syrian Jews who had attempted to flee the country. A personal appeal by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin Agha Khan to the late President Hafez al-Assad failed to secure Elia's release. In the 1980s, Hezbollah kidnapped several Lebanese Jewish businessmen, and in the 2004 elections, only one Jew voted in the municipal elections. By all accounts, there are fewer than 100 Jews left in Lebanon.

Iraq

Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest, and historically most important, Jewish communities. Abraham came from Ur in Babylon, and it was to Babylon that the Jews were exiled around 600 BCE. The descendants of these exiles ensured that Babylonia became the most important Jewish community after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The community thrived as the center of Jewish learning until the Middle Ages, when the Mongol invasion, and the subsequent persecutions of the Persians significantly reduced its importance. With the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the life of Iraqi Jews improved, though the community never regained its former importance. Iraqi Jews played an important role in the early days of the country's independence, but the Iraqi Jewish community, numbered at around one million in 1948, was almost entirely driven out of the country by increasing persecution from the 1940s onwards. Today, less than 100 remain. Many Iraqi Jews moved to India, where they are known as Baghdadi Jews.

Tunisia

Tunisia has had a Jewish minority since Roman times. Tunisia was the only Arab country to come under direct German occupation during World War II, where they suffered under a forced labor and random execution policy. After independence in the 1950s, Tunisia's Jewish Community Council was abolished by the government and many Jewish areas and buildings were destroyed for urban rehabilitation. In 1948 the Jewish population was an estimated 105,000. During the Six-Day War, Jews were attacked in riots, and, despite government protection, 7,000 Jews emigrated to France. As of 2004 an estimated 1,500 still remain, particularly on the island of Djerba (noted for its synagogues), comprising the country's largest indigenous religious minority.

Egypt

Egyptian Jews constitute perhaps the oldest Jewish community in the world. The Jewish population of Egypt is now somewhere from 100-1000 people, down from between 75,000 and 100,000 in 1948. They include some Karaite Jews.

Algeria

Jews and Judaism have a rather long history in Algeria. However, following the brutal conflict of the 1990s there – in particular, the rebel Armed Islamic Group's 1994 declaration of war on all non-Muslims in the country – most of the thousand-odd Jews previously there, living mainly in Algiers and to a lesser extent Blida, Constantine, and Oran, emigrated. The Algiers synagogue was abandoned after 1994. These Jews themselves represented the remainder of only about 10,000 who had chosen to stay there in 1962; most of Algeria's 140,000 Jews, having been granted French citizenship in 1870, left the country for France when it attained independence, together with the pied-noirs.

Libya

The area now known as Libya was the home of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, dating back to at least 300 BCE. In 1948, about 38,000 Jews lived there.

A series of pogroms started in November 1945, when more than 140 Jews were killed in Tripoli and most synagogues in the city looted. The pogroms continued in June 1948, when 15 Jews were killed and 280 Jewish homes destroyed.

Upon Libya's independence in 1951, most of the Jewish community emigrated from Libya. After the Suez Crisis in 1956, another series of pogroms forced a large number of Jews to flee. In 1967, the Jewish population of 7,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, and many more injured, sparking a near-total exodus that left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya. When Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969, all remaining Jewish property was confiscated and all debts to Jews cancelled.

In 2004 Libya unilaterally invited Jews to return and receive compensation for their original property, on condition that they leave their property in Israel to Palestinians.. Libyan Jews' reaction to the offer of return has been negative; they view it as a stunt intended to improve Libya's standing in both the Western and Arab worlds, cite concerns about religious freedoms, and point out the lack of human rights and democracy in Libya that make such an offer highly unattractive. However, the compensation offer has attracted guarded interest.

Although the main synagogue in Tripoli was renovated in 1999, it has not reopened for services. The last Jew in Libya, Esmeralda Meghnagi, died in February 2002. Israel is home to about 40,000 Jews of Libyan descent, who maintain unique traditions.

Bahrain

Bahrain's tiny Jewish community, mostly the descendants of immigrants who entered the country in the early 1900s from Iraq, numbered 600 in 1948. Over the next few decades, most left for other countries, especially England; some 36 remain (as of 2006.)

Relations between Jews and Muslims are generally considered good, with Bahrain being the only state on the Arabian peninsula where there is a specific Jewish community. Bahrain is the only Gulf state with a synagogue. One member of the community, Rouben Rouben, who sells TV sets, DVD players, copies, fax machines and kitchen appliances from his downtown showroom, said “95 percent of my customers are Bahrainis, and the government is our No. 1 corporate customer. I’ve never felt any kind of discrimination.”

Members play a prominent role in civil society: Ebrahim Nono was appointed in 2002 a member of Bahrain's upper house of parliament, the Consultative Council, while a Jewish woman heads a human rights group, the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society. According to the JTA news agency, the active Jewish community is "a source of pride for Bahraini officials".

See also

• Jewish ethnic divisions
• Mizrahi Jews
• History of the Jews under Muslim rule
• History of the Jews in Algeria
• History of the Jews in Egypt
• History of the Jews in Iraq
• History of the Jews in Morocco
• History of the Jews in Tunisia
• History of the Jews in Syria
• Syrian Jews
• Yemenite Jews
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• Arab Jewish tribes

References

1. ^ Salim Tamari. "Ishaq al-Shami and the Predicament of the Arab Jew in Palestine" (PDF). Jerusalem Quarterly. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
2. Lynne Vittorio (16 October 2002). "The Jews of the Arab World: A Community Unto Itself". Aramica. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
3. ^ David Rabeeya (2000). The Journey of an Arab-Jew in European Israel. Xlibris Corporation. p. 49-50. ISBN 0738843318.
4. Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (London, 2003), p. XXVII
5. Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 38 (Kitab al Hudud, ie. Prescribed Punishments), Number 4434
6. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London, 1991), p. 18
7. Ibn Kathir p. 2
8. Irvin and Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 2001), p. 268
9. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London, 1991), p. 18
10. Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad (A. Guillaume trans., 1967 revision, reprinted in 2003), p. 258
11. Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (London, 2003) p. XXVII
12. Irvin and Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement, Vol. I (Edinburgh, 2001), p. 270
13. Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam (London, 2003), p. XXVIII
14. Beirut’s last Jews
15. Libya Wants the Jews to Return "Home" April 14, 2004 (INN)
16. Libya Invites the Jews Who Fled To Come Home by Eric J. Greenberg April 30, 2004 The Forward (retrieved on Aug 2, 2007)
17. Libyan Jews claim £100m for seized wealth by Inigo Gilmore January 11, 2004 (The Telegraph)

External links

• Who is an Arab Jew? - On being Mizrahi (anti-Arab identity) by Albert Memmi.
• Reflections by an Arab Jew - On being Mizrahi (pro-Arab identity) by Ella Habiba.

• Arab groups
• Jewish ethnic groups
• Mizrahi Jews topics