Berber Jews
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Berber Jews | |
|---|---|
| Total population | nn |
| Regions with significant populations | United States: nn |
| Language | *Liturgical: Mizrahi Hebrew *Traditional: Judeo-Berber *Modern: typically the language of whatever country they now reside in, including Modern Hebrew in Israel |
| Religion | Judaism |
| Related ethnic groups | • Jews • Mizrahi Jews |
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 immigrated to Israel. Some 2,000 of them, all elderly, still speak Judeo-Berber.[1] Their garb and culture was similar to neighbouring Muslim Berbers.
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[edit] History
A small pre-Islamic presence of Jews in that region is historically attested, and these Jewish settlers are said to have mingled with the indigenous Berber population and converted many powerful tribes.
At the time of the Arab conquests in northwestern Africa, there were, according to the Arab historians, many powerful Berber tribes which professed Judaism. Supposedly, Dahiyah who aroused the Berbers in the Aures, in the eastern spurs of the Atlas in modern day Algeria, to a last although fruitless resistance to the Arab general Hasan ibn Nu'man, was a Berber Jewess.
As in the Hellenic lands of Christendom, so also in Mauretania, Judaism involuntarily prepared the way for Islam. The conversion of the Berbers to Islam took place so much the more easily.
[edit] Origin
It would be very difficult to decide whether these Jewish Berber tribes were originally of Jewish descent and had become assimilated with the Berbers in language, habits, mode of life — in short, in everything except religion — or whether they were native Berbers who in the course of centuries had been converted by Jewish settlers. It is the second option which is considered as more likely by most researchers (such as André Goldenberg or Simon Levy).
The question on the origins of the Berber Jews is also further complicated by the likelihood of intermarriage. However this may have been, they at any rate shared much with their non-Jewish brethren in the Berber territory, and, like them, fought against the Arab conquerors.
[edit] See also
- Jewish ethnic divisions
- Mizrahi Jews
- History of the Jews in Morocco
- History of the Jews in Algeria
- History of the Jews in Tunisia
- Berbers
