Berber Jews Information & Berber Jews Links at HealthHaven.com

Berber Jews
Udayen Mazighen
Total population
	3,000 - 5,000 ?
Regions with significant populations
Languages
	•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; Sephardi Jews; Other Jewish groups; Berbers

Berber Jews, also named Maghrebim', 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.^[1]

Their garb and culture was similar to neighbouring Berbers.

[edit] History

Jews settled in the Maghreb in Roman times and the Jewish community in the Roman province of Africa was of great importance^[2].The acceptance by the Berbers of Judaism as a religion, and its embrace by many, including many powerful tribes, occurred over time^[3]. French historian, Eugène Albertini dates the judaization of certain Berber tribes and their expansion from Tripolitania to the Saharan oases, to the end of the 1st century^[4]. Marcel Simon for his part, sees the first point of contact between the western Berbers and Judaism in the great Jewish Rebellion of 66-70^[5].

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 indigenous 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.

[edit] Origin

In the past, it would have been very difficult to decide whether these Jewish Berber tribes were originally of Israelite descent and had become assimilated with the Berbers in language and some cultural habits — or whether they were indigenous Berbers who in the course of centuries had become Jewish through conversion by Jewish settlers. Most Moroccan scholars, such as André Goldenberg or Simon Lévy, favour the second interpretation^[6].

According to Franz Boas, a comparison of the Jews of North Africa with those of Western Europe and those of Russia "shows very clearly that in every single instance we have a marked assimilation between the Jews and the people among they live" and that "the Jews of North Africa are, in essential traits, North Africans"^[7].

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.

[edit] Genetics

The theory of a massive judaization of the berber population is called into question by a recent study on the mtDNA (transmitted from mother to children). The study carried out by Doron et al. that analysed small samples of North African Jews (Libya (83); Morocco (149); Tunisia (37))^[8] indicates that Jews from north Africa lack typically North African Hg M1 and U6 mtDNAs. Hence, according to the authors, the lack of U6 and M1 chromosomes among the North Africans renders the possibility of significant admixture, as between the local Arab and Berber populations with Jews, unlikely. However these conclusions must be strongly moderated by the fact that Hg M1 and U6 are not found in every Berber ethnic groups. For example a study by Fadhlaoui-Zid et al. 2004 found no M1 and U6 in Tunisian Berbers from Chenini-Douiret^[9] and another one by Loueslati et al. 2006 found no M1 and U6 in Tunisian Berbers from Jerba^[10]. Moreover according to this same study by Doron et al. "in view of the historical records claiming the establishment of the North African Jewish communities from the Near Eastern Jewish communities, it is noteworthy that the communities do not share their respective major founding lineages".

[edit] See also

Berbers portal

[edit] References

^ Ethnologue: "Judeo-Berber".
^ Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase, Rise and Decline of the Roman World, Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p.512
^ "many Berber tribes converted to Judaism", Reuven Firestone, Children of Abraham: an introduction to Judaism for Muslims‎ , Ktav Publishing House, april 2001, p.138
^ Eugène Albertini, L'empire romain, 1929, p.165
^ Marcel Simon, « Le judaïsme berbère dans l'Afrique ancienne », in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuse, XXVI, 1946, p.69
^ André Goldenberg, Les juifs du Maroc (Editions du Scribe, Paris, 1992)
^ Franz Boas, Are the Jews a Race?, The World of Tomorrow, 1923, reprinted in Race and Democratic Society, New York, Augustin, 1945, pp. 39-41
^ (English) Doron M. Behar et al., « Counting the Founders. The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora », PLoS ONE, 3(4) e2062, 30 avril 2008
^ "The U6 haplogroup (...) was absent in Chenini-Douiret; it has been found at 4.2% in Tunisian Arabs (Plaza et al. 2003). Thus, U6 frequencies in Tunisian Berbers are relatively low and may mark an eastward decline in the frequencies of this haplogroup. (...) The M1 haplogroup, to which an East-African origin is attributed (...) is absent in Berbers from Chenini-Douiret", K. Fadhlaoui-Zid, S. Plaza, F. Calafell, M. Ben Amor, D. Comas, A. Bennamar El gaaied, Mitochondrial DNA heterogeneity in Tunisian Berbers, Ann. Hum. Genet.68 (2004) 222–233
^ Loueslati, B. Y., Cherni, L., Khodjet El Khil, H., Ennafaa, H., Pereira, L., Amorim, A., Ben Ayed, F. & Ben Ammar Elgaaied, A. (2006), Islands inside an island: reproductive isolates on Jerba island. Am J Hum Biol 18, 149–153.

[edit] External links

(English)The Berbers and the Jews
(English)The Amazigh Jews
(French)La découverte des Juifs Berbères

[0] Ethnologue: "Judeo-Berber".

[1] Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase, Rise and Decline of the Roman World, Walter de Gruyter, 1983, p.512

[2] "many Berber tribes converted to Judaism", Reuven Firestone, Children of Abraham: an introduction to Judaism for Muslims‎ , Ktav Publishing House, april 2001, p.138

[3] Eugène Albertini, L'empire romain, 1929, p.165

[4] Marcel Simon, « Le judaïsme berbère dans l'Afrique ancienne », in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuse, XXVI, 1946, p.69

[5] André Goldenberg, Les juifs du Maroc (Editions du Scribe, Paris, 1992)

[6] Franz Boas, Are the Jews a Race?, The World of Tomorrow, 1923, reprinted in Race and Democratic Society, New York, Augustin, 1945, pp. 39-41

[7] (English) Doron M. Behar et al., « Counting the Founders. The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora », PLoS ONE, 3(4) e2062, 30 avril 2008

[8] "The U6 haplogroup (...) was absent in Chenini-Douiret; it has been found at 4.2% in Tunisian Arabs (Plaza et al. 2003). Thus, U6 frequencies in Tunisian Berbers are relatively low and may mark an eastward decline in the frequencies of this haplogroup. (...) The M1 haplogroup, to which an East-African origin is attributed (...) is absent in Berbers from Chenini-Douiret", K. Fadhlaoui-Zid, S. Plaza, F. Calafell, M. Ben Amor, D. Comas, A. Bennamar El gaaied, Mitochondrial DNA heterogeneity in Tunisian Berbers, Ann. Hum. Genet.68 (2004) 222–233

[9] Loueslati, B. Y., Cherni, L., Khodjet El Khil, H., Ennafaa, H., Pereira, L., Amorim, A., Ben Ayed, F. & Ben Ammar Elgaaied, A. (2006), Islands inside an island: reproductive isolates on Jerba island. Am J Hum Biol 18, 149–153.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]