The Jews of Libya

Overview

In this revised edition Prof. Roumani presents new and original material on the deportation of Libyan Jews to French North Africa, offering new insights and aspects of the consequences of the Racial Laws and of anti-Semitism as rooted in Fascist ideology. He reveals one the unknown incidents (accidents) of the war, the bombing of La Marsa, and the resulting massacre of many Libyan Jews. The end of the war witnessed the complicated negotiations among the Allied forces in the repatriation of the deportees and the mediation of the AJDC in aiding the resettlement of the deportees in their native countries. Reviews and endorsements of the original publication are available on the Press website. They include: "He uses a wide range of archival and oral sources, many of which have never been used before. Throughout the book, he reveals a mastery of the social and political history, and a fine understanding of the lives, hopes, fears and aspirations of Libyan Jews," From the Foreword by Sir Martin Gilbert.

Reviews

"In this pioneering work, examining the crucial period from the Italian racial laws of 1938 to the final Jews exodus from Libyan soil in 1967, Dr Maurice Roumani builds on the foundations laid by the scholars of the Jewish communities of the Maghreb – H.Z. Hirschberg, Shlomo Dov Goitein and Michel Abitbol – giving us for the first time a full, clear and remarkable picture of what is now a lost community, alive and flourishing only as a world-wide diaspora, with Israel as its centre. ... The extent of Dr Roumani's scholarship illuminates the story of Libyan Jewry in its final five decades: its early Zionism, its period under Italian monarchist and then Italian Fascist rule, its torments during the war years, its literal liberation and mass emigration under the British, and its final years under Arab and Muslim rule. He gives the reader an impressive account of the workings of the Jewish community, its personalities, its strengths and its achievements. ... There is much in Dr Roumani's final chapters that is dramatic, much that is tragic; yet the extraordinary efforts to secure the emigration of Libyan Jews is an inspiring story. In telling it, as in each phase of this book, Dr Roumani uses a wide range of archival and oral sources, many of which have never been used before. Throughout the book, he reveals a mastery of the social and political history, and a fine understanding of the lives, hopes, fears and aspirations of Libyan Jews. His book is a testimony to their suffering and their fortitude." —From the Foreword by Sir Martin Gilbert

Author Biography

Maurice M. Roumani, born in Benghazi, Libya, is a Senior Lecturer in Political Sociology and the Middle East at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel where he is also the founder and Director of the J.R. Elyachar Center for the Study of Sephardi Heritage. A graduate of Brandeis University, the University of Chicago, and the University of London, he has held teaching and research positions at Harvard University. Martin Gilbert provided a Foreword to the book.