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Language change and sociopolitical transformations: The case of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Libyan Jews

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Notes

  1. E.g., among the Basques, Irish, Welsh, Bretons, and Berbers, to name a few. On the drive to spread Filipino, the new national language in the Philippines, at the expense of English, seeThe Christian Science Monitor, 1 May 1989.

  2. On Ottoman attempts in the early twentieth century to spread Turkish among the indigenous population of Libya, including Jews, in order to strengthen Ottoman nationalism, see Ns, “L'enseignement de la langue turque a Tripoli,”Revue du Monde Musulman 6 (1908): 153;Ha-Yehudi, 24 September 1908; Rachel Simon, “Yehudey Luv ve-ha-Sevivah ha-Nokhrit be-Shilhey ha-Tequfah ha-'Uthmanit,”Pe'amim 3 (1979): 24.

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  3. Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 79–122;Ha-Yehudi, 3 February 1910; Renzo De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land: Libya 1835–1970 (Austin, Texas, 1985), 85–86; Harvey E. Goldberg, “Language and Culture of the Jews of Tripolitania: A Preliminary View,”Mediterranean Language Review 1 (1983): 85–102. The Jewish peddlers of Tripolitania used a special language, so that their Muslim customers, who knew Judeo-Arabic, would not understand. On this, see Mordecai Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai (Jerusalem, 1978), 36, 293–95.

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  4. Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 120–22; Rachel Simon, “The Relations of the Jewish Community of Libya with Europe in the Late Ottoman Period,” in J. L. Menage, ed.,Les relations intercommunautaires juives en Méditerranée occidentale XIIIe–XXe siècles (Paris, 1984), 71. For changes in Jewish education for girls, see the chapter on education in my forthcoming book.Change Within Tradition Among Jewish Women in Libya (19th–20th Centuries).

  5. Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 114–17; Simon, “Relations,” 72; Narcisse Leven,Cinquante ans d'histoire — l'Alliance Israélite Universelle (1860–1910) (Paris, 1920), 2: 135–40.

  6. In 1931, 67% of Jewish males and 40.8% of Jewish females in Benghazi spoke Italian; in Tripoli the figures were 43.8% of Jewish men and 29.7% of Jewish women. The total number of Italian-speaking Jews was approximately 7,240, of a Jewish population of 2,767 in Benghazi and 15,637 in Tripoli. See De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 69. In 1921–22, there were 975 Jewish children attending Italian public schools in Tripolitania, 315 in Cyrenaica; in Tripolitania 70 attended private Catholic schools and 1,266 attended Talmud Torah (the figures for Cyrenaica were 15 and 218). In 1938–39, 4,101 Jews were in Italian schools (kindergarten, primary, and secondary) in Tripolitania, and 1,303 were in Talmud Torah. See De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 72–73: for 1929, ibid. 321–22; Steele-Grieg, 55.

  7. Simon, “Relations,” 75–76.

  8. Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 238; Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 98–100.

  9. Educational reforms in Benghazi started in 1906, and included the improvement of teaching methods and facilities. Following a period of reliance on local talent. Me'ir 'Aqnin, a Hebrew teacher, was brought from Palestine. He was a qualified teacher who demonstrated to the community the possibility of using Hebrew as a modern, living language. See Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 338–39, 381: Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 102–3; Simon, “Ha-Tenu'ah ha'Ivrit,” n. 14.

  10. In 1928, a Libyan Jew, Frigia Zuarez, was appointed rabbi of Khoms, on the east Tripolitanian coast. Until his emigration to Israel in 1949 he served as principal and head teacher of the local Jewish school, where he initiated educational reforms, including the revival of Hebrew. He succeeded to such a degree that Hebrew became the daily language of the Jewish boys of Khoms, and even their Arab playmates acquired some proficiency. See Frigia Zuarez et al., eds.,Yahadut Luv (Tel Aviv, 1982), 144, 178–79;Igeret 4 (16 August 1955): 3–4.

  11. In 1939, two of Zuarez' students in Khoms became teachers in the small Jewish school in Mislata in northeast Tripolitania. They launched educational reforms, including Hebrew revival, as part of a campaign to spread Zionism. However, their activities were curtailed because of World War 11 and Arab rioting in 1941, when the synagogue, which doubled as a school and library, was set on fire. One of these teachers moved to Zliten in 1943 and triggered the Hebrew revival there. See Zuarez.Yahadut Luv, 179–81.

  12. Eliyahu Hazzan,Ta'alumot Lev (Livorno, 1879), 1: 14–12 (no. 4): Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 235–36; Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 85–92.

  13. Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 236–37; Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq,” 96–98, 105–13.

  14. Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 166, 235, 269; Kahalon, “Ha-Ma'avaq.” 99.

  15. During this period, a large number of Jewish boys attended traditional Jewish schools, in addition to their studies in the Italian schools. This was in order to acquire the required basic Jewish knowledge, including Hebrew, which they needed to be fully involved in Jewish communal life. In 1927, experimental Hebrew classes were begun in public schools in Tripoli. In 1931–32 some 200 boys were in these classes. This possibility was closed to Jewish girls. On the other hand, starting in 1932, the Italians forced Jewish students to attend school on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. For more details on Jewish students in Italian schools, see De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 72–73, 92–95, 136–42, 321–22. 344–46.

  16. Until 1929. the Zionist movement was part of the communal political process and stood for election to the communal council. Internal rivalries in Tripoli soon paralyzed the orderly functioning of the council. As a result, in 1929 the Italian authorities decided to appoint an Italian Christian supervisor to look after the affairs of the community and to cancel the authority of the council. For the rest of the Italian period, there were no communal elections in Tripoli. See Maurice M. Roumani, “Zionism and Social Change in Libya at the Turn of the Century,”Studies in Zionism 8/1 (1987): 1–24; De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 101–10.

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  17. Zuarez,Yahadut Luv, 133–35; De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 95–98; Simon. “Ha-Tenu'ah ha-'Ivrit.” In 1919, Miriam Arari, who had spent a number of years in Jerusalem. was hired by the A.I.U. to teach French in Tripoli. The local Zionist organization also paid her to teach Hebrew. Apparently, her outspoken Zionism infuriated the anti-Zionist A.I.U. After a short while, claiming that Arari's knowledge of French was poor, it did not renew her contract. Although the A.I.U. would have allowed her to teach Hebrew, economic conditions forced her to leave. She was one example of how Hebrew was revived outside Libya, and demonstrated the close connection between the revival of Hebrew and Zionism, as well as the role women could play in a modern, Westernized national movement. See R. Loubaton, Tripoli, to A.I.U., Paris, 16 December 1919, A.I.U. Archives, IG2;Israel, 11 December 1919.

  18. Simon, “Ha-Tenu'ah ha-'Ivrit.”

  19. On the situation of the Libyan Jews during World War II, see Rachel Simon, “Yehudey Luv 'al Saf Sho'ah,”Pe'amim 28 (1968): 44–77.

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  20. Simon, “Ha-Tenu'ah ha-'Ivrit.”

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid; idem,Change Within Tradition.

  23. Simon, “Ha-Tenu'ah ha-'Ivrit.”

  24. Simon, “Yehudey Luv,” 32–34.

  25. De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 37–40. 63, 308–10. During the late Ottoman period, approximately 2,000 people in Libya held European (mostly Italian) citizenship: of these, about half were Jews. Many of them maintained their Italian citizenship, despite having lived in Libya for generations, because of privileges granted them in judicial and economic matters. Under Italian rule, Italian citizenship was not automatically granted to the native population, who received special Libyan status, but those who had previously held Italian citizenship were allowed to keep it. Muslims, who resisted Italian rule generally, were not interested in acquiring Italian citizenship, but the Jews were. In 1931, 385 Jews held Italian citizenship, 694 had other foreign citizenship, and 24,024 had Libyan citizenship.

  26. Rachel Simon, “Ha-'Aliyah mi-Luv le-Yisra'el,”Shorashim ba-Mizrah 3, forthcoming.

  27. Roumani, “Zionism and Social Change,” 9, 20.

  28. Simon, “Ha-'Aliyah mi-Luv.”

  29. In the metropolitan schools, the curriculum was identical to that in Italy. In the Arab state schools, indigenous teachers were incorporated from the very beginning, but mainly in courses in Islam and Arabic. On the opening of a teachers seminar in Tripoli in 1932 see De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 92–93. Among the renowned Jewish educators in the Italian schools in Tripoli were Giannetto Paggi and Carolina Nunes Vais, the founders of the Italian educational network in Ottoman Libya; Emma Polacco, the principal of the Italian Jewish school; and the sisters Clara and Lucia Levi, who became active Zionists. All were originally from Italy.

  30. Simon, “Ha-Tenu'ah ha-'Ivrit.”

  31. On the teachers' association, seeHayenu, 9 September 1949; reports of Shim'on Luzon, Tripoli, to the Youth Department/Religious Division, 14 May 1946, Central Zionist Archives, S32/1069; 12 March 1947, S32/123; Simon, “Ha-Tenu'ah ha-'Ivrit.”

  32. Simon,Change Within Tradition.

  33. De Felice,Jews in an Arab Land, 119–20. 155–60; H. Abravanel, Tripoli to A.I.U., Paris, 10 June 1935, A.I.U. Archives, IC-29.

  34. Publications during the Ottoman period included a government announcement calling on the population to contribute to the Ottoman navy (Ha-Yehudi, 3 February 1910) and the magazineal-Dardanel. See Attilo Milano, “Un secolo di stampa ebraica in Italia; Appendice II: La stampa ebraica nella colonie e possedimenti italiani,”La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 12 (1938): 134–36. The Hebrew presses belonged to Abraham Tesciuba, Clementi Zard, and Shlomo Tesciuba (“La Rafida”). On Hebrew printing, see Meira Harroch, “Ha-Defus ha-'Ivri bi-Tripoli shebe-Luv,”Qiryat Sefer 59/2–3 (1984): 625–34; 61/2 (1986–87): 375–76; Zuarez,Yahadut Luv, 54, 182; Gabriele Raccah.Lunario ebraico libico 5698 (Tripoli, 1938).

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  35. For references for his articles see Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 383–84.

  36. Zuarez,Yahadut Luv, 182–90.

  37. E.g., in early 1909 Gustavo Arbib foundedIl Giornale di Tripoli; Gustavo and Emilio Arbib and Mose Ortona founded and editedLeco di Tripoli; and Ortona also founded and editedIl Messaggero di Tripoli. See Milano, “Un secolo.” 134–36; Simon, “Yehudey Luv,” 33–34.

  38. Harroch, “Ha-Defus ha-'Ivri” (both lists).

  39. Published and annotated in Israel in 1978. Parts were translated into Italian and published by M. Mario Moreno, an orientalist working for the colonial administration. See M. Cohen,Usi. costumi e istituti degli Ebrei libici (Benghazi, 1924) andGli Ebrei in Libia, usi e costumi (Rome, s.d. 1928). On his other manuscripts see Ha-Cohen,Higgid Mordecai, 385.

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Simon, R. Language change and sociopolitical transformations: The case of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Libyan Jews. Jew History 4, 101–121 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01669758

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