Relevant Articles
Articles, essays, and research from scholars, journalists, and community members, chosen by JIMENA to deepen your understanding of Jewish life in Libya.
Articles
The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement
The standard history of Libya's Jews, from coexistence to exodus.
Hide and Seek: Three Girls in the Giado Concentration Camp in Libya
Childhood in the Giado camp, through the stories of three girls.
Qaddafi's Captive
An artist documenting Libya's Jewish heritage, imprisoned by Qaddafi.
We Were All Italian! Jews from Libya and a Sense of Italianness
Why so many Libyan Jews felt Italian, in their own words.
Labor and Internment Camps in North Africa
The World War II camps of North Africa, including Giado in Libya.
What Happened to Libyan Jews in the Holocaust?
From Giado to Bergen Belsen: Libya's Jews in the Holocaust.
A Taste of Libya, in Prison
Israeli artist Rafram Chaddad, jailed in Libya in 2010 while photographing abandoned Jewish sites, discovered the cuisine of his ancestors behind bars.
The Jews of Cyrenaica During World War II, in Their Own Words (Sephardic Horizons)
Oral historian Vivienne Roumani-Denn gathers firsthand accounts of the Jews of eastern Libya during World War II, from anti-Jewish laws to the Giado internment camp.
Suddenly, a Refugee
Gina Bublil Waldman recalls hiding in Tripoli during the 1967 riots and her family’s escape from Libya.
Communal Organization of the Jews of Tripolitania
Anthropologist Harvey E. Goldberg traces how Tripoli’s Jewish community governed itself through taxes, communal rules, and rabbinic courts, and how Ottoman reforms reshaped it in the nineteenth century.
The Final Exodus of the Libyan Jews in 1967
Professor Maurice Roumani of Ben-Gurion University traces how Libya stripped its Jews of their rights and property from 1961 onward, and how the 1967 riots forced most of the remaining community to flee.
Report on the Jews of Libya
Justice for Jews from Arab Countries traces the history of Libya’s Jewish community and estimates the property Libyan Jews lost at nearly $10 billion in today’s dollars.
