Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)

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Jews of the Bilad es-Sudan יְהוּדִּים הַבִּלַדּ אַל סוּדָּן‎ (Judeo-Arabic) describes West African Jewish communities who were connected to known Jewish communities from the Middle East, North Africa, or Spain and Portugal. Various historical records attest to their presence at one time in the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires. Jews from Spain, Portugal, and Morocco in later years also formed communities off the coast of Senegal and on the Islands of Cape Verde.

Contents 1 Early history 1.1 Trade and establishment of communities 1.2 The Islamic Era 2 Berber Jews of the Sahara 2.1 Daggatun Berber Jews connection 3 Rabbi Mordechai Aby Serour 4 Cape Verde 5 Emergence of Arabic Records in Timbuktu 6 References 7 See also 8 External links 8.1 Timbuktu 8.2 Northern Africa 8.3 Cape Verde 9 Resources 9.1 General 9.2 Mali and Songhay 9.3 Cape Verde and Guinea Coast

[edit] Early history

According to most accounts, the earliest Jewish settlements in Africa were in places such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Ethiopia. It is believed that these settlements may have been in existence as early as the kingdoms of David and Solomon, as well as during the Assyrian invasion of northern Israel in 722 BCE and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in 586 BCE in the Punic-Carthaginian age. These communities were augmented by subsequent arrivals of Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, when 30,000 Jewish slaves were settled throughout Carthage by the Roman emperor Titus.

Africa is identified in various Jewish sources in connection with Tarshish and Ophir. ^[1]. The Septuagint ^[2], and Jerome ^[3], who was taught by Jews, and very often the Aramaic Targum on the Prophets, identify the Biblical Tarshish with Carthage, which was the birthplace of a number of rabbis mentioned in the Talmud. Africa, in the broader sense, is clearly indicated where mention is made of the Ten Tribes having been driven into exile by the Assyrians and having journeyed into Africa ^[4]. Connected with this is the idea that the river Sambation is in Africa. The Arabs, who also know the legend of the Beni Musa ("Sons of Moses"), agree with the Jews in placing their land in Africa.

As early as Roman times, Moroccan Jews had begun to travel inland to trade with groups of Berbers, most of whom were nomads who dwelt in remote areas of the Atlas Mountains. Jews lived side by side with Berbers, forging both economic and cultural ties; some Berbers even began to practice Judaism. In response, Berber spirituality transformed Jewish ritual, painting it with a belief in the power of demons and saints. When the Muslims swept across the North of Africa, Jews and Berbers defied them together. Across the Atlas Mountains, the legendary Queen Kahina led a tribe of 7th century Jewish-Berbers in battle against encroaching Islamic warriors.

In the tenth century, as the social and political environment in Baghdad became increasingly hostile to Jews, many Jewish traders there left for the Maghreb, Tunisia in particular. Over the following two to three centuries, a distinctive social group of traders throughout the Mediterranean world became known as the Maghrebi, passing on this identification from father to son.

According to records such as the Tarikh es-Soudan, the first recorded Jewish presence emerged in West Africa with the arrival of the first Zuwa ruler of Koukiya and his brother, located near the Niger River. He is known only as Zuwa Alayman (meaning “He comes from Yemen”). According to local legends Zuwa Alayman was a member of one of the Jewish communities transported from Yemen by the Abyssinians in the 6th century C.E. after the defeat of Dhu Nuwas. According to the Tarikh el-Soudan, there were 14 Zuwa rulers of Kukiya after Zuwa Alyaman before the rise of Islam in the region.

[edit] Trade and establishment of communities

In the eighth century, the Radanites, a group of multi-lingual Jewish traders who traversed the known world by land and sea, including crossing the Sahara, settled in Timbuktu and its environs.

Manuscript C of the Tarikh el-Fettash describes a community called the Bani Israeel that in 1402 CE existed in Tirdirma, possessed 333 wells, and had seven princes as well as an army. Other sources say that other Jewish communities in the region were formed by migrations from Morocco, Egypt, and Portugal. Some communities are said to have been populated by certain Berber Jews like a group of Kal Tamasheq known as Iddao Ishaak that traveled from North Africa into West Africa for trade, as well as those escaping the Islamic invasions into North Africa.

[edit] The Islamic Era

In the 14th century many Moors and Jews, fleeing persecution in Spain, migrated south to the Timbuktu area, at that time part of the Songhai empire. Among them was the Kehath (Ka'ti) family, descended from Ismael Jan Kot Al-yahudi of Scheida, Morocco. Sons of this prominent family founded three villages that still exist near Timbuktu -- Kirshamba, Haybomo, and Kongougara. In 1492, Askia Muhammed came to power in the previously tolerant region of Timbuktu and decreed that Jews must convert to Islam or leave; Judaism became illegal in Mali, as it did in Catholic Spain that same year. This was based on the advice of Muhammid al-Maghili.

As the historian Leo Africanus wrote in 1526:

"In Garura there were some very rich Jews. The intervention of the preacher (Muhammid al-Maghili) of Tlemcen set up the pillage of their goods, and most of them have been killed by the population. This event took place during the same year when the Jews had been expelled from Spain and Sicily by the Catholic King."

Leo Africanus further wrote:

"The king (Askia) is a declared enemy of the Jews. He will not allow any to live in the city. If he hears it said that a Berber merchant frequents them or does business with them, he confiscates his goods."

The Kehath family converted with the rest of the non-Muslim population. The Cohens, descended from the Islamicized Moroccan Jewish trader El-Hadj Abd-al-Salam al Kuhin, arrived in the Timbuktu area in the 18th century, and the Abana family came in the first half of the 19th century. According to Prof. Michel Abitbol, at the Center for the Research of Moroccan Jewry in Israel, in the late 19th century Rabbi Mordoche Aby Serour traveled to Timbuktu several times as a not-too-successful trader in ostrich feathers and ivory. Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, has found old Hebrew texts among the city's historical records. He has also researched his own past and discovered that he is descended from the Moroccan Jewish traders of the Abana family. As he interviewed elders in the villages of his relatives, he discovered that knowledge of the family's Jewish identity has been preserved, in secret, out of fear of persecution.[1]

[edit] Berber Jews of the Sahara

There seems to be little doubt that Jewish blood has largely been mixed with that of the Berbers living in the Moroccan and Algerian Sahara. In fact, many Berber clans are said to have been at one time Jews and according to another tradition they are descended from the Philistines driven out of Canaan ^[5]. There is a tradition that Moses was buried in Tlemçen, and the presence of a large number of Jews in that part of Africa is attested to, not only by the many sacred places and shrines bearing Biblical names which are holy to Muslims as well as to Jews, but also by the presence there of a large number of Jewish sagas ^[5]. L. Ruin says: "Certain Berber tribes were for a long time of the Jewish religion, especially in Amès; and to-day, even, we see among the Hanensha of Sukahras (Algeria) a semi-nomad tribe of Israelites devoted entirely to agriculture" ^[6].

In addition, it may be noticed that Jews are to be found in the Berber "ktsurs" all along southern Morocco and in the adjacent Sahara. Thus, at Outat near Tafilet there is a mellah with about 500 Jews ^[7]; and at Figuig, a mellah with 100 Jews.^[7] Going farther south to Tuat, there is a large community of Jews in the oasis of Alhamada; and at Tementit, a two weeks' journey from Tafilet, the 6,000 or 8,000 inhabitants are said to be descendants of Jews converted to Islam.^[7] Even much farther to the west, in the province of Sus, there is Ogulmin with 3,000 inhabitants, of whom 100 are said to be Jews.

[edit] Daggatun Berber Jews connection

The Daggatuns (whose name may perhaps be derived from the Arabic "tughatun" = infidels) were a nomadic tribe of Jewish origin living in the neighborhood of Tementit, in the oasis of Tuat in the Moroccan Sahara. An account of the Daggatun was first given by Rabbi Mordecai Abi Sarur of Akka (Morocco), who in 1857 journeyed through the Sahara to Timbuctu, and whose account of his travels was published in the "Bulletin de la Société de Géographie".^[8] According to Rabbi Sarur, the Daggatun lived in tents and resembled the Berber Kel Tamesheq (Tuaregs), among whom they live, in language, religion, and general customs. They are subject to the Tuaregs, who do not intermarry with them. Rabbi Sarur also states that their settlement in the Sahara dates from the end of the seventh century when 'Abd al-Malik ascended the throne and conquered as far as Morocco. At Tementit he tried to convert the inhabitants to Islam; and as the Jews offered great resistance he exiled them to the desert of Ajaj, as he did also the Tuaregs, who had only partially accepted Islam. Cut off from any connection with their brethren, these Jews in the Sahara gradually lost their Jewish practises and became nominally Muslim.

Other accounts place a group of "Arabs" driven to Ajaj as being identified with the Mechagra mentioned by Erwin de Bary ^[9], among whom a few Jews are said still to dwell there. V. J. Horowitz^[10] also speaks of many free tribes in the desert regions who are Jews by race, but who have gradually thrown off Jewish customs and have apparently accepted Islam. Among these tribes, he says, are the Daggatun, numbering several thousands and scattered over several oases in the Sahara, even as far as the River Dialiva or Niger. He says, also, that they are very warlike and in constant conflict with the Tuaregs. According to Horowitz, the Mechagra mentioned above are also to be reckoned as one of these Jewish tribes.

[edit] Rabbi Mordechai Aby Serour

Rabbi Mordechai Abi Serour came from Morocco in 1860 to be a trader in Timbuktu. As a Jew, he couldn't set up his trading business, so he appealed to the Askia "king" and negotiated dhimmi, or protected people status. He brought enough Jews with him from Morocco to have a minyan and establish a synagogue. A Jewish cemetery from Serour's time remains in Mali to this day.

[edit] Cape Verde

In Iberia the Reconquista movement was growing in its mission to recover Catholic lands from the Muslim Moors who had first arrived in the 8th century. Jews may have first arrived far earlier during the time of the Phoenecians and Romans. Nevertheless, Maghrebi Jews were key allies of the Moors and centuries-long residents of Iberia. Probably as early as 1480 one we may find the beginnings of the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion of Jews. It was however in 1492 that the Spanish Inquisition emerged in its fullest expression of anti-Semitism. This social pathology quickly spread to neighboring Portugal where King João II and especially Manuel I in 1496, decided to exile thousands of Jews to São Tomé, Príncipe, and Cape Verde. The numbers expelled at this time were so great that the term "Portuguese" almost implied those of Jewish origin. Those who were not expelled were converted by force or even executed.

Despite the important role of Portuguese Jews in commerce, navigational sciences, and in the cartography of Africa, they faced riots, pogroms, and profound oppression during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions when they became termed Marranos (Moorish Jews) or Judeus Segredos (Secret Jews). This led to forced conversions and to Jews becoming known as Novos Cristaos (New Christians). It was not until 1768 that Portugal officially abolished the distinction between "Old" and "New" (i.e. Jewish) Christians.

Meanwhile, in order to begin to develop the Cape Verde Islands, which had been discovered between 1455 and 1462, the Portuguese king wrote a Royal Charter in 1466 granting the right to trade in slaves to Portuguese residing in Cape Verde. This lucrative offer was soon to be rescinded and in 1472 slave trading rights were restricted to an exclusive royal monopoly. Thus from the very beginning of its history Cape Verde, and its diverse multi-cultural peoples were situated within the context of a slave society and the slave trade.

During the early nineteenth century, Jews also came to settle in Santo Antão where there are still traces of their influx in the name of the village of Sinagoga, located on the north coast between Riberia Grande and Janela, and in the Jewish cemetery at the town of Ponta da Sol. The family names of Cohn (priest) and Wahnon are prominent in Santo Antao. Other Jewish settlers such as the Ben Oliel family migrated to Boa Vista, trading in salt, hides, and slaves. Jewish-derived surnames can be found amongst the inhabitants of the islands. Such names can include Auday, Benros, Ben David, Cohn, DaGama, and Seruya. A final chapter of Jewish history in Cape Verde took place in the 1850's when Moroccan Jews arrived, especially in Boa Vista and Maio for the hide trade.

[edit] Emergence of Arabic Records in Timbuktu

Records of the Jewish history of Mali can still be found in the Kati Andalusi library. Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, possesses old Arabic and Hebrew texts among the city's historical records.[2] He has also researched his own past and discovered that he is descended from the Moroccan Jewish traders of the Abana family. As he interviewed elders in the villages of his relatives, he has discovered that knowledge of the family's Jewish identity has been preserved, in secret, out of fear of persecution.[3]

The trading documents referred to three families in particular: the Kehath family (Ka'ti) that came from southern Morocco and converted with the rest of the population in 1492; the Cohen family descended from the Moroccan Jewish trader al-Hajj Abd al-Salam al Kuhin, who arrived in the Timbuktu area in the 18th century; and the Abana family, which came in the first half of the 19th century.[4]

[edit] References

1. ^ Tamid, 32b, and the parallel passage, where, "African land," is evidently the same as Carthage
2. ^ Isaiah 23:1
3. ^ on Ezekiel 25:7
4. ^ Mek., Bo, 17; Tosef., Shab. vii. 25; Deut. R. v. 14; and especially Sanh. 94a
5. ^ ^{a b} Basset, "Nedromah,"p. 13
6. ^ "Origines Berbers," p. 406 (see "Rev. Arch. de Constantine," 1867, p. 102)
7. ^ ^{a b c} Horowitz, l.c. p. 202,204,205
8. ^ Dec., 1895; see "Bulletin All. Isr." ii. 42, 1880; "La Grand Encyclopedie," xxiii. 254; Meakin, "Land of the Moors," p.17
9. ^ "Ghat et les Tuareg de l'Ain," p. 181
10. ^ "Morokko," p. 58, Leipsic 1887

[edit] See also

• African Jews
• Sephardi Jews
• Mizrahi Jews
• History of the Jews in Algeria
• History of the Jews in Tunisia
• History of the Jews in Morocco
• History of the Jews in Libya
• Trans-Saharan trade
• House of Israel
• Lemba
• Bnai Ephraim

[edit] External links

[edit] Timbuktu

• Timbuktu: City of Legends, Joan Baxtor
• Les manuscrits trouvés à Tombouctou, by Jean-Michel Djian

[edit] Northern Africa

• Jews and Berbers, by Dr. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

[edit] Cape Verde

• Jews in Cape Verde and the Guinna Coast, by Dr. Richard Lobban

[edit] Resources

[edit] General

• Resources>Jewish communities>Magreb The Jewish History Resource Center, Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Wars of the Jews: A Military History from Biblical to Modern Times, Hipporcrene Books, New York, 1990, by Monroe Rosenthal and Isaac Mozeson
• Jewish Communities in Exotic Places, Jason Aronson Inc., Jerusalem, by Ken Blady
• Jews In Africa: Ancient Black African Relations, Fact Paper 19-II, By Samuel Kurinsky
• Jews in Places You Never Thought of, Ktav Publishing, by Karen Primak
• Hebrewisms of West Africa: From Nile to Niger With the Jews, The Dial Press, NY, 1931, by Joseph J. Williams
• Jews of a Saharan Oasis: Elimination of the Tamantit Community, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, NJ, 2006, by John Hunwick
• Avner Greif, "Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition," American Economic Review 82: 128 (1994).

[edit] Mali and Songhay

• Jews in Africa: Part 1 The Berbers and the Jews, by Sam Timinsky (Hebrew History Federation)
• Tarikh es-Soudan, Paris, 1900, by Abderrahman ben-Abdall es-Sadi (trad. O. Houdas)
• The Jews of Timbuktu, Washington Jewish Week, December 30, 1999, by Rick Gold
• Les Juifs à Tombouctou, or Jews of Timbuktu, Recueil de sources écrites relatives au commerce juif à Tombouctou au XIXe siècle, Editions Donniya, Bamako, 1999 by Professor Ismael Diadie Haidara

[edit] Cape Verde and Guinea Coast

• Jews in Cape Verde and on the Guinea Coast, Paper presented at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, February 11, 1996, by Richard Lobban