The pogrom in Tripolitania: the end of Jewish Libya
Three days in November: more than a hundred and forty killed, thirty-six of them children, nine synagogues destroyed. The war was over, there were no Germans, and the country was governed by the British.
It happened on 5–7 November 1945—half a year after the end of the war in Europe. Libya was governed by the British; there had been no Germans in the country for two years. The mob went through Tripoli and the towns around it—Amrus, Zanzur, Tajura, Zawia, Qusabat.
More than a hundred and forty Jews were killed: thirty-eight in Tripoli, forty in Amrus, thirty-four in Zanzur, thirteen in Zawia, seven in Tajura, three in Qusabat; thirty-six of the dead were children. Nine synagogues were destroyed: five in Tripoli and four in the towns. More than a thousand houses and shops were plundered and four thousand people left homeless.
The British intervened late—they were blamed for it at the time and afterwards; after the pogrom they arrested at least five hundred men and tried them before military courts. A British general explained what had happened by news from Palestine and disturbances in Egypt: pent-up excitement spilled onto those who were near and defenceless.
The chief consequence is not in the numbers. Libyan Jewry was among the oldest in the world and had no intention of going anywhere. After those three days it decided that it could not live there. The pogrom of 5708 the community met with a self-defence, and from 5709 to 5711 more than thirty thousand people—nearly all of them—left for Israel.
How we know
Sources
Documents of the period
- Reports of the British Military Administration of Tripolitania, 1945 — the numbers killed town by town, the synagogues destroyed, the arrests
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Libya" — the pogrom of 5706, its repetition in 5708, the departure of 5709–5711
Basis: documents and evidence.
People and places
Tripoli · Djerba · Tunis · Rabbi Shimon Lavi