Tripoli טריפולי

Jews lived in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania from the time of the Ptolemies—more than two thousand years—one of the oldest communities outside the Land of Israel. After the Spanish expulsion exiles came here, and in 5309 (1549) Rabbi Shimon Lavi stopped on his way to the Land of Israel—and, seeing how little was known here, stayed for more than thirty years and built everything anew: the court, the learning, the order. Three centuries later eleven yeshivot were working in Tripoli.

Italy. From 5671 (1911) Libya was Italian. At first this helped the community—schools, hospitals, trade; then came the racial laws of 5698, and in the war some Libyan Jews were driven to the camp at Giado in the desert and some to Europe, from where few returned.

November 5706. The British were already governing the country when, on 5–7 November 1945, a pogrom swept through Tripoli and the surrounding towns. More than a hundred and forty Jews were killed, thirty-six of them children; five synagogues were destroyed in Tripoli and four more in the towns; a thousand houses and shops were plundered and four thousand people left homeless. The British intervened late and afterwards tried more than five hundred men. The pogrom was repeated in 5708, but by then Tripoli had a self-defence and fewer died.

The end. From 5709 to 5711 almost the whole community—more than thirty thousand people—left for Israel. The few thousand who remained were driven out by the riots of 5727 (1967). There are no Jews in Libya today.