Maghrebi Jews

See Mizrahi Jews for more information about the Eastern Jews.

Interior of the El Ghriba synagogue, Djerba island, Tunisia

Primary, secondary, and tertiary Jewish centers in the Maghreb

Maghrebi Jews (מַגּרֶבִּים‎ or מַאגרֶבִּים‎, Maghrebim) or North African Jews (יהודי צפון אפריקה‎ Yehudei Tzfon Africa), are a Jewish diaspora group with a long history in the Maghreb region of North Africa, which includes present-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. These communities were established long before the Arab conquest, and continued to develop under Muslim rule during the Middle Ages.^[1] Maghrebi Jews represent the second-largest Jewish diaspora group, with their descendants forming a major part of the global Jewish population.

Maghrebi Jews lived in multiple communities in North Africa for over 2,000 years,^[2] with the oldest Jewish communities present during Roman times and possibly as early as within Punic colonies of the Ancient Carthage period.^[3] Under early Muslim rule, Jews flourished in major urban centers across the region. However, they also faced periods of persecution, notably under the Almohads.^[4] Before and after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution settled in North Africa.^[5] Over time, Maghrebi Jews largely mixed with the newly arrived Sephardic Jews, and in most cases, they adopted the Sephardic Jewish identity.

The mixed Maghrebi-Sephardic Jewish communities collapsed in the mid-20th century as part of the Jewish exodus from Arab countries, moving mostly to Israel, France, Canada and Venezuela. Today, descendants of Maghrebi-Sephardic Jews in Israel have largely embraced the modern Israeli Jewish identity and in many cases intermix with Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jewish communities there. Most of the Maghrebi-Sephardic Jews (Western Jews) also consider themselves as part of Mizrahi Jewish community (Eastern, or Babylonian Jews), even though there is no direct link between the two communities. They have similar histories of Arabic-speaking background and a parallel exodus and expulsion from Arab and Muslim countries: the Mizrahim left nations of the Middle East, and the Maghrebi-Sephardics left nations of North Africa in the mid-20th century. Among Arab countries, the largest Jewish community now exists in Morocco with about 2,000 Jews and in Tunisia about 1,000.^[6]

The term Maghrebi Jews often refers to communities such as Moroccan Jews, Algerian Jews, Tunisian Jews, and Libyan Jews. The term Musta'arabi was also used by medieval Jewish authors to refer to Jews who had traditionally lived in the Maghreb.^[7] Due to proximity, the term 'Maghrebi Jews' sometimes refers to Egyptian Jews as well, though there are important cultural differences between the history of Egyptian and Maghrebi Jews.^[1]