Libyan and Arab Hebrews
Please note: this study was done by
Khazar (Turkic) Jews, with an eye toward substantiating their ethnic
nonsense. It is used here only as a historical device in tracking what
happened to the Hebrews.
FIRST SOME BACKGROUND
Encyclopedia Britannica – The Siege of Jerusalem - The Jewish-Roman war of 70 A.D.
The fall of Jerusalem was a pivotal moment in the
first Jewish-Roman war. It resulted in the destruction of the ancient
temple of Solomon and much of the surrounding city by a fire started by
the Roman army under the command of the future Emperor Titus.
The Jewish-Roman war of 66 to 73 A.D. was the first of
three rebellions by Jews against Roman rule in Judaea and is referred
to as "The Great Revolt." The revolt started in 66 A.D. following
religious tensions between Greeks and Jews, but soon involved protests
against taxation and attacks on Roman citizens. Shocked by the defeat
of a legion under the command of Gallus, Emperor Nero sent military
commander Vespasian, with a force of 60,000, to ensure that order was
restored.
Despite victories elsewhere, Jerusalem proved difficult to take.
Vespasian’s son, Titus, surrounded the city with a wall and a trench,
and anyone caught trying to escape was crucified. Titus then put
pressure on the food and water supply by allowing pilgrims to enter the
city in order to celebrate Passover but not letting them out.
After a number of failed attempts to attack the city,
the Romans set about the destruction of Jerusalem’s formidable defenses
with a battering ram. Having breached these defenses, the Romans fought
their way from street to street. Many Zealots sought sanctuary in the
ancient temple of Solomon and in the fortress of Antonia. The Romans
finally overwhelmed the fortress, and the ancient temple was destroyed
by fire in the ensuing battle, reputedly against the wishes of Titus.
The destruction of the temple is still mourned by Jews in the annual
fast of Tisha be-Av, and the fall of Jerusalem is celebrated in Rome’s
Arch of Titus. Losses: According to Jewish historian Josephus, Jewish,
1.1 million dead and 97,000 enslaved; Roman, unknown.
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus c. 56 – c. 120 A.D.) was a senator
and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two
major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the
emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of
the Four Emperors (69 AD). These two works span the history of the
Roman Empire from the death of Augustus, in 14 AD, to the years of the
First Jewish–Roman War, in 70 AD. There are substantial lacunae in the
surviving texts, including a gap in the Annals that is four books long.
The Histories
Only the first four books and twenty-six chapters of
the fifth book survive, covering the year 69 and the first part of 70.
The work is believed to have continued up to the death of Domitian on
September 18, 96. The fifth book contains—as a prelude to the account
of Titus's suppression of the Great Jewish Revolt—a short ethnographic survey of the ancient Jews, and it is an invaluable record of Roman attitudes towards them.
The
Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (56-120 A.D.) had these thoughts on
the origins and customs of the Hebrews, as the Romans prepared to
destroy Jerusalem. |
This is in the context of Titus Caesar, who had been selected by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea.
Tacitus: History Book 5
1.
EARLY in this year Titus Caesar, who had been selected by his father to
complete the subjugation of Judaea, and who had gained distinction as a
soldier while both were still subjects, began to rise in power and
reputation, as armies and provinces emulated each other in their
attachment to him. The young man himself, anxious to be thought
superior to his station, was ever displaying his gracefulness and his
energy in war. By his courtesy and affability he called forth a willing
obedience, and he often mixed with the common soldiers, while working
or marching, without impairing his dignity as general. He found in
Judaea three legions, the 5th, the 10th, and the 15th, all old troops
of Vespasian's. To these he added the 12th from Syria, and some men
belonging to the 18th and 3rd, whom he had withdrawn from Alexandria.
This force was accompanied by twenty cohorts of allied troops and eight
squadrons of cavalry, by the two kings Agrippa and Sohemus, by the
auxiliary forces of king Antiochus, by a strong contingent of Arabs,
who hated the Jews with the usual hatred of neighbours, and, lastly, by
many persons brought from the capital and from Italy by private hopes
of securing the yet unengaged affections of the Prince. With this force
Titus entered the enemy's territory, preserving strict order on his
march, reconnoitring every spot, and always ready to give battle. At
last he encamped near Jerusalem.
2.
As I am about to relate the last days of a famous city, it seems
appropriate to throw some light on its origin. Some say that the Jews
were fugitives from the island of Crete,
who settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn
was driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is
sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the
neighbouring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous
lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of
Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into the neighbouring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian
origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred
of their neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place. Others describe them
as an Assyrian horde who, not
having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and
founded cities of their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying
on the borders of Syria. Others, again, assign a very distinguished
origin to the Jews, alleging that they were the Solymi, a nation celebrated in the poems of Homer, who called the city which they founded Hierosolyma after their own name. (The
Solymi were supposedly a tribe from Pisidia, a region of ancient
Anatolia/Asia Minor/Byzantium/Eastern Roman Empire/Turkey).
According to historians of the actual times,
the above is what a Jew (or Hebrew) actually looked like.
So who are the Albino people claiming to be Jews?
Encyclopedia Britannica - The Khazar people
Khazar,
member of a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes that in the late
6th century ce established a major commercial empire covering the
southeastern section of modern European Russia. Although the origin of
the term Khazar and the early history of the Khazar people are obscure,
it is fairly certain that the Khazars were originally located in the
northern Caucasus region and were part of the western Turkic empire (in
Turkistan). The Khazars were in contact with the Persians in the
mid-6th century ce, and they aided the Byzantine emperor Heraclius
(reigned 610–641) in his campaign against the Persians. By the
beginning of the 7th century, the Khazars had become independent of the
Turkic empire to the east. But by the middle of that century, the
expanding empire of the Arabs had penetrated as far northward as the
northern Caucasus, and from then on until the mid-8th century the
Khazars engaged in a series of wars with the Arab empire.
Although basically Turkic, the Khazar state bore little resemblance to
the other Turkic empires of central Eurasia. It was headed by a
secluded supreme ruler of semireligious character called a khagan—who
wielded little real power—and by tribal chieftains, each known as a
beg. The state’s military organization also seems to have lacked the
forcefulness of those of the greater Turkic-Mongol empires. The Khazars
seem to have been more inclined to a sedentary way of life, building
towns and fortresses, tilling the soil, and planting gardens and
vineyards. Trade and the collection of tribute were major sources of
income.
But the most striking characteristic of the Khazars was the apparent adoption of Judaism
in about 740 A.D. The circumstances of the conversion remain obscure,
the depth of their adoption of Judaism difficult to assess; but the
fact itself is undisputed and unparalleled in central Eurasian history.
A few scholars have even asserted that the Judaized Khazars were the
remote ancestors of many eastern European and Russian Jews. |
US National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. 2001 Jan 30.
Scientific Study - Distinctive genetic signatures in the Libyan Jews.
The writers: Noah A. Rosenberg,*† Eilon Woolf,‡ Jonathan K. Pritchard,§
Tamar Schaap,¶ Dov Gefel,‖ Isaac Shpirer,** Uri Lavi,‡‡ Batsheva
Bonné-Tamir,†† Jossi Hillel,‡ and Marcus W. Feldman*
The first reliable evidence of Jewish immigration into the area now
contained in Libya records the settlement of Jews from Egypt around 312
BCE and the ancient historian Josephus reports the size of the Libyan
Jewish population as 500,000 in the 1st century CE. This community,
however, was decimated by Roman rulers during revolts ending in 118 CE.
After a lengthy, severe, and poorly documented bottleneck in population
size, Libyan Jews engaged in cultural interactions with Berber tribes
that lasted through the 6th century CE. During this time, the
population absorbed Berber converts, although the proportion of Berber
genetic contribution to the Libyan Jews is not known. A small number of
additional Jewish immigrants may have entered the region from Spain in
the 6th century and others may have arrived from Arabia and Syria with
the Moslem conquest of Libya in the 7th century. The Jewish population
seems to have been significant by the 11th century, but after
persecution and emigration under the Spanish and the Knights of Malta,
from 1510 to 1551, it may have been small and mostly rural by the time
of the Ottoman conquest in 1551. Unlike other parts of North Africa,
Libya did not serve as a major destination of Iberian Jews seeking
refuge after their 1492 expulsion from Spain. Although occasional
Jewish immigrants arrived in Libya from Jewish communities in Italy and
elsewhere, over the last 400 years the Libyan Jews were mostly isolated
from all other Jewish populations. The Libyan Jews eventually numbered
more than 30,000 before the emigration of 1949–1951, when most members
of the group moved to Israel.
 |
Precise population size estimates of the Libyan Jews do not exist
before this century. One traveler reported the Jewish population of
Tripoli to be about 3,000 in 1783; a 1906 study estimated 12,000 Jews
in Tripoli and about 20,000 in Libya as a whole. Because Tripoli was
the largest Jewish city and because little migration appears to have
taken place into the Libyan Jewish population over the last 400 years,
it seems reasonable to suggest that the group reached its largest
population size of modern times at the time of its evacuation.
The few early records of the Libyan Jewish community indicate
diverse origins and a series of population size fluctuations. Because
of a dearth of information and the potential for preservation bias
among sources documenting influential Jewish immigrants from Italy and
Spain, it is difficult to quantify the contributions of different
genetic groups to the population that eventually became the modern
Libyan Jews—the ancient Jews, the Berber converts, and the possible
sources of immigrants between the 5th and 15th centuries CE. A few
facts appear to be clear from available records. First, this population
was relatively secluded over the past 400 or more years, with its
greatest demographic changes involving in situ population growth and
urbanization of rural communities. Thus, for at least 400 years and
possibly longer, the group can be regarded as a small population
isolate. Second, the demographic influences that acted on the Jews of
Libya were different from those of other Jewish communities of North
Africa. The Jewish populations of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia likely
had later origins than the Libyan Jews had; they were subject to
different conquests from those that brought immigrants to Libya; their
hypothesized Berber admixture would have involved tribes different from
those who lived in Libya; and importantly, they received a sizeable
influx of Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal during the 14th to 16th
centuries.
Despite historical information suggesting the possibility that
Libyan Jews were relatively secluded from other Jewish groups, genetic
evidence that Libyan Jews have a distinctive ancestry among Jewish
groups has previously been inconclusive. Some studies using classical,
mitochondrial, and Y-chromosomal markers have considered North African
Jews in their treatments of genetic relationships among Jewish
populations, but these studies did not assess the relationship of the
Libyan Jews to other groups. Studies that treated Libyan Jewish and
other North African Jewish populations separately identified hereditary
disorders in Libyan Jews that are rare in other populations, but these
studies did not find a consistent pattern of relationships among Libyan
and other North African Jewish populations. Genetic studies of Jewish
populations based on classical markers initially found substantial
allele frequency differences and high genetic distances between the
Libyan and Moroccan Jews, and suggested that these geographically
related Jewish populations may have maintained a considerable degree of
isolation from each other. Although more recent analyses have not
contradicted these reports, they have been unable to make strong
conclusions about the Libyan Jews, placing them in different positions
with respect to other Jewish and non-Jewish populations. These studies
have generally found that most Jewish populations show genetic
relationships closer to each other than to most non-Jewish populations.
Most recently, this evidence of shared ancestry among Jewish
populations has been strengthened by the discovery of an otherwise
uncommon Y-chromosomal haplotype frequent in the widely geographically
dispersed Cohanim and by analysis of Y chromosomes in a variety of
Jewish and non-Jewish populations from Africa, Asia, and Europe.
In this article, we consider the genetic relationships among six
Jewish and two non-Jewish populations using a statistical technique
that allows finer resolution of population structure than has
heretofore been possible. Although all populations of our study are
very closely related, we report that the Libyan Jews have been
genetically isolated from other Jewish groups, including the Moroccan
Jews. The same methods suggest some affinity between the Jewish
populations of Ethiopia and Yemen.
Discussion
It is consistent with historical sources that the Libyan Jews should
separate from and show strong differentiation from the other
populations of our study. This population has a unique history among
North African Jewish communities, including an early founding, a harsh
bottleneck, possible admixture with local Berbers, limited contact with
other Jewish communities, and small size in the recent past. Although
the few Iberian and European Jews who settled in Libya probably had
cultural influence disproportionate to their numbers, it may be that
they and other Jewish immigrants left no sizable genetic signature. The
characteristic genotypes detected here are therefore most likely
attributable to the relative isolation of and possible genetic drift in
the Libyan Jewish group. It is also notable that although cluster
analysis separated the Libyan and Moroccan Jews, the lowest
differentiation test statistic involving Libyan Jews was with Moroccan
Jews, perhaps reflecting shared ancestral Jewish, Iberian Jewish, or
Berber contributions to these populations, or gene flow among them.
 |
In addition to highlighting the Libyan Jews, structure also grouped
11 Ethiopian Jews and 4 Yemenite Jews in Cluster 2 and the
neighbor-joining tree identified clades with Ethiopian and Yemenite
Jews intermixed. The differentiation statistic and genetic distances
for the Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews were quite low, among the smallest
of comparisons that involved either of these populations. Many
hypotheses for the origin of the Ethiopian Jews have been proposed,
including Jewish migrations from ancient Israel, Egypt, or Arabia, or
conversions of native Ethiopians by North African or Arabian Jews. Both
linguistic and historical evidence demonstrate that Ethiopian and
Arabian peoples have communicated with each other since at least the
6th century BCE. In addition, Yemen was ruled by governors from
Ethiopia during 525–573 CE.
Although some authors have argued that Ethiopian Jews derive mostly
from Africans, or that the Ethiopian Jews are distant from all other
populations that they studied, others have claimed that this group, as
well as Ethiopian non-Jewish populations in general, may contain some
African and some Middle Eastern ancestry. Ethiopian Jewish
Y-chromosomal haplotypes are often present in Yemenite and other Jewish
populations, but analysis of Y-chromosomal haplotype frequencies does
not indicate a close relationship between Ethiopian and other Jewish
groups.
Although the Libyan Jews are closely related to the other
groups in our study, with typical allele-sharing and Fst distances for
intracontinental comparisons, the Libyan Jews separate into a unique
cluster and they are distinguishable when our methods are used.
Although this separation of the Libyan Jews is consistent with their
historical context, probable high levels of isolation of other
populations in our study make it surprising that this group was the
easiest to differentiate. Of the populations that did not form their
own clusters, the failure of the Druze to separate is particularly
puzzling. The Druze, an endogamous sect of Arab origin, (the Druze
faith, an esoteric offshoot of Shi‘ite Islam), derive from a founder
population that numbered in the thousands and that was immediately
closed to converts in the 11th century CE. The group has been isolated
long enough to develop private Y-chromosomal haplotypes of high
frequency, but the details of its genetic history remain unknown. As
diverse followers of a particular religious leader, Druze founders may
have had genetically heterogeneous origins. A larger study will be
required to determine whether we did not separate the Druze and other
population isolates in our study because of insufficient information or
because of the genetic heterogeneity among founders and the action of
other population genetic forces.
Perhaps because most divergences among Jewish groups have taken
place during the last 3,000 years, previous genetic studies based on
allele frequencies and genetic distance have had insufficient power to
resolve relationships among Jewish populations, including the Libyan
Jews. Although these methods have achieved considerable success in
understanding human genetic history at the level of continental
differentiations, they have consistently been unable to distinguish
populations within continents with great accuracy. Future studies of
human evolution that use autosomal loci to unravel relationships among
closely related populations should make use of methods that go beyond
treating loci independently, and which tap into the potential
information lying in the associations among loci.
The Jews of Arabia by Lucien Gubbay
Condensed from a recent lecture at the Montefiore Hall, London
By the time of Mohammed, the merchants of Mecca
controlled much of the transit trade between East and West. They bought
goods off the ships at Aden and then transported them along caravan
routes for sale in Egypt, Syria and Persia. The proceeds were used to
buy manufactured goods, which were then brought back to Mecca and sold
at the trade fairs.
RELIGION
The rudimentary and barely developed pagan worship of the Arabs was
centred on the three hundred and sixty idols which surrounded the
shrine of the Ka'aba in Mecca, to which the Bedouins flocked in annual
pilgrimage. The Ka'aba housed a black stone sacred to all Arabs - which
was most probably a meteorite that had once fallen flaming from the
skies. Some Arabs had developed an admiration for the more developed
religions of the Jews and Christians. This feeling manifested itself in
signs of spiritual discontent such as the rejection of idol worship by
a small number of seekers after the one God, who practised a religion
of their own. There were also converts to both Judaism and Christianity
in the settled populations of the desert oasis and in the deep South.
THE JEWS OF ARABIA
Before the coming of Mohammed, the Jews of Arabia, were few in
number, and I have found only two references to them in Jewish sources.
All we know of them comes from Arab historians, and from the Qur'an
itself.
THE NORTH
Before Islam, they dominated many of the main oasis in the West of
Arabia and had also settled in the present-day Gulf States - Bahrain in
particular. There was even a tiny Jewish community with its own
cemetery in Mecca. Curiously enough, Naim Dangoor told me that a Saudi
Arabian father of many children from the Gulf area visited him with his
family, about 8 years ago to ask for help in emigrating to Israel. He
claimed to be one of a large group of Muslims of Jewish origin who had
always maintained a separate identity, praying together and marrying
only amongst themselves. Naim believed the story and contacted the
Israeli Embassy on the man's behalf - but without success.
Arab historians mention some 20 Jewish tribes, including two tribes
of Kohanim. The Jews spoke Arabic, were organised into clans and tribes
just like the Arabs, and seem to have fully assimilated the values and
customs of desert society. A contingent of 500 Jewish soldiers was
supplied by Herod to accompany the Roman expedition set to conquer the
Yemen in 25 BCE. It paused for a time at a place said in the Talmud to
contain Jews. We may legitimately ask ourselves whether the Jewish
soldiers were sent to act as links between the Roman armies and the
Jews of Arabia. Arab sources maintain that the Jews of Medina were
survivors of the Jewish revolt against Rome. Another theory is that the
Jewish date-growers - and the cultivation of dates was the most common
occupation - might have come from the Jordan valley as refugees from
Christian Byzantine persecution.
Another obvious source of immigrants was, of course, Babylonians.
The Jews were engaged in agriculture, not trade which was exclusively
in the hands of the Arabs. According to Arab legends, Jews introduced
the date palm and the honey bee into Arabia. Also, advanced irrigation
and other new agricultural crafts. The Jews appear to have been
educated. It was their ability to read and write that made Bible
stories and Midrashim generally familiar to the pagan Arabs - and those
were the seeds from which Islam developed. Perhaps most importantly of
all, Jews also familiarised the Arabs with the belief in the coming of
the Messiah.
THE SOUTH
Many legends refer to early Jewish settlement in Himyar, present-day
Yemen. The first is that Jews accompanied the Queen of Sheba when she
returned from her visit to King Solomon. Arab historians claim that
very large numbers of Jews - the figure of 80,000 is mentioned -
arrived after the destruction of the First Temple, to join others
already established there. There is a story that Ezra the scribe cursed
the Jews of Yemen for ignoring his call to return to Israel and help
rebuild the Temple. In retaliation from then on, they refused to name
their sons Ezra.
Arab legend ascribes the conversion to Judaism of the king and
people of Himyar to two Jewish Rabbis from the oasis of Medina who
cured the kind of a terrible illness on an expedition to the North of
Arabia. The king was so impressed by the Rabbis that he and his
generals converted to Judaism on the spot. He then took the Rabbis back
with them to Himyar where they also converted part of the population -
presumably members of the court and leading families. Himyar fell to
the Christian Ethiopians in the year 525.
Persia sent an expedition to expel the Ethiopians and take control
for itself. The Jews prospered for a time under Persian rule and
maintained contact with their brethren in Babylon. But the economy of
Himyar was in steep decline during this period, partly because of the
warfare, and partly because of a catastrophic failure of the great dam
that controlled its irrigation system.
Wiki:
(Obviously "Sanitized").
The Banu Qurayza alternate spellings include Quraiza, Qurayzah,
Quraytha, and the archaic Koreiza) were a Jewish tribe which lived in
northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib (now known as Medina), until
the 7th century, when their conflict with Muhammad led to their demise.
Jewish tribes reportedly arrived in Hijaz in the wake of the
Jewish-Roman wars and introduced agriculture, putting them in a
culturally, economically and politically dominant position. However, in
5th century, the Banu Aws and the Banu Khazraj, two Arab tribes that
had arrived from Yemen, gained dominance. When these two tribes became
embroiled in conflict with each other, the Jewish tribes, now clients
or allies of the Arabs, fought on different sides, the Qurayza siding
with the Aws.
In 622, the Islamic prophet Muhammad arrived at Yathrib from Mecca
and reportedly established a pact between the conflicting parties.
While the city found itself at war with Muhammad's native Meccan tribe
of the Quraysh, tensions between the growing numbers of Muslims and the
Jewish communities mounted.
In 627, when the Meccans and their allies besieged the city in the
Battle of the Trench, and had withdrawn, the Qurayza are said to have
violated a treaty with the Islamic prophet Muhammad by allying with the
attacking tribes, aiming to attack Muslims from behind while the other
attackers attack from the front.
However, other sources state that Banu Qurayza did not appear to
have committed any hostile act and had been overtly correct in their
behaviour. After the Battle of the Trench ended, the tribe was besieged
by the Muslims and charged with treason by a judge accepted by both
parties, Sa'd ibn Mu'adh. According to Sa'd's verdict the men were
beheaded, while all the women and children were taken captive and
enslaved. Some scholars have challenged the veracity of this incident,
arguing that it was exaggerated or invented.
