- Libyan Omar Aboud, from the ancient Amazigh (Berber) tribe, stands inside one of …
- Hebrew inscription that reads "Shalom Guetta born here 1864" is seen on a wall inside …
For centuries, Jews lived among the Berbers of Yafran, observing the Sabbath at the synagogue of Ghriba, but they suddenly left 63 years ago, and their land in Libya remains untouched.
Every hamlet around Yafran bears the mark of the Libyan Jews, who arrived in the country 2,300 years ago and, until their departure soon after Israel's creation in 1948, constituted half the city's population.
Everywhere, the ruins of their homes still cling to the mountainside. Some were lived in, others subsumed by the Berber population. Time has taken its toll, but the houses remain untouched and uninhabited.
"It's just as it was before," says Tarek Ayad, a 58-year-old retiree.
Numerous abandoned synagogues remain intact, silent witnesses to the co-existence of the two peoples. Amid the coloured mosaics of Ghriba synagogue, Hebrew inscriptions overlap those in Amazigh, the language of the Berbers.
Moulded Stars of David have been unharmed in one synagogue, despite it having been converted to a mosque after the Arab conquest of the 7th century, while the Jewish cemetery, with its many ancient tombs -- some of which are dug into the rock -- borders a Berber graveyard.
Some in Yafran remember the names of prominent Jewish families: Aaron, Mguelish, Guetta. For generations, fathers and sons alike were rabbis. Read the rest on: AFP News
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