Maghrebim

Maghrebim
Total population
1,500,000
Regions with significant populations
Israel 1,000,000  France 400,000  Canada 35,000  Morocco 5,000  Tunisia 1,000
Language(s)
Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic.
Religion(s)
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Jews   • Maghrebim   • Mizrahi Jews   • Berber Jews   • Sephardi Jews

The Maghrebim (מַגּרֶבִּים or מַאגרֶבִּים) are the Jews who traditionally lived in the Arab-Berber Maghreb region of North Africa (al-Maghrib, Arabic for "the west"), established Jewish communities long before the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain (see Alhambra decree), mainly in the Sherifian kingdom of Morocco. The term Maghrebim is formed analogously to Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The Sephardi population in Maghreb was urbanised and wealthier, so most Maghrebim chose to assimilate into the Sephardic Jewish community. Today most of Moroccan Jews consider themselves to be Sephardi. "Cave-dwelling Jews" of southern Tripolitania, whose fate is uncertain after 1960, were probably an early and isolated offshoot of Maghrebim. The relationship with the Sunni Muslim majority has suffered in recent years as Arab hostilities engendered by the Arab-Israeli conflict have worsened relations between Arabs and Jews throughout the Arab world.

See also

• History of the Jews in Morocco
• History of the Jews in Algeria
• History of the Jews in Tunisia
• History of the Jews in Egypt
• History of the Jews of Bilad el-Sudan
• Sephardi Jews
• Jews and Judaism in Africa
• Jewish ethnic divisions
• Mizrahi Jews
• Berber Jews
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• History of the Jews in Japan