Orit Abuhav, Yoram Bilu and Hagar Salamon (editors)
THE JEWS OF LIBYA AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT
THE ETHNO-HISTORICAL STUDIES OF HARVEY GOLDBERG
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Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2020, ISBN: 978-965-235-215-6
Reviewed by Rachel Simon1
Harvey Goldberg, professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University, is a leading Israeli anthropologist, renown for his studies on Libyan Jews. His research, combining anthropological, historical, and Jewish studies insights, deals with issues related to Jewish communal life, religiosity, and identity, focusing mainly on North African Jews in their countries of origin as well as after emigration, mostly to Israel. Three of his former doctoral graduate students, now faculty members themselves, chose for this collection seventeen of his articles dealing mainly with Libyan Jews, though some examine North African Jews more broadly. Most of the articles had originally been published in English and were translated into Hebrew for this publication. This enables Hebrew readers to consult a varied selection of Goldberg's research, which had been previously published between 1972 and 2014 in numerous scholarly journals and collections. The book opens with the editors' introduction followed by four parts, each introduced by a specialist in the field, elaborating on the part's broader topic as well as on the author's interactions with and appreciation of Goldberg scholarship and personality. A list of bibliographical abbreviations by which the articles are annotated, is included, referring among others to numerous additional publications by Goldberg. Data regarding the original publications conclude this volume.
The editors' introduction reflects not only the high regard they have for Goldberg's scholarship and breadth of view, but not less their regard for his personality and ongoing helpfulness and dedication to his students, colleagues, and those he studies. A review of Goldberg's career and contributions to the field is included as is their impact on research in Israel and abroad.
The first part, “Demographic and Economic Foundations of the Jewish Communities” is introduced by Daniel Schroeter, who examines the demographic and economic foundations of Maghrebi Jews, based on extensive field study and published research. This part opens with a survey on Libya and its Jews, providing basic information for the general reader. It is followed by articles on the society and economy of the Jews of rural Tripolitania, and an initial report on a survey of the mellahs (Jewish neighborhoods) of southern Morocco. The latter article includes a list of these communities and also traces the establishment of synagogues, at times even with Muslim help, in small new Jewish communities, thus showing that new synagogues had been built in Morocco, contrary to what is often cited as a prohibition in the Omar Covenant of building new houses of worship for dhimmis (namely, synagogues or churches) in the Muslim world. Another article examines the social context of North African Jewish patronyms, pointing out that family names were often taken when Jews were outside their immediate environment, and that Jews sometimes used the name of their Berber patrons for protection (namely, these names do not indicate a Berber origin of North African Jews, as some scholars have thought).
The second part, “Between Jews and Muslims: Conceptualization, Symbols, Rituals” is introduced by Aomar Boum, who talks about studying North African Jews from a distance, focusing on Goldberg's attention to the role of religious experience in the life of the Jewish communities. Several articles in this part, using historical data, folk literature, and contemporary surveys, deal with Jewish-Muslim religious rivalry as expressed in social and economic relations, conversion, and saint worshiping. Other articles examine holidays and festivities as well as attempting to explain the possible social and political background of historical Sabbath Jewish wrestling matches in Tripoli which, according to Goldberg, might reflect Jewish attitudes towards Jewish-Muslim relations.
The third part, “Social and Cultural Changes in the Jewish Communities” is introduced by Yaron Tsur, who examines the Hebrew enlightenment in the Ottoman context, analyzing the reasons for the dominance of Hebrew among Libyan Jews in contrast to other Jewish communities in North Africa. The articles in this part focus on religious continuity and change among Libyan Jews, comparing the response to modernity in Tripoli and Djerba and questioning what Goldberg regards as the myth of Sephardic rabbinic openness to change. A specific case study deals with the growing role of the Hebrew language in Jewish education in Libya.
The last part, “Contemplations on Ethnography and Orientalism” is introduced by Noah Gerber, who examines the entanglement of colonialism and Zionism on North African studies, examining the role of several scholars, both North African and foreign, in this field. In the first article Goldberg examines how his own position and attitude evolved over time regarding his research topic and the people he studied and how Libyan Jews approached him and themselves as scholars. The last article focuses on the personalities and relations between “The Oriental and the Orientalist”: the European Dr. Nahum Slouschz, who employed the Tripolitan of Italian descent, Mordecai Ha-Cohen, as a guide and translator during his research in Libya at the beginning of the twentieth century and incorporated—without attribution—much of Ha-Cohen's manuscripts and insights in his own publications.
This selection of articles demonstrates Goldberg's breadth of research scope and innovative interdisciplinary approach. For example, he shows how economic conditions and needs coupled with geographical spread and political developments had an impact on the socioeconomic status of Jews, their relations with the Muslim majority, and internal migration. He also demonstrates how the combination of linguistics and the study of tales, poetry, and names can enrich historical, sociological and anthropological research. One learns how symbols, everyday practices, customs, and ceremonies can provide broader insights into the lives of Jews and Muslims and their interrelations. Based on his broad view and interpretative skills, Goldberg doesn't hesitate to reexamine and challenge accepted concepts and theories. All this makes the articles enlightening, meaningful, and inspiring.
As happens in a collection of articles which had been separately published over forty years, there are quite a few repetitions, especially with regards to individuals, processes, and events, and it includes some articles that are more introductory in character or had been published as preliminary reports. Readers would have benefited from the inclusion of legible maps: the few existing ones are hardly decipherable. Unfortunately, the publication suffers from uneven copy editing (e.g., misspelled dates, odd and unsystematic transliteration of terms and place names, the use of male pronouns for several women authors, and the omission of an article's title in the bibliography, citing only the authors' names and publishing data). A distinguished scholar like Goldberg deserves much better.
These technical issues notwithstanding, this collection is an impressive selection of Goldberg's research, demonstrating his wide knowledge and interests and his ability to draw insights from various different fields into specific topics. Hopefully, this collection will make Goldberg's research in general and studies on Libyan Jews, in particular, better known and more accessible to a growing number of Hebrew readers, scholars, students, non-academics, and Libyan Jewish community members.
1 Rachel Simon, Ph.D. (Hebrew University) is an independent scholar doing research on the Jews of Libya, the Middle East, and North Africa with special reference to women, Zionism, youth, education, printing, publishing, and journalism. Her numerous publications include Change Within Tradition among Jewish Women in Libya (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992).