Film attitude

This film is not about facts, though they plau a part.

It is about my own feelings and voyage of discovery.

It is about my personal sense of a place, made up of memories, old images, family memorabilia, research and conversations. The place that will be depicted in this very short animated film .. never existed.. except in my mind

Websites

Web References

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/libyajew/index.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16658165

PINKAS HAKEHILOT
Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities
LIBYA & TUNISIA
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Pinkas_tunisia/pinkas_tunisia.html

The Holocaust in Libya
http://www.zchor.org/libya/libya.htm

Forgotten Jews Libya – Reparations
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2007/07/discussions-
with-libya-on-lost-jewish.html
http://www.jimena.org/forgotten/Jews%20of%20Libya.pdf
open letter-Raphael Luzon
Chairman of Jews of Libya- UK
http://www.rluzon.com/jewsOfLibya.php

Forced migration
http://www.iflac.com/jac/jac/THE_FORCED_MIGRATION_lybia.htm

Libyan writers- Personal stories
http://www.libyanwritersclub.com/uk/?p=335

Forgotten Refugees
http://www.theforgottenrefugees.com/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=38

The Final Exodus of the Libyan Jews in 1967
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=5&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=253&PID=0&IID=1901&TTL

=The_Final_Exodus_of_the_Libyan_Jews_in_1967

Tripolitania

Tripolitania or Tripolitana is a historic region of western Libya, centered on the coastal city of Tripoli. Formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, Tripolitania was captured by Italy in 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War. Italy officially granted autonomy after the war, but gradually occupied the region. Originally administered as part of a single colony, Tripolitania was a separate colony from 26 June 1927 to 3 December 1934, when it was merged into “Libya”. During World War II, Libya was occupied by the Allies and until 1947 Tripolitania (and the region of Cyrenaica) were administered by Great Britain. Italy formally renounced its claim upon the territory in the same year.

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Precedents-Video images of a bygone Libya

History Synopsis

Jews fleeing the destruction of the first Temple passed through Libya in 586 B.C.E. While many went on to settle in what is today Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, some l may have put down roots in Libya. In the 3rd Century B.C.E., Egyptian ruler Ptolemy settled Jews in the Cyrene region. Many local Berbers began converting to Judaism, and Jewish communities continued to grow under Roman rule, augmented by Jews exiled from Israel by Roman authorities. Libyan Jews lived along the Mediterranean coast and were active in the south as merchants participating in trans-Saharan trade.

Thousands of Jews fled the country after Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951. After the Six-Day War, the Jewish population of 7,000 again endured pogroms sparking a near-total exodus . That left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya.When Col. Qaddafi came to power in 1969, all Jewish property was confiscated and all debts to Jews cancelled.

The last Jew living in Libya, Esmeralda Meghnagi, died in February 2002. Libya is now completely empty of Jews and an ancient community is totally gone.

In 1911, Libya was colonized by Italy. By 1931, there were 21,000 Jews living in the country (4% of the total population), mostly in Tripoli. , In the late 1930s anti-Semitic laws started being passed by the Fascist Italian regime. Among the laws were that Jews were fired from government jobs, some were sent away from government schools and their papers were stamped with the words “Jewish race”. Despite the repression Libyan Jews were subject to during this time, one quarter of the population of Tripoli was still Jewish in 1941 and 44 synagogues were maintained in the city. In 1942 as German troops were fighting the Allies in North Africa, they occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi, plundered shops, deported more than 2,000 Jews across the desert, where more than one-fifth of them perished, and sent many Jews to work in labor camps..

Most Jews left before Libya gained independence from colonial rule. Even though the British colonial authorities authorized legal emigration to Israel…. this did not end Jewish problems.

Film reference

The Last Jews of Libya Vivian Roumani
http://www.lastjewsoflibya.com/trailers.shtml

Bibliography

Jews in an Arab Land Libya, 1835-1970
Renzo de Felice
University of Texas,Austin
copyright 1985
ISBN 0-292-74016-6

Jewish Life in Muslim Libya
Harvey E Goldberg
The University of Chicago Press
copyright 1990
ISBN 0-226-30091-9

Change within Tradition Among Jewish Women in Libya
Rachel Simon
The University of Washington Press
copyright 1992
ISBN 0-295-97167-3

One People
The story of Eastern Jews
Twenty Centuries of Jewish life in North Africa
Asia and Southeastern Europe
Devorah and Menahem Hacohen
Sabra Books Funk and Wagnalls
copyright 1969
SBN 87631-009

Jewish Communities in the East in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries Libya
Haim Saadoun
Ministry of Education
Pedagogical Secretariat
The Center for Oriental Jewish Heritage
Ben-Zvi Institute for the study of Jewish
Communities in the East of Yad Izhak Ben – Zvia nd ther
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
ISSN 1565-0774

The Book of Mordechai
Harvey E Goldberg
Institute for the Study of Human Issues
Philadelphia
copyright 1980
ISBN 0-89727-005-3

Jewish Communities in Muslim Countries
of the Middle East
S Landshut
Hyperion press
published 1950
isbn 0-88355-330-9

The Jewish World 365 Days
Harry N Abrams publishers