Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Libya

The end of the Libyan Jewish community after the 1945, 1948 and 1967 pogroms, Gaddafi's confiscations and later overtures, the World Organization of Libyan Jews, Saddam Haftar's reported 2021 stop at Ben-Gurion Airport, the 2023 Mangoush–Cohen meeting in Rome and its fallout, and a 2011 Epstein email on frozen Libyan assets

Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Libya centre on a Jewish community more than 2,000 years old that no longer exists. It numbered about 40,000 in 1945. Pogroms in 1945 and 1948 and riots after the 1967 war drove almost all its members out, most of them to "Israel", and the Gaddafi government confiscated the property left behind. Libya does not recognise "Israel", and a 1957 law makes dealing with it punishable by up to nine years in prison. Since Gaddafi's fall, rival Libyan leaders have made reported approaches to "Israel": Khalifa Haftar's son Saddam in 2021, and the Tripoli government's foreign minister, Najla Mangoush, whose 2023 meeting with the Israeli foreign minister led to protests and her dismissal.

Jewish community and religious life

History

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) traces the Libyan Jewish community to the third century BCE. When Italian rule began in 1911 there were about 20,000 Jews, and by 1945 there were about 40,000. In 1941 Jews made up a quarter of the population of Tripoli and had 44 synagogues across the country. In 1942 German troops occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi and deported more than 2,000 Jews to camps, where more than a fifth of them died, and many Jews from Tripoli were sent to the Giado camp.

In November 1945 a three-day pogrom in Tripoli killed 120 Jews, according to Yad Vashem, wounded hundreds more and destroyed at least five synagogues. In 1948, at the time of the declaration of the state of "Israel", rioters killed 12 Jews and destroyed 280 homes. The WJC gives somewhat different figures: more than 100 dead in 1945 and 15 in 1948. About 33,000 of Libya's 40,000 Jews left for "Israel" between 1948 and 1951. In 1961 the monarchy passed Law 6, which sequestered the property of anyone who had left for "Israel".

By 1967 the community had fallen to about 7,000. After the war that June, crowds attacked Jews again. King Idris and Jewish leaders urged the remaining Jews to leave, and an Italian airlift took about 6,000 of them, mainly to Rome. After Gaddafi took power in 1969, a law of 21 July 1970 expropriated all sequestered Jewish property. It promised compensation in bonds, which were never paid. The WJC says only about 100 Jews remained in 1969 and none by 2004. The US State Department reported in 2023 that, according to Yad Vashem and members of the diaspora community, no Jews live permanently in Libya.

After Gaddafi

In October 2011 David Gerbi, a Libyan-born Jew who had returned from exile in Italy to join the revolution, broke into the sealed Dar Bishi synagogue in Tripoli's Old City in order to restore it. He was then blocked from the building and warned that armed men would target him if he did not leave. The head of the National Transitional Council said it was too early to think about rebuilding a synagogue. After the Hamas attack of October 2023, the head of the Tripoli government's religious affairs authority asked imams to preach on "the danger of Jews and those who help the Jews".

How far is it Zionist? No Jewish community remains in Libya, and the main organisation of Libyan Jews, the World Organization of Libyan Jews (WOLJ), is based in "Israel". Gerbi went to Libya in 2011 as its representative to the National Transitional Council. See below.

Chabad

Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement

Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in Libya, and the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi there.

Zionist movement and advocacy

The WOLJ worked on Libyan Jewish property claims with the Israeli Justice Ministry. Its chair, Meir Kahlon, said he and two other members had secret talks with Libyan officials in Jordan several times between 2005 and 2007, and he wrote to Gaddafi in 2008 asking for compensation. Kahlon said it was he who sent Gerbi to Libya in 2011. MERIP notes that Israeli governments have used the property claims of Jews from Arab countries, described as "refugees", to counter Palestinian refugee claims. On 3 April 2012 the Israeli foreign ministry announced it would campaign for this "two refugee" narrative to be part of any peace talks.

Israeli state and commercial ties

Gaddafi's overtures

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Gaddafi's overtures to what it calls the "pro-Israel community" began in 2002, when Gerbi visited Libya to bring an elderly aunt to Italy. Gerbi said Gaddafi asked him to help normalise relations between Libya and the United States. The Democratic congressman Tom Lantos took up the cause, and he showed visitors a copy of Gaddafi's book Isratine, which proposed a single Israeli–Palestinian state. In August 2003 the Israeli Labor politician Efraim Sneh and the Shinui member Ilan Shalgi met Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, at a conference in Europe. Three months later Saif al-Islam told Al Jazeera that Libya would "open the file of compensation for Jews who lost their property and money".

Saddam Haftar's reported visit, 2021

In November 2021 Haaretz reported that a private jet belonging to the eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar had flown from Dubai to Ben-Gurion Airport and stayed on the ground for 90 minutes before going on to Libya. According to the report, his son Saddam Haftar, then seen as a possible presidential candidate, met Israeli officials and offered to establish diplomatic relations in return for Israeli "military and diplomatic assistance". The report said Haftar had previously been in contact with a Mossad department that deals with countries "Israel" has no relations with.

The Mangoush–Cohen meeting, 2023

On 27 August 2023 the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, announced that he had met Najla Mangoush, foreign minister of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, the week before in Rome. The meeting was hosted by the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani. Cohen called it "historic" and "the first step" towards relations. Libya's foreign ministry said it had been "an unprepared, casual encounter". The speaker's office in parliament accused Mangoush of grand treason, and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah suspended her and referred her for investigation. Protesters blocked roads and burnt tyres in Tripoli and other cities. Some protesters set fire to Dbeibah's residence in Tripoli, and Dbeibah replaced Mangoush. An Israeli official told Reuters that the meeting had been agreed in advance "at the highest levels" in Libya. According to the Associated Press, a Libyan official said normalisation had first been raised in January 2023, when the CIA director, William Burns, proposed to Dbeibah that his government join the Abraham Accords. Israeli television commentators said Cohen's announcement had seriously damaged Israeli credibility, and the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said it had made other countries doubt "Israel" as a partner. The US State Department noted that a Libyan social media influencer called Mangoush "the dog of the Jews".

Spyware

Citizen Lab's 2018 survey of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware recorded suspected infections in Libya linked to an operator it called BLACKBIRD.

Trade

Libya does not appear in the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics' table of trade by country.

Migration and aliyah

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics records Libyan-born immigrants to "Israel" as 30,972 in 1948–51, 2,079 in 1952–60, 2,466 in 1961–71, 219 in 1972–79, 66 in 1980–89, 89 in 1990–99 and 236 in 2000–2020, then 9 in 2021, 4 in 2022 and 6 in 2023. Many of those who left after 1967 went to Italy.

Political interference

Both of Libya's rival camps have had reported contacts with "Israel": the Haftars reportedly sought Israeli military and diplomatic backing in 2021, and in 2023 the Mangoush meeting followed reported US pressure on the Tripoli government to join the Abraham Accords.

Jeffrey Epstein

A Justice Department release of Jeffrey Epstein files in January 2026 included an email sent to Epstein in July 2011, several months into the uprising against Gaddafi. It set out a plan to pursue Libyan state assets frozen abroad, estimated at about $80 billion, including about $32.4 billion in the United States. The email said that "if we can identify/recover 5 percent to 10 percent of these monies and receive 10 percent to 25 percent as compensation we are talking about billions of dollars". The sender said that some former members of MI6 and of the Israeli Mossad were willing to help identify and recover "stolen assets". The Al Jazeera report does not say whether Epstein acted on the proposal.

See also

• Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States
• Zionist movement
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Tunisia
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Egypt
• Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Algeria

External links

• World Jewish Congress: Community in Libya