176 · Rachel Simon
the lower and middle ranks. This was also the case with the police with
whom the Jews came in contact more often than with the military. Even
during the Italian period one could notice a phenomenon which had been
prevalent during the Ottoman period and became more obvious in the
1940s, namely, the identification of the local policemen with the Muslim
majority, resulting in slackness in fulfilling their duty of protecting Jews
and ignoring criminal activity.
Following the application of the Italian anti-Semitic racial legislation
in Libya from 1938, Jews were to be removed from the state and public
administration as well as from economic bodies that conducted business
with the state. The authorities did not hurry to carry out these instruc-
tions in Libya due to the vital importance of Jews in these positions. The
Muslims did not benefit from the racial legislation and were even afraid
that eventually it might also be applied to them.^9
With the suspension and abolition of the racial legislation under the
BMA, Jews could return to state and public administration. Nonetheless,
the internal and external Jewish exiles caused by the war affected a large
number of Jews and prevented a swift rehabilitation of the community
and the reintegration of Jews in the bodies from which they had been
removed. For this reason and the policy of the BMA, personnel require-
ments of the civil administration and the security forces were often met
through the import of Arab clerks and technicians, mainly from Egypt,
Palestine, and Syria, who became known as the “Red Fezes.” These new-
comers had higher professional qualifications and political consciousness
than the indigenous Muslims. Consequently, the “Red Fezes” had a con-
siderable influence on the political process in Libya in the 1940s and the
changing attitude of the local Muslims toward the Jews.^10
As part of Libya’s preparation for self-rule, the British established in
1947 a twenty-one-member magistrate’s court (maḥkamah ahlīyah), six of
whose members were Jewish. Three Jews were members of the twenty-
one-member Tripoli municipality.^11 In 1949, sixty Jews served in the Trip-
oli police force, and several served in the police of small Tripolitanian
towns and remained in their position until the last Jews left the region.^12
Under the new Libyan constitution, only one of the six Jewish judges
remained as a civil judge, and he also filled the role of the Jewish rab-
binic court of law, which was disbanded in 1954. The judge for Jewish
affairs had the authority over personal status and was also supposed to
rule over inheritance. But following disagreements according to which