184 · Rachel Simon
reached agreements with local sources of power. Organized and wide-
spread attacks on political grounds started only in the mid-1940s, follow-
ing Arab nationalist agitation in Libya on the eve of its independence and
as part of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Politics
Jewish involvement in political life in Libya was limited and tended to be
among the European or Zionist circles rather than among the Muslims.
Most of the Jews were small craftsmen and traders who were not inter-
ested in politics. Moreover, most of the men received only limited tradi-
tional Jewish education, which hindered their involvement in the politi-
cal life of the society surrounding them. Those Jews who showed some
interest in political involvement were often graduates of the European
educational institutions, and many of them held European citizenship.
They distanced themselves from the local Muslim population and only
a few tried to get involved in politics. In the mid-twentieth century this
involvement resulted to a large extent from British pressure and fear for
the destiny of the community if its members would not show favor to the
political national process in Libya. Still, most Jews were careful not to be
openly identified with any Libyan political grouping: it seemed to them
that the safest approach would be not to express any political position.
One can divide the political activity during the late Ottoman period
into two phases: before the 1908 Young Turk revolution and after it. In
the first period, and especially under the rule of Sultan Abdülhamit II
(1876–1909), the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire were careful to re-
frain from overt political activity that could be regarded as subversive.
Overall, Ottoman Jews were considered to be a loyal element of the
population. During the Hamidian period, Libya was one of the Otto-
man provinces to which political exiles and prisoners were sent following
purges in the centers of power. Consequently, echoes of Ottoman national
political activities of Jews in Libya can be found among Jewish political
exiles who were sent there from the center of the empire.^35 Most of the
Muslim population rejected the exiles, and this tendency was manifested
following the Young Turk revolution.^36 On the other hand, between 1900
and 1904 there were some signs of budding Zionist activity in Libya. This
involved a few foreign citizens who established contacts with the Central
Zionist Organization, but their activity did not receive much response.