Jewish-Muslim Relations in Libya · 193Most Libyan Jews spoke Arabic, but it was a special Judaized dialect
that was written in the Hebrew alphabet. At times, Jews even used a spe-
cial secret language, especially when trying to strike an economic deal,
so that Muslims would not understand them. Yet while Jews and Mus-
lims could usually understand each other, their scholarship and publica-
tions were in their own languages and scripts. When the Jews started to
use a language other than their own for cultural, political, or economic
activities, it was Italian (and some French) rather than classical Arabic.
Cultural life of the adult population took place in separate spheres: there
was no mutual scholarly activity of Jews and Muslims, they published
separately and conducted separate cultural circles.
The Jewish community had its own educational institutions, provid-
ing religious education for boys. Gradually, Jews started to attend general
schools, but they were hardly involved in the local Muslim educational
system. Since the late nineteenth century, when Jewish education was not
solely religious, Jews preferred to complement it with European educa-
tion (e.g., Italian and French) rather than with local Arab or Berber. Still,
it is evident that in many of the nontraditional Jewish schools, Arabic was
taught, and during the late Ottoman period, at times even Turkish was
taught. Moreover, between 1908 and 1911, many Jews attended evening
classes for the study of Turkish that were organized by Young Turks.
During the Ottoman period, there were a few Jews who studied in state
and private Muslim schools, as there were some Muslims, sons of senior
Turkish and Arab officials, who studied in the AIU school.^61 But these
cases were few and exceptional.
There were several kinds of Jewish educational institutions in Libya.
The most common and veteran ones provided boys with traditional re-
ligious education under private tutors, in synagogue classrooms, and in
Talmud Torah schools. To these were added, since the late nineteenth
century, Jewish European institutions of the AIU, local modernized tra-
ditional schools and study circles, and Hebrew schools, mainly following
World War II. The emphasis was, in various degrees and according to the
institution and the period, on traditional education for boys or of Western
and Hebrew-Zionist education for both genders.
During most of the Italian period, many Jews studied in the Italian
state schools, with the exception of the period when Jews were prevented
from attending state schools due to the racial legislation. Simultaneously,