Jews of Libyan Origin Concerned Over Post-Gaddafi Future

 

David Arviv's family was part of a small Jewish community in Libya, some of whom were forced to leave the country after post-World War Two Jewish pogroms. 

             

Now, Arviv says, he hopes for an opportunity to visit his hometown Tripoli.     

         

In "Fergi" restaurant - founded in the 1950's by his father - Arviv fulfils a yearning for the familiar smells from his home in Tripoli, before his family was forced to escape to Israel. 

 

Arviv was 11 years old at the time of the escape.         

     

Asked about the nearing end of Gaddafi's rule and his sons' fate, Arviv says he has no feeling towards them.              

 

[David Arviv, Tripolitan Restaurant Owner]: 

"I know they were mean people who did a lot of bad things and they deserve it.”  

            

The Jewish community in the former Italian colony, which traces its origins to Roman times, numbered about 38 thousand at the end of World War Two. 

 

By the time Israel won the Middle East War against Arab nations in 1967, the community had dwindled to about 7,000.             

The Jewish community in Libya is now virtually non-existent.     

         

Arviv says he hopes the future rulers of Libya will allow Jews of Libyan origin to visit their childhood neighborhoods.      

 

[David Arviv, Tripolitan Restaurant Owner]:       

"I hope it will be better now and that we will have relations with them, and that we will be able to visit; that we Tripolitans will be able to visit Libya and see the neighborhood in which we grew up in. I hope it will create a new road." 

            

But in the Libyan Jews Heritage Center in the Israeli town of Or Yehuda, curator Avi Pedatzur is pessimistic.   

 

[Avi Pedatzur, Curator, Libyan Jews Heritage Centre]:            

"The revolution leaders took the main square in - the 'Green Square' - and turned it, within an hour, into 'Jihad Square'. Jihad and its meaning are well known to Jews. I don't think that democracy will immediately emerge in Libya." 

          

Gaddafi has not been seen in public since mid-June.