June 12, 1948
As North African Arabs pass through Tripoli, Libya, en route to join the Arab armies fighting to destroy Israel, a mob attacks the Jewish Quarter in Tripoli. The attack escalates from an argument between an Arab and a Jew as Tunisians join in. Rioters are heard shouting, “If we cannot go to Palestine to fight Jews, let’s fight them here” (Maurice M. Roumani, The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement. Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2008, p. 58).
Fourteen Jews are killed, and 300 Jews lose their homes in two days of rioting.
The riot is the second against the Jewish community of Tripoli in less than three years. From November 4 to 7, 1945, the Jews of Tripoli were subjected to attacks after an anti-Zionist demonstration in Egypt. Those attacks killed 130 Jews and destroyed 813 Jewish businesses.
Jews suffer fewer casualties in the June 1948 riots in part because Jewish defense groups were established after the 1945 attacks. Israel Gur, a member of the Palmach, was sent as an emissary to Libya in 1945. During his two years in the country, he trained Libya’s Jews in defense tactics to be better prepared for violence. The Jewish defense groups and the intervention of British police limit the bloodshed.
The 1948 riots convince the majority of Libya’s 35,000 Jews that they have no future there. Between 1949 and 1952, more than 31,000 Libyan Jews immigrate to Israel with the assistance of the Jewish Agency and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
