Circolo Sion (Zion Circle) was established in Tripoli, Libya, in 1916, five years after the beginning of the Italian occupation, by Elia Nhaisi, a professional photographer and a correspondent for the Florence Jewish weekly newspaper Israel.  Its seventy founders drew up a statute of twenty articles which supported the Basle Program and requested that members donate the shekel for the Jewish National Fund in Palestine in addition paying to membership dues.  More important, Circolo Sion also advocated reforms in Jewish education and in the rabbinate: Jewish education was to espo…