Halfallah Nahum was born in 1879 into a prominent and well-to-do Jewish family in Tripoli, Libya. He received his primary and advanced technical-business education in Italian schools in Tripoli and in Manchester, England, where his uncle resided.

In 1917, after renouncing the Dutch citizenship held for generations by his family, Halfallah became a naturalized Italian citizen and was elected the first president of the Jewish community of Tripoli, which had been reconstituted under the Italian colonial administration. Soon after, his leadership and the Com…