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According to the tradition of the Jews of Yemen, their forefathers left Jerusalem and settled in that country around the time of the destruction of the First Temple (586 B.C.E.). This tradition is supported by recent epigraphic findings (Lemaire and Bron 2009; Lemaire 2010; Lemaire and Bron forthcoming) as well as the close relationship between the pronunciation of ḥolem and ṣere in the linguistic tradition of the Jews of Yemen, a feature attested in some Hebrew dialects in the land of biblical Judea (Morag 1959; Tobi 1967). An affinity was also found be…

Although we have some indications of Jewish existence in Tunisia dating back to the talmudic period, there is little or no testimony as to the status of Hebrew there during that period. Nevertheless, the few Hebrew (or Aramaic) words found in the Tunisian Arabic dialect, and even in the Berber language spoken in North Africa, may demonstrate that Hebrew was a spoken language in pre-Muslim Tunisia (Tobi 2008). The first solid evidence of Jewish life in Tunisia, dating from the 10th century, attests that Hebrew was indeed in use, at least by scholars. Thus, the ra…