Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

As Baghdad reemerged into prominence during the OttomanTanzimat period in the nineteenth century, the Zilkha family developed business interests that eventually extended to Europe, the United States, and Asia. In addition, they contributed to the reinvigoration of the city’s Jewish religious life with the establishment of the Midrash Bet Zilkha , a rabbinical seminary, and a synagogue named for Ezra ha-Cohen Zilkha.Khedouri Zilkha (1884–1956), the only son of the textile merchant Aboudi Zilkha, was the founder the Zilkha Bankin Baghdad. After a brief period in Turkey, w…

see Dhimma Meira Polliack

1. General introductionThe mainstream modern Zionist movement was founded and developed by Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern and Central Europe, and institutions such as the World Zionist Organization and the Zionist Congresses were dominated by Ashkenazi European Jews. The majority of the pioneer settlers (Heb. ḥaluṣim; usually rendered in English as halutzim) who created the new Yishuv and its institutions in Palestine were also Ashkenazim, and they became the principal founders of the State of Israel. Not surprisingly, therefore, most of the s…

Zliten lies on the Mediterranean coast about 93 miles (150 kilometers) east of Tripoli, Libya. Little is known about the town’s Jewish community before the eighteenth century, but it numbered more than seven hundred in the twentieth. Most of the local Jews were craftsmen, peddlers, and small merchants, but there were a few wealthy traders and moneylenders. In the late nineteenth century Zliten’s Jews were involved in the processing and exporting of esparto grass for paper production.Zliten is famous for the Bu-Shayf synagogue, the focus of numerous miracle tales and a pilgri…