| Interior of El Ghriba synagogue |
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Maghrebi Jews (in Hebrew Maghrebim מַגּרֶבִּים or מַאגרֶבִּים) are Jews who traditionally lived in the Maghreb region of North Africa (al-Maghrib, Arabic for "the west"), established Jewish communities long before the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain; see Alhambra decree. The oldest communities were present by Roman times (in Roman Cyrenaica) as well as in Punic colonies (Carthage).
After the dissolution of the Jewish state a great number of Jews were sent by Titus to Mauretania, and many of them settled in Tunis. These settlers were engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising, and trade. They were divided into clans, or tribes, governed by their respective heads, and had to pay the Romans a capitation tax of 2 shekels. Under the dominion of the Romans and (after 429) of the fairly tolerant Vandals, the Jewish inhabitants of Tunis increased and prospered to such a degree that African Church councils deemed it necessary to enact restrictive laws against them. After the overthrow of the Vandals by Belisarius in 534, Justinian I issued his edict of persecution, in which the Jews were classed with the Arians and heathens.
In the seventh century the Jewish population was largely augmented by Spanish Jewish immigrants, who, fleeing from the persecutions of the Visigothic king Sisebut² and his successors, escaped to the Maghreb and settled in the Byzantine cities. Another migration of Iberian Jews took place in 1492, by the Alhambra decree.
² A l'arrivée des Juifs espagnols : Mutation de la communauté. Richard Ayoun.
[1] Jewish encyclopedia.