The belief that Kaddafi is a Jew

Paul K. writes:

Out of curiosity, I did a little research into the rebels’ accusation that Khadafi is partly Jewish (a Western journalist asked one of the rebels why he was fighting Khadafi, and the rebel answered, “Because he’s a Jew”), a rumor that apparently has some roots. This is from 2008, from a website called Libya Monitor:

Qaddafi was the youngest child from a nomadic Bedouin peasant family in the desert region of Sirte. His mother was a Jew converted to Islam at age nine.

This technically makes Qaddafi Jewish according to Judaism.

While this piece of information has always been quite widespread and discussed—in hush terms—in Libya for as long as I remember, there seem now to be more online mentions of it .

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on the history of the Jews in Libya, which also addresses this subject.

- end of initial entry -

Sophia A. writes:

This is a subject I know something about, being of “Oriental” Jewish heritage myself.

The notion that GQKaddafy is Jewish is ludicrous. The Libyan Jewish community is, or was, overwhelmingly urban and educated. Read the Wikipedia article—they lived mostly in Tripoli.

GQKaddafy is from a peasant Bedouin family. The idea that an urban Jewish family would marry off a daughter (all marriages back in the day were arranged, or heavily “encouraged”) to one of them is unthinkable.

It’s just a crazy story. Muslim Arabs are deeply anti-Jewish and they just can’t admit that they screw up so often and produce these horrible leaders. Hence blaming the Jews.

An aside: if you told me that a Moroccan Berber was part-Jewish I’d believe you because in some of the isolated Atlas Mountain villages intermarriages did occur.

But not a Jew to a Muslim Arab. Not in Libya.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 26, 2011 09:27 AM | Send