Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

200 THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
father in heaven, and westward from Tyre and eastward from Carthage people
do not know the Israelites and their father in heaven" (Tractate Menahot).
The successful spread of Judaism in the Maghreb was probably due to the
presence of a Phoenician population in the region. Although Carthage was
destroyed back in the second century BCE, not all its inhabitants perished.
The city was rebuilt, and was soon an important commercial port once more.
Where, then, did all the Punics—the African Phoenicians—who populated
the coastline go? Several historians, notably the French Marcel Simon, have
suggested that a large number of them became Jews, accounting for the distinctive
strength of Judaism throughout North Africa. 18
It is not beyond reason to assume that the close resemblance of the language
of the Old Testament to ancient Phoenician, as well as the fact that some of the
Punics were circumcised, helped promote mass conversion to Judaism. The
process may also have been stimulated by the arrival of captives from Judea
after the fall of the kingdom. The old populace, originating from Tyre and
Sidon, had been hostile to Rome for a very long time, and probably welcomed
the exiled rebels and adopted their particular faith. Marcel Simon suggests that
the philo-Jewish policy of most of the Severan emperors, a dynasty originating
in North Africa, might also have contributed to the popularity of Judaization.
North Africa was one of the outstanding successes in the history of proselytization
in the Mediterranean region. Although in the third and fourth
centuries CE, as noted in the previous chapter, the rate of conversion to
Judaism slowed down in Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy—the heart of the
ancient Western civilization—along the coast of the Maghreb the communities
of believers in Yahweh did quite well. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence
depicts thriving Jewish religious life. Archaeological excavations near ancient
Carthage uncovered a number of tombs from the third century CE inscribed
in Latin characters, or even Hebrew or Phoenician, with images of candelabra
engraved alongside. Also found all over the region have been a large number
of tombstones of proselytes with Greek or Latin names, and their religion is
always stated beside their non-Hebrew names. A synagogue from the same
period, bearing inscriptions and designs of candles, candelabras and ram's
horns, was discovered in Hammam-Lif (ancient Naro), near today's Tunis. On
the floor is written, "Your maidservant Julia the young woman repaired with
her fortune this mosaic for the sake of the holy synagogue of Naro." It is not
surprising that the inscription goes on to name the head of the synagogue as
Rusticus and his son as Asterius.
18 Marcel Simon, Recherches d'Histoire Judéo-chrétienne, Paris: Mouton, 1962, 44-52.