Bittersweet Trail Through Benghazi

The Luzon family’s brush with terror began ironically enough at a time of elation for world Jewry. It was on the third day of the 1967 Six Day War just as Jerusalem was being recaptured. That same day however turned into one of mourning and grieving for the Jewish communities in Tripoli and Benghazi Libya.

With the outbreak of the war riots broke out in the Jewish areas of Tripoli and Benghazi. Jewish stores and property were burned and looted. Residents of Jewish neighborhoods locked themselves up in their homes fearing their neighbors who had suddenly turned into bloodthirsty rioters.

The rioting was concentrated primarily in the capital city of Tripoli on Libya’s western Mediterranean coast. Tripoli’s Jewish community of about 40000 before Israel’s war of Independence in 1948 had dwindled to just 7000 by 1967 as most Jews had already left the country. In Benghazi 400 miles to the east where only 500 Jews lived Arab neighbors enraged at Israel’s stunning military successes in a three-front war against Egypt Syria and Jordan took to the streets.

“A mob started to burn all of the Jewish property and shops in Tripoli” said Mr. Raphael Luzon in a telephone interview with Mishpacha from his home in Europe. Though he was just thirteen at the time he describes those bloody days with chilling clarity. “They killed sixteen people. Nine of them were members of my family including my uncle his wife and their seven children.” Unlike the victims who made their home in Tripoli Mr. Luzon and his immediate family were living in Benghazi. “My father was an importer of pharmaceuticals. They burned all of his shops. They tried to burn our house too but at the last minute the police came and stopped them. They collected all of the Jews and put us in a refugee camp for a couple of weeks.”