Timbuktu, Mali

History

Egyptian Jews began trading with tribes in the northern part of Mali as long ago as biblical times and pushed further and further into the foreboding Sahara throughout the centuries. In the eighth century A.D. the Rhadanites (multi-lingual Jewish traders) settled in Timbuktu and used it as a base from which they could solidify their trade routes through the desert. In the 14th and 15th centuries Jews fleeing Spanish persecution settled in Timbuktu. Members of the Kehath (Ka’ti) family founded three villages that still exist near Timbuktu — Kirshamba, Haybomo, and Kongougara. In 1492, King Askia Muhammed took power in Timbuktu and threatened Jews who did not convert to Islam with execution. Some Jews fled, some converted, some remained in Mali and faced centuries of persecution and the occasional massacre. By the 20th century there were no practicing Jews in Mali.

However, in the 1990s Malian Jewry has begun to experience a revival. Ismael Diadie Haidara, a historian from Timbuktu, has been at the forefront of the movement to explore Mali’s Jewish past. In 1993 Haidara established Zakhor (the Timbuktu Association for Friendship with the Jewish World) as an informal association of Malian descendants of Jews. Zakhor’s members hope to teach their children about their Jewish heritage, learn and use Hebrew as a second language and publish histories of their ancestry. In Timbuktu alone there are almost a thousand descendants of Jews who have become interested in exploring their identity.

Today

In Timbuktu the family of historian Ismael Haidara and others in his Zakhor organization are investigating the spiritual beliefs of their ancestors. In many ways life has not changed for centuries in Timbuktu. The streets are still sparse and sandy, the air is still heavy with heat. Nomads still lead camels hauling salt blocks from the desert to the weekly market; traders still sell beads and drink strong tea beneath makeshift tents that shield them from the sun. Changing climate patterns has caused even more and more land around Timbuktu to succumb to the encroaching desert. Changing economic patterns and advances in communications and transportation have caused the focus of trading in West Africa to shift from Timbuktu to other major hubs. Today Timbuktu is a shadow of the grand trading center it was in the middle of the last millennium. Still, the in this new world geographical distance does not mean as much as it used to. The information age is slowly reaching Timbuktu. Today some households have televisions, upon which they watch everything from CNN to Spanish soap operas dubbed into French. The Internet is coming and perhaps someday merchants in Timbuktu will be able to reclaim their place as a hub of the African economy.

According to Haidara, there are many rural Malians, living mostly in villages along the Niger River on the edge of the Sahara, have begun to explore the religion of their ancestors. These villagers, like those in Tangasne and Kirshamba, are farmers, pot-makers and mat weavers; they are Orthodox Muslims, but they still maintain many Jewish traditions as vestiges of their ancestors’ past.

Tangasane is a tiny village across the Boucle du Niger, an inland delta crosscut with rivers, lakes and channels that come together just before Timbuktu. Though they have settled in their current village, the members of the Tangasane community still live like their nomadic ancestors, dwelling in temporary structures built beneath palm trees and termite mounds. The elders of the community are bearded and wear long, flowing Saharan robes. Their village lore dictates that they are descendants of Jews and though they have all converted to Islam they are open to exploring their Jewish ancestry. In the village of Kirshamba, all descendants of Jews have the last name of Djarumba, which means the same as “Aliahoudou-hou,” the word for Jews in Songhai. Though they too have converted to Islam, there is a chapter of Zakhor there and the villagers are learning about their Hebrew roots.

©2000 Jay Sand