“It was in the 2000s and early 2010s, when Colonel Gaddafi was still in power,” said Ben Attiya, 62, head of the city’s Libyan Jewish congregation, called Or Shalom. They have hurt us greatly, but we Libyan Jews have become a success story in Israel,” said Netanya’s Daniel Mimun, 77, who fled Libya for Italy in 1967 with his family before later moving to Israel. To visit, but not to returnDespite the bad memories, some Libyan Jews are interested in ties with Tripoli, especially as it may allow the community to preserve its heritage sites. There is also a Jewish-Arabic dialect spoken by Libyan Jews, which is used in a magazine put out by the Or Shalom community. ‘We cannot forget their cruelty’Other Libyan Jews reacted with less enthusiasm to the news of high-level Israeli-Libyan contacts, or with outright rejection.
