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2. The Second Jewish immigration

Besides the literary evidence just discussed, we have at present no reliable archaeological evidence for the existence in Cyrene of a Jewish population in the time of the first Ptolemies. Slouschz saw the name “Adam” inscribed in Hebrew near the city of Cyrene[829] It may reflect the initial period of settlement when the newcomers still spoke their own language. On the other hand the Greek name “Adamas” appears in Egypt in company with two Cyreneans in a 3rd-century B.C. inscription at Hiera Sykaminos (Maharaka).[830]

A more reliable testimony of early Jewish settlement in the territory is the Hebrew village name Kappharodos (“New village”) recorded by Synesius (see p. 197); such a name could only have originated with Jewish immigrants who had come directly from an unhellenized Judaea.

Our information on the Jews of the country begins to assume a more substantial character in the 2nd century B.C. when Jewish immigration to Cyrenaica appears to have increased, according to the report of Strabo, (as reproduced by Josephus)[831] which we have quoted above (p. 132), and is to be related to a time shortly after 145 B.C.; by 140/39 B.C. the Jewish community of the country was important enough to earn a mention in the Roman Senate’s circular letter to various states and cities containing Jewish populations.[832] The new migration would seem to have inaugurated the golden age of Cyrenaican Jewry. In the same decade the first Hasmoneans broke through to the coast of Judaea by capturing Jaffa (142 B.C.) and other maritime cities, and the reputation of the Jews as a fighting nation was established. The national war, as well as the accompanying social and political struggle between hellenists and nationalists among the Jews of Judaea itself, caused the departure from the country of not a few Jews who settled in Egypt and in other neighbouring lands. Hence the general situation led to an increase of Jewish traders, slaves, soldiers and colonists throughout the eastern Mediterranean area, and Cyrene was doubtless one of the beneficiaries of this outflow.

The influence of the Maccabees and of the Jewish national movement in Judaea on the Jews of Cyrenaica is known to us only from one source, namely, from the composition of the Second Book of the Maccabees, the original version of which was written by Jason of Cyrene. Had we possessed the full original version, we might perhaps have been able to gather from it further information on Cyrenean Jewry, but fate has decreed otherwise.[833] The book, at any rate, reveals the links of that Jewish community with its homeland and also the contemporary level of Greek culture among Libyan Jews of the period. The contents of the existing epitome proves, in the view of some scholars, that the author had been an eyewitness of the events he described,[834] and if this is correct, it shows that individual volunteers or groups reached Judaea from Libya to take part in the Jewish war against the Seleucids.

There may be indirect evidence for such participation. In the ist century A.D. we know the name of a Jew who discharged a prominent function in the life of the city of Cyrene, serving in the important post of nomophylax in the civic authority, — Eleazar son of Jason (see below, pp. 186sq.). The Second Book of Maccabees[835] relates that Judah the Maccabee sent to Rome a diplomatic mission consisting of Eupolemos son of Johanan and Jason son of Eleazar. Tcherikover has noted that the author of II Maccabees, Jason of Cyrene, mentions Eupolemos in a way that shows him to have been his contemporary and personal acquaintance. Jason son of Eleazar may therefore also have been a Cyrenean and an ancestor of Eleazar son of Jason, nomophylax of the city under Nero.[836]

Epigraphy may have given us yet another echo of the events of the Maccabean wars against the Seleucids and the Jewish hel-lenizers.

In 1960 the writer republished four inscriptions inscribed on the north wall of the town of Teucheira, the names in which suggested that they were of Jews who had migrated to Cyrene from Judaea as a result of the Maccabean struggle against the Seleucids.[837] He there voiced the opinion that they may have become military settlers, but it subsequently became clear that the inscriptions are those of ephebes, or pupils of the city’s gymnasium who appear in couples, evidently as lovers.[838] The fourth inscription undoubtedly includes Jewish names,

Τελ[χι]ναῖος Δα[- - Δο]σίθεο[ς] /[839] Αἰνέας Θεοξή / νω

The three other inscriptions in their revised form, are:

1) Ἰσχος ὁ Αιδυ<μ>αῖ<ος> Ἀρχίβιος Χυλδαῖος Τιμοκράτη(ς)[840]

2) Μένι[α]ς- - V Ἀριβαῖ[ος] (ἔτους) ί Φιλ - - (ἔτους) ιδ’ Ἀριστέας[841]

3) Ἀλέξων ψυχὴ Ἀδδι(δ)α <ῖος>[842]

My first conjecture was that the names Huldaios, Aribaios and Addidaios were the places of origin of the men concerned, referring to the three ancient Judaean villages of Huldah, Hadid[843] (the Arabic Haditah) and Harib (the Arabic Kefar Harrubbah),[844] all of which are situated in the same region of south Judaea, in the vicinity of Lydda. Two of these, Harib and Hadid, were preponderantly Jewish in the Second Temple period and subsequently,[845] while Huldah has yielded remains of a Jewish building, probably for ritual immersion, containing mosaic floors adorned with Jewish symbols and Greek inscriptions of Jewish content.[846] The names at Teucheira, however, must now be regarded as personal, and the names Archibios and Huldaios seem to have been written by two different people. Yet even if this be accepted, we are bound to ask, how can we explain the proximity of two Jewish names (Dositheos, Theoxenos), to those of three other people, the name of each of whom takes the form of that of an ancient village in Judaea, each situated in the same region of that country? Even the assumption that the Libyan language contained Semitic elements (the place name Harrubbah occurs in Cyrenaica; it simply means a “carob tree”) is hardly a convincing explanation in the present circumstances, and the question must be left unanswered, but it does furnish evidence that among the pupils of the gymnasium in the hellenistic period were several young Jews, among them perhaps sons of emigres from Judaea, and if these were emigres, it is difficult not to connect their presence with the events of the Hasmonean revolt. It should nevertheless be noted that the name Haled today occurs three kilometres east of Teucheira, that of Harrubbah 28 kilometres east of the town. Further, Addida could conceivably represent the Aramaic form of Kephar Haddash (cf. above, p. 139).

The national struggle in Judaea not only resulted in the dispersal of refugees and Emigres over the neighbouring countries, but also strengthened the position of the Jewish community outside Judaea for a certain period. In Egypt a conjunction of political circumstances at home and abroad in the second half of the 2nd century B.C. led to a growth in the military importance of the Jewish community and to the establishment of several defined districts in which Jewish troops were concentrated as settlers, perhaps also to the stationing of a Jewish unit at Alexandria as part of the garrison. In the same period several Jews gained prominence as commanders in the Ptolemaic forces.[847] We do not know how these developments influenced the standing of the Jews of Cyrenaica; at this time the leaders of Egyptian Jewry supported Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra in their struggle against Euergetes II, then ruling Cyrene, and in 145 the latter invaded Egypt to win power.[848] His attack ended in a compromise with Cleopatra, but archaeological evidence suggests that the fortifications of the Jewish temple at Leontopolis, in the military district of Onias, were then taken by storm;[849] hence, in all probability, the story of Euergetes’ persecution of Egyptian Jewry.[850] This ended not (as Josephus relates) with a divine miracle or thanks to the prayers of Irene, mistress of the king, but owing to his reconciliation with Cleopatra, whom he duly wedded.[851] Nor do we know whether Euergetes’ wrath against the Jews of Egypt, due to their stand in the conflict, was extended to the Jews of Cyrene after the union of Egypt and Cyrene under his rule; it may however be noted, that previously in 162, Euergetes had been faced with a revolt of the Cyrenean Greeks and of the Libyans, nor was the territory without social ferment in the later years of his reign.[852] Euergetes may therefore have taken care not to attack the Jewish element in Cyrenaica; in Egypt he is known to have come to terms with the Jewish community after the crisis and behaved to them favourably: this at least, is what the inscriptions would imply.[853]