There are no Jews known to be living in Somaliland, which declared its independence from Somalia in 1991. However, the territory can claim some interesting footnotes in Jewish history — beyond Israel’s move last week to become the first country in the world to recognize it as a sovereign state — even if it doesn’t yet have a Chabad House for Jewish tourists.

Located on the Horn of Africa, Somaliland sits at a historic crossroad of commerce and migration linking Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Middle East. The territory once played host to small communities of Jewish merchants from across the Red Sea, and today remains home to a mysterious tribal clan that claims to be descendants of ancient Jewish ancestors.

“This is a story that is not well-known and hasn’t been widely documented,” said Asher Lubotzky, senior research fellow at the Africa-Israel Relations Institute. “Only a few pieces of evidence have been uncovered to piece it all together.”

Archival documents show that several hundred Jews from Yemen moved to Somaliland nearly 150 years ago, crossing the Gulf of Aden to live in northern coastal cities such as Berbera and Zeila, Lubotzky said.

After the Ottoman Empire consolidated control over Yemen in 1872, the country’s Jewish community saw new opportunities for freedom open up after years of living as dhimmis, an inferior legal status for non-Muslims. The new regime allowed Yemeni citizens to migrate more freely, and following the opening of the Suez Canal several years earlier, in 1869, the Red Sea was becoming a major global crossroad and trade route.

Most of those who could leave headed to Ottoman Palestine, spurred by messianic fervor and what they saw as a call to Zion. In 1881, the first major wave of immigration from Yemen, known as E’eleh BeTamar, saw about 2,500 people move to Ottoman Palestine.

However, several hundred Yemenite Jews headed toward the Horn of Africa and the nascent colonial ports of what would become British and Italian Somaliland, looking to trade in frankincense, myrrh, hides and livestock.

Details about the community are scarce, but several historical accounts, including reports from the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) archives in Paris, described the presence of Jews in these East African ports.

According to these records, the community soon expanded from Berbera and Zeila to southern ports including Brava, Mogadishu and Obbia, enjoying newfound freedom and economic opportunity under the territory’s European administrators. Business thrived as the Jewish immigrants used their international connections and language skills........

© The Times of Israel