Jewish presence in Somalia is very old. Jewish traders from Yemen have been visiting and trading with Somali ports for centuries. Remember that Yemen, just across the sea, has had a strong Jewish community for centuries and they ,like their fellow Arabs ,traded and migrated to Somalia.
The antipathy towards Jews is a modern trait, fuelled by radical Islam and Arabism and did not exist in the Somali past.There has been a Jewish synagogue in Berbera for centuries and the building still stands, though in ruins, in the heart of Berbera town. I would not be surprised if Jewish dna is present among the Somalis.
Just to illustrate, in 1144, it is reported in the Cairo Geniza(medieval Jewish manuscripts) that Abu Said Ibn Jamahir ,a famous medieval Jewish trader, who plied the Berbera/Aden/India route, was accused by a prominent member of his community of abandoning his concubine in Berbera after she bore him a son. Ibn Jamahir took his accuser before the governor of Aydhab , an important medieval port in Northern Sudan, accusing him of slander.
Undoubtedly, there were many more unrecorded liaisons, whose memory is buried in the sands of Somalia, but whose traces survive in the Somali blood.
The antipathy towards Jews is a modern trait, fuelled by radical Islam and Arabism and did not exist in the Somali past.There has been a Jewish synagogue in Berbera for centuries and the building still stands, though in ruins, in the heart of Berbera town. I would not be surprised if Jewish dna is present among the Somalis.
Just to illustrate, in 1144, it is reported in the Cairo Geniza(medieval Jewish manuscripts) that Abu Said Ibn Jamahir ,a famous medieval Jewish trader, who plied the Berbera/Aden/India route, was accused by a prominent member of his community of abandoning his concubine in Berbera after she bore him a son. Ibn Jamahir took his accuser before the governor of Aydhab , an important medieval port in Northern Sudan, accusing him of slander.
Undoubtedly, there were many more unrecorded liaisons, whose memory is buried in the sands of Somalia, but whose traces survive in the Somali blood.