Israel’s recent decision to formally recognize Somaliland has generated a great deal of discussion, primarily through the lenses of geopolitics, security, and regional realignment. That is entirely understandable. Situated along the strategic Gulf of Aden, Somaliland offers Israel a critical diplomatic foothold in the Horn of Africa.
But beyond ports, shipping lanes, and intelligence cooperation lies another, largely overlooked dimension of this emerging relationship: Jewish history. Long before the two countries recognized each other, Jews were already present in Somaliland, leaving behind traces that still whisper to us across the centuries.
The past does not always announce itself with monuments and museums. Sometimes it survives in half-remembered customs, in ruins locals pass without knowing their meaning, and in marginalized communities carrying identities they barely dare to articulate. Such is the case with Somaliland, where a little-known but remarkably persistent Jewish presence once formed part of the fabric of life in the area.
Judaism in the Somali Peninsula has for some time been treated as a historical footnote, if it was acknowledged at all. However, scholarship now confirms that Jews lived, traded, and practiced their faith in the region for centuries – sometimes openly, sometimes in secrecy – and often as indispensable intermediaries in the commercial and social life of the area. Far from being an anomaly, their presence was a natural outgrowth of Somaliland’s geography.
Situated along ancient maritime and caravan routes linking East Africa with southern Arabia, India, and the broader Indian Ocean, Somaliland was a crossroads of civilizations. Ports such as Zeila and Berbera flourished. Jewish merchants, many of them Adeni and Yemenite Jews, were active participants in these networks, trading textiles, spices, and precious goods across the region.
Zeila, one of the oldest ports in the Horn of Africa, offers a particularly revealing case. Ruled at various times by local Muslim authorities and by the Axumite Empire of Ethiopia, the city lay within a sphere of Ethiopian influence that included the presence of Beta Israel, the ancient Jewish community of Ethiopia. Ethiopian rule brought not only Christianity but also elements of Judaism into Somaliland, leaving behind cultural and archaeological traces that still surface today.
Those traces are not merely theoretical, as Aweis Ali, a Somali-American scholar and reverend, noted in a 2021 article titled “A Brief History of Jews in the Somali Peninsula.” Ali wrote that inland from the coast, near the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa, lies the village of Dhubato, which “has ancient cemeteries embossed with the Star of David.” These are not legends or oral myths but physical artifacts, silent testimony to a Jewish community sufficiently rooted to bury its dead openly and according to Jewish tradition.
Berbera, too, preserves echoes of a Jewish past. Jewish families lived there well into the 20th century and had their own synagogue. Though the structure is now in disrepair, the former Jewish quarter still carries the name Sakatul Yuhuud, “the alley of the Jews.”
After the establishment of the State of Israel, nearly the entire Jewish community made aliyah, joining the exodus of Yemenite and Adeni Jews to Israel. Indeed, according to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report from August 15, 1949, “there are no Jews left in Italian and British Somaliland,” while just three remained in the French-controlled part of the peninsula. They, too, are believed to have left for Israel shortly thereafter.
Yet the most intriguing dimension of Somaliland’s Jewish history is not found in ruins or place names but in people: specifically, the Yibir tribe.
The Yibir occupy a deeply marginalized position within Somali society. Feared, stigmatized, and relegated to the bottom of the clan hierarchy, they are traditionally associated with ritual roles, blessings, and protective charms related to births and marriages. But beneath this social function lies a striking claim: Widespread Somali tradition holds that the Yibir are of Jewish origin. Even the name Yibir, some scholars contend, is a Somali corruption of the word “Hebrew.”
Ethnographic and historical evidence suggests that the Yibir’s ancestral roots lie in eastern Ethiopia, near Harar and Jigjiga, regions long connected to Jewish and pre-Islamic religious currents. Their traditions point to a syncretic belief system that may have blended elements of Judaism with local practices before their eventual, and relatively late, conversion to Islam.
On August 15, 2000, The New York Times published a news story titled “Somalia’s ‘Hebrews’ See a Better Day,” which noted that even though the Yibir know nothing about Judaism, they “are treated badly, cursed as descendants of Israelites. The name of the tribe,” it added, “is Yibir, or ‘Hebrew.’” The article further stated that one of the reasons the Yibir are treated so badly is that “they are believed to be ethnic Jews in a strongly Muslim country.”
Israel's recognition of Somaliland connects the two nations
Why does Somaliland’s Jewish history matter now?
Because Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is not occurring in a historical vacuum. It reconnects two people whose paths crossed long before modern diplomacy. It challenges the assumption that Jewish history in Africa begins and ends in Ethiopia or North Africa, and it reminds us that Jewish civilization once extended deep into the Horn of Africa, adapting, fragmenting, and sometimes surviving only in the shadows.
For world Jewry, acknowledging this past broadens our understanding of Diaspora resilience and reach. For Somaliland, it affirms a deeper truth about its own history: This land has long been a meeting place of faiths, cultures, and civilizations.
From weather-worn old gravestones to an ostracized tribe bearing a Hebrew name, Somaliland tells a Jewish story that was never meant to survive yet somehow stubbornly did. And that, I believe, is certainly something worth recalling.
The writer is the founder of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which assists lost tribes and hidden Jewish communities to return to the Jewish people and to Israel.