North Africa

Protests and power vacuums: What the Arab Spring can teach us about Iran's protests

MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS: From Tunisia to Syria, the uprisings of 2011 showed how revolutions often give way to chaos or renewed authoritarianism, a lesson Jerusalem cannot ignore as Iran convulses.

A TUNISIAN expatriate shouts slogans while holding a placard reading ‘Free Tunisia,’ as he demonstrates on January 15, 2011, in Paris.
Residents wave Somali flags as they attend a rally denouncing Israel’s recognition of the breakaway Somaliland region, during a gathering calling for Somalia’s territorial unity, in Mogadishu, Dec. 30.

Somaliland’s lost and forgotten Jews: Inside Horn of Africa's Jewish past - opinion

Somalis react after Israel became the first country to formally recognise the self-declared Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state, in Mogadishu, Somalia, December 27, 2025

The Red Sea strategy: What does Israel stand to gain from recognizing Somaliland? - analysis

Flags from Egypt and Ethiopia.

Ethiopia accuses Egypt of driving up tensions in Nile dam standoff after int'l law accusations


Forgotten Arabian Jews recount lives of happiness and horror

A new book gives voice to some of the million or so Sephardi Jews who once lived harmoniously in the Mideast and North Africa, but who left everything behind after an explosion of antisemitism.

  Jews praying at Ezekiel's Tomb in Al-Kifl, Iraq in 1932.

In Paris, Jewish childhood friends open restaurant serving Tunisian couscous

Alexandre David and Alexis Memmi channel their grandparents' Tunisian foods in Mabrouk, a kosher-style restaurant they opened in 2019.

 Mabrouk is located near Le Marais, the historically Jewish district of Paris.

Pascale’s Kitchen: Welcome to Mimouna!

Below, you will find four recipes for cookies that are perfect for serving at Mimouna celebrations. They include cookies made with marzipan, meringue, sesame and jam.

 Marzipan cookies

Six Israeli restaurants makes ‘Top 50’ in MENA region list

A handful of Israeli restaurants were chosen to be on the ranking of the top 50 restaurants in the MENA region.

 Raz Rahav of OCD restaurant and his kitchen crew

Moroccan boy trapped in well dies before rescue

Rayan Awram, aged five, fell into the well at his village of Ighara in the hills near Chefchaouen on Tuesday.

Rescue workers carry 5-year-old child, Rayan Awram, who has been trapped for five days in a well, to an ambulance, during a rescue operation near Chefchaouen, northern Morocco, February 5, 2022.

Case of American detained in Libya shines spotlight on North African country

Libya has become synonymous with the kind of chaos that some countries sunk into after the 2011 Arab Spring.

 Members of the Libyan internationally recognised government forces fire during a fight with Eastern forces in Ain Zara, Tripoli, Libya April 28, 2019.

Book review: Gorenberg demythologizes the ‘Desert Fox’

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the central theme of this book, it is always lurking in the background because of the threat posed by Rommel and his military ambition.

War of Shadows. Codebreakers,  Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East Gershom Gorenberg Public Affairs, 2021 496 pages; $34

Ancient synagogue in Libya turned into Islamic center, Jewish group says

Libya once had about 40,000 Jews, who left following the establishment of the State of Israel.

Ancient synagogue mossaic

Arab countries that started off strong against pandemic struggle today

Hospitals in Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan packed far beyond capacity.

A man wears a protective face mask as he walks along the main market in downtown after the government eased the restrictions on movement aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus in Amman, Jordan

One historian saves North African Jewish musical heritage

Silver has amassed a collection of rare phonograph records from the era of Jewish musical stardom in North Africa, a period roughly corresponding with the first half of the twentieth century.

Jewish Music festival 2017