Governor Italo Balbo’s opposition to racialism, it was learned today, has been chiefly instrumental in saving Libya’s 35,000 Jews from the full force of the Italian anti-Jewish program. All Jews have, of course, been eliminated from Government services, but few of the other anti-Jewish measures enforced in Italy have been put into effect in this colony. Kosher meat, for example, is still legally obtainable.
Of the total Jewish population, 18,000 reside in Tripoli and 5,000 in Bengazi. Since Libya has been under the Italian flag only 27 years, nearly half of the Jews are foreigners and most of these are French. Fewer than 100, mostly doctors, are subject to expulsion, having entered the colony after January 1, 1919.
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