The Myth of the Jewish Race: A Biologist's Point of View

[Lezer]

"Because of similarities in beliefs, language, and experience, it is likely that the Phoenicians swelled the ranks of Jewish converts after the fall of Carthage, which would explain their puzzling disapperance during the first centuries of the Christian era.
According to the historian Josephus Flavius, there were 500 000 Jews in Cyrenaica (part of modern Libya) in the first century of the Christian era. Only conversion can explain such a large number, an historical documentation attests that it occured. However, the figure Flavius cites may not be trustworthy, because in 76 bce Cyrecnaica was annexed to the Roman Empire, and the Berber lands were seized and given to Roman colonists. The Berbers joined forces with the Jews, who were also persecuted by the Romans and both fought Rome for many years; Eventually they were defeated and took refuge in lands close to the Sahara which today are within Tunisia and Algeria.
One of these Judeo-Berber communities, Touat, flourished until 1492 when it was overrun by Muslim fanatics. We now associate the Berbers with Islam, but before the Arab conquest reached North Africa, the Touat was a major center of Judaism. Gravenstones engraved with Hebrew characters have been found at Camara. An inscription in the metropolis of Hadrumetum, in vokes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Similar proof is found among Punitic antiquities. Tertian reports the Berbers observed the Sabbath as well as Jewish festivals, feasts and dietary laws.
Historians suggest that the Berbers converted to Judaism because they were influenced by the Carthagian civilization, which espoused a monotheistic religion and a moral code similar to that of the Jews. Many Jews of North Africa are believed to descend from Berbers who were converted to judaism in the thirsd century. Their unorthodox Judaism is a mixture of Jewish, Berber, and Carthagian customs. Jewish proselytism declined sharply after 325 CE, when the Council of Nicea made reforms that helped unify the Christian Church and aided the spread of Christianity. Religious changes in North Africa followed a fimiliar pattern: from paganism to Judaism, to Christianity, to Islam."

The Myth of the Jewish Race: A Biologist's Point of View, Door Alain F. Corcos