Berber Jews are the Berber-speaking Jewish communities of the Atlas mountains in Morocco. Their origins are not clear as one theory builds the case for "Judeo-cized Berbers" while another defends the "Berber-ized Jews" thesis. Between 1950 and 1970 most emigrated to France, The U.S., or Israel.

Jews settled in the North Africa since Roman times and the Jewish community in the Roman province of Africa was of great importance. The acceptance by the Berbers of Judaism as a religion, and its embrace by a number of tribes, occurred over time.French historian, Eugène Albertini dates the judaization of certain Berber tribes and their expansion from Tripolitania to the Saharan oases, to the end of the 1st century. Marcel Simon for his part, sees the first point of contact between the western Berbers and Judaism in the great Jewish Rebellion of 66-70.

At the time of the Arab conquests in northwestern Africa, there were, according to Arab historian Ibn Khaldoun, some Berber tribes that professed Judaism. Supposedly, the female Berber military leader, Dihya, was a Berber Jew. She is said to have aroused the Berbers in the Aures (Chaoui territory) in the eastern spurs of the Atlas Mountains in modern day Algeria to a last, although fruitless, resistance to the Arab general Hasan ibn Nu'man.

The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

Sephardi Jews (Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּי, Modern Sfaraddi Tiberian Səp̄āraddî) is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and traditions which originated in the Iberian Peninsula. Accordingly, the term Sephardic Jew refers to the Jews following the Sephardic Halakha.

The term essentially means "Spanish". It comes from Sepharad (Hebrew: סְפָרַד, Modern Sfarád Tiberian Səp̄āráḏ), a Biblical location. This location is disputed, but "Sepharad" was identified by later Jews as the Iberian Peninsula, and still means "Spain" in modern Hebrew.^{[citation needed]}

In other languages and scripts, "Sephardi" translates as plural Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּים, Modern Sfaraddim Tiberian Səp̄āraddîm; Spanish: Sefardíes; Portuguese: Sefarditas; Catalan: Sefardites; Basque: Sefardiak; Galician: Sefardís; Italian: Sefarditi; Greek: Σεφαρδίτες Sefardites; Bulgarian: Сефаради Sefaradi; Bosnian: Sefardi; Serbian: Сефарди Sefardi; Turkish: Sefarad, Judaeo-Spanish: Sefaradies/Sefaradim; and Arabic: سفارديون‎ Safārdīyyūn‎.

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991. Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.

The Great Berber Revolt of 739/740-743 AD (122-125 AH in the Muslim calendar) took place during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate (ruled from Damascus). Fired up by Kharijite puritan preachers, the Berber revolt against their Umayyad Arab rulers began in Tangiers in 740, and was led initially by Maysara al-Matghari. The revolt soon spread through the rest of the Maghreb (North Africa) and across the straits to al-Andalus (Spain).

The Umayyads scrambled and managed to prevent the core of Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and al-Andalus from falling into rebel hands. But the rest of the Maghreb was never recovered. After failing to capture the Umayyad provincial capital of Kairouan, the Berber rebel armies dissolved, and the western Maghreb fragmented into a series of small Berber statelets, ruled by tribal chieftans and Kharijite imams.

The Berber revolt was probably the largest military setback in the reign of Caliph Hisham. From it, emerged some of the first Muslim states outside the Caliphate. It is sometimes also regarded as the beginning of Moroccan independence, as Morocco would never again come under the rule of an eastern Caliph or any other foreign power until the 20th century.