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The third decade of the 20th century was the last decade of existence for the old Jewish community of Gaza.
By this point the community had dwindled down to only a handful of people, but in the past, it had included prominent figures such as Nathan of Gaza, a well-known follower of Sabbatai Zevi, and Rabbi Israel Najara, author of the liturgical poem
Ya Ribon Olam,
In a letter from 1926, discovered in the archive of Moshe David Gaon, a scholar of Eastern Jewry and author of the monumental work
Yehudei HaMizrach Be’Eretz Yisrael (“Jews of the East in the Land of Israel”), which is kept at the National Library, Mr. Dromi, secretary of the Hebrew community council in Gaza, provided Gaon with details on the state of the community. Dromi noted that it had its own elected council, and numbered 51 people, Ashkenazim and Sephardim alike, in contrast to the period before the war, when there were close to a hundred Jews in Gaza.
The Moshe David Gaon Archive is in the process of being cataloged and is made accessible at the National Library of Israel, thanks to the kind donation of the Samis Foundation, Seattle, Washington, dedicated to the memory of Samuel Israel. Arik Kitsis is the archivist in charge of handling the Moshe David Gaon archive.
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