Justinian orders the transformation of synagogues into churches in Africa reconquered from the Vandals and forbids Jewish worship

Having reconquered the province of Africa from the Vandals, Belisarius allowed Justinian to legislate for the recovered territory. A novella ordered that synagogues be converted into churches and prohibited the public practice of Jewish worship; the communities of Byzantine Africa simultaneously lost the protections they had enjoyed under the Vandal kings, who were Arian and little concerned with orthodoxy.

The same policy was applied elsewhere in the Empire: the Justinianic Code prohibited Jews from testifying against a Christian, from owning a Christian slave, from celebrating Passover before the Christians', and a celebrated novella even sought to regulate the language in which Scripture would be read in the synagogue.

This was the moment when imperial law ceased to guarantee Judaism as a lawful religion, tolerating only its diminished practice. The communities of North Africa recovered slowly; several withdrew into mountain regions and oases, beyond the reach of Byzantine administration.