Tunisia

“Visiting this separate colony in an Arab country that not too long ago was home to the Palestine Liberation Organization, I felt like an alien on several levels. I was American, English-speaking and an Ashkenazi Jew, keenly aware of the overwhelmingly Muslim Arab population and unfamiliar with many of the rituals and customs of the local Jewish community. But I felt a kinship, too, with these observant, Hebrew-speaking people who have managed to preserve their traditions over centuries and whose affection for Israel is as deep-seated as it is unspoken, at least in public.”

– Garry Rosenblatt, Publisher and Editor of the New York Jewish Week, in The Jewish World Review July 20, 1998

Jews in Tunisia have always tread a precarious path between social acceptance and downright oppression. From their first documented appearance in 2^nd century Carthage to their current status as a tolerated minority, Tunisian Jews have been subject to shifts in regional and international politics that have dictated the relative security of their community. As the Oslo Peace Process has eased tensions between Israel and the Arab world, the Jews of Tunisia are once again able to practice their religion in public and with pride. 

Today, the island of Djerba, ten hours from Tunis off the southeast of the country, is a particular center of Jewish spiritualism, one of the few places where scribes still hand print the Torah and community elders chant the words of the Zohar, Judaism’s book of mysticism. Most of the Djerban Jews still live as they have for centuries, surviving by metalworking and jewelry-making, maintaining strict and spiritual Jewish practices. In Djerba some children still dress in a blusa under which they wear a small, mauve vest to protect them from the cold and belgha, goatskin slippers. Some women wear brightly colored jumpers in red, green or bronze – in public the young women wear futa, striped silk or cotton dresses. They keep their hair covered, in formal occasions, with a gold-embroidered coffia (headdress). In their long prayer robes and dark skullcaps, Djerban men appear to come from a time long past. Though contact with the secular West has begun to influence the younger generation’s dress and observances, the Djerban Jewish community is what some would describe as a living museum to the Judaism of their ancestors.

History

The Jewish community of Tunisia originated as home to scholars exiled from Palestine, from Talmudic sages of the 2nd to the 4th centuries to today’s Torah scribes. During the Byzantine period, Emperor Justinian excluded Jews from public life, prohibited their practice and ordering synagogues to become churches. Many Tunisian Jews fled into the mountains and the desert, joining secluded Berber communities there, and most remained there even after the Arabs conquered Tunisia in the 7th century, allowing Jews to practice again. Jews lived openly in Tunisia, albeit as second-class citizens, until the Spanish invasions of 1535-1574 chased Jews inland once again. The Jewish community returned to the coast under Ottoman and thrived under French rule until 1940, when Vichy subjected them to anti-Semitic laws. In 1942 Germans overran Tunisia, deported much of the Jewish population to labor camps and seized their property. The Tunisian Jewish community rebuilt itself through a decade of Allied rule until the country achieved independence in 1956. The new Muslim government eliminated the Jewish Rabbinical tribunal and Jewish community councils, destroying the Jewish quarter of Tunis. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Muslims laid waste to the Great Synagogue of Tunis; much of the Jewish population fled to Israel throughout the 1970’s and ‘80’s, leaving a dedicated community of about 2000 Jews, primarily in Tunis and on the island of Djerba in the towns of Hara Keriba and Hara Sghira, where Jews have been worshipping at the El Ghirba Synagogue for almost 1900 years. 

Today the Tunisian government watches the Jewish community closely but does not restrict Jewish practices. The government does appoint a committee which heads the community and manages most of its non-religious functions. There are five rabbis in Tunisia; there are even several kosher restaurants in Tunis and on Djerba, which has been an active, practicing Jewish community for over two millennia, where most of the community members observe Jewish dietary laws (kashrut).

The Setting

The seven hundred Jews who live on the island of Djerba have found themselves in the middle of what many would call an island paradise. Throughout the always balmy year, Northern European tourists flock to Djerban beaches to roast in the sun by day and revel in an insular tourist nightlife after the sun sets. Unlike the rest of Tunisia, which has a diverse landscape that includes beaches, mountains and broad, deep desert, Djerba’s land is uniformly flat. The winters are hot, the summers are almost unbearable, but even the least beach-friendly tourist will appreciate the abundance of sunshine and blue skies on Djerba.

The main town of Houmt Souk isn’t on the beach, but it does see its share of tourists who fill its streets to purchase colorful Djerban pottery and locally made jewelry. Most Jews in Djerba live in Hara Kebira, “the large ghetto,” which is a small town that sits about a kilometer south of Houmt Souk. Hara Kebira is a compact village filled by a labyrinth of narrow streets lined by white, square houses with turquoise doors and window shutters. The neighborhood used to be exclusively Jewish, and though it is now mixed, little boys wearing colorful yarmulkes fill the allies, cackling fluidly in Hebrew, French and Arabic. Compact cars and puttering motor bikes skitter around closer corners, competing with cart-drawing donkeys for precious space on the road. On Shabbat and during Jewish holidays Hara Kebira is peaceful and friendly, solemn as it has been during the same holidays for almost two millennia.

©2000 Jay Sand