Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
The Jews living in the island of Djerba, Tunisia, are certainly the oldest Jewish community in North Africa, as well as one of the last Jewish communities still living in the Arab world. The Ghriba Synagogue, their main place of worship, reportedly contains remnants of the Temple of Solomon!
The island of Djerba is known since Antiquity. It is usually assimilated to the island of the Lotus-eaters, mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. Today, most of its inhabitants speak an Amazigh language. While the rest of Tunisia is Sunni Muslim, Djerba has long been a center of Ibadi Islam, and a strong Ibadi minority still lives there today.
Jews have lived in Djerba for over 2.500 years, under Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, and Arab authority. They remained true to their faith in the face of Carthaginian and Roman paganism, the Christianisation of the Mediterranean world and the Islamic conquests.
The Ghriba synagogue is the oldest synagogue in North Africa, maybe even on the whole continent. According to tradition, after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians (586 BCE), the last great priest fled the city, taking with him a door of the Temple of Solomon. This door is now part of the Ghriba synagogue.
The Jews from Djerba were also influential during the Middle Ages. A letter, written in 1030, mentions a Jew named Abu al-Faraj al-Jerbi, who was living in Kairouan and trading with the East. Another letter, dated from 1060, is addressed to the Jewish salesman Khalaf ibn Farah al-Jerbi, who was about to travel from Egypt to Sicily. Maimonides, the greatest medieval Jewish thinker, mentions the Djerba Jewish community in his writings.
As in all North Africa, most Jews from Djerba emigrated in the 20th Century.
Today, the few hundred Jews who still remain in Djerba make up for the majority of Tunisian Jews. Every year, many Jews come on pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue, to celebrate the Lag Ba’omer (ל”ג בעומר) religious holiday. Sadly, they are also threatened: on 9 May 2023, at the time of the yearly pilgrimage, five people were killed in a shooting at the Ghriba synagogue. The presence of this two-thousand-year-old community enriches the island’s spiritual and cultural heritage. If they were to disappear, it would be a great loss for Tunisia.
