Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: Tunisia: This weekend, the island of Djerba will mark the second anniversary of an al-Qaeda terrorist bombing of an ancient synagogue that rocked this normally quiet resort.

But Youssef Uzon, head of the tiny Jewish community in Djerba, isn’t planning a ceremony to note the April 11 desecration of the El-Ghriba synagogue and the murder of 19 German tourists and Muslim workers.

“We Jews are always making ceremonies to remember what happened to us. Every day on the radio we hear about memorials for people killed in attacks,” Uzon said. “There is enough misery in the world. Why do we need to add misery upon misery?”

Undeterred by the attack, the 900 Jews of Djerba have put the bombing behind them and continued to preserve what is one of the last remaining Jewish outposts in the Arab world.

Although hundreds of thousands of Tunisian Jews abandoned the country after the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, those left behind in Djerba doubt immigration to Israel or France would make them any safer.

In the alleyways of the city’s Jewish quarter, young boys scurry to Hebrew school in yarmulkes amid whitewashed walls and a rainbow of sky-blue windows typical of Tunisian houses. With the surge in children — some 300 kids attend the Djerban schools — a nursery is being added to the local yeshiva. The stone frame of a half-finished community center stands alongside two synagogues that are more than 300 years old.

“There is Judaism on the street, in the home and in the synagogue,” said Uzon, 45, who owns a small jewelry retail shop in Djerba’s central market. “There’s Torah in Djerba and that’s what’s protecting us.”

Since the bombing, the Tunisian government financed the refurbishing of the burned interior of El-Ghriba, an 80-year-old, single-story whitewashed building erected on a site of worship believed to be more than 2,500 years old. Outside the synagogue, policemen from the presidential guard of Tunisian ruler Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali man barricades put up to prevent future attacks.

posted by William @ 4/11/2004 09:02:42 AM