At one of the main intersections on the island of Djerba – where most Tunisian Jews live – local non-Jewish residents erected a directional sign that says "Al Quds, capital of Palestine, 3,090 km." The sign was placed after local authorities gave official permission to the initiative.
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"This represents the devotion of Djerba, and all Tunisians, to defending the Palestinian struggle and Al-Quds [Jerusalem] as the eternal capital of occupied Palestine," residents told media after putting up the sign. Reporters praised the show of solidarity of a conflict taking place thousands of miles away from the tourist island.
Approximately 1,000 Jews currently live in Djebra and make up Tunisia's largest Jewish community, and second-largest in the Arab world, after the Moroccan Casablanca community, which has between 1,500-2,000 members.
A few hundred meters away from the directional sign to Jerusalem is located the El Ghriba synagogue, which attests to Jerusalem being the eternal capital of the Jewish people. According to tradition, Temple priests who fled Jerusalem after the destruction of the First Temple brought remnants of the ruins and used them when building the synagogue. The name "El Ghriba" means "the marvelous" in Arabic and reflects the special status of the synagogue in the traditions of the Jews of Tunisia.
It was one of the first ones to be established in North Africa and has since then undergone renovations and become an annual pilgrimage destination for Jews and non-Jews alike. The synagogue used to be a vital source of income for residents of the island, that is, until the coronavirus pandemic and the deterioration of the security situation in southern Tunisia.
Since its establishment, only twice has the annual pilgrimage to the El Ghriba synagogue been canceled. In 2011, following a revolution that forced then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee – that subsequently inspired the Arab Spring – and in 2020, with the outbreak of the pandemic.
The current president, Kais Saied, has made it clear, even before taking office, that he would not allow anyone with an Israeli passport to enter the country, not even to visit the synagogue. The Abraham Accords, in which Arab countries normalized ties with Israel, he called "an incredible betrayal."
Unfortunately, the historical importance of the synagogue made it into a target for terror attacks, the latest and deadliest of which happened 19 years ago, when an al-Qaeda suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into the entrance of the building, setting off an explosion that killed 19 people, 14 of whom were German tourists.
The last time I went on a pilgrimage to the El Ghriba synagogue was in 2012. Back then, Tunisia's new democratic government was doing everything in its power to disperse the fears of the Islamist Ennahda Movement political party – led by Muslim Brotherhood official Rached Ghannouchi – becoming Tunisia's most powerful political force.
In August 2021, I returned to Algeria again. I passed the concrete barrier built around the El Ghriba synagogue and its many fences, yet inside, there was minimal security: a single armed soldier and a bored officer in charge of the metal detector. It was a Friday afternoon, shortly before the beginning of Shabbat. There were no more than a dozen people inside, tourists from France, Italy and the United States.
The severity of the coronavirus crisis and the unprecedented move by Saied of relieving the prime minister of his duties, waiving the immunity of the parliament and declaring a state of emergency in the country have again turned Tunisia into a dangerous country.
The El Ghriba synagogue's halls are mostly empty today, as is the donation box to the entrance of the building. It is located in the village of Erriadh, which has in recent years become a tourist attraction. In 2014, dozens of artists from 30 countries turned the village's alleys, walls and houses into a permanent open-air museum with more than 250 mural paintings. They named the project "Djerbahood", and the only political subjects covered in the art that stood out was that of Palestine.
At the entrance of one shabby-looking alley, called "Palestine Street," I saw a large painted red heart, surrounded by barbed wire and the words "Salam" (Arabic for "peace"). Other pieces showed young Palestinians throwing stones, with the words "Returning to Palestine" above them, or Mary holding Jesus in her hands as well as the Palestinian flag, with the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount behind her.
When I first visited Tunisia on the eve of the signing of the Oslo Accords, most of the non-Jewish residents I met told me they wanted the Palestine Liberation Organization officials – who fled to Djerba from Lebanon in 1982 – to be gone.
The PLO members led a luxurious life, while locals were content with living a simple one. They have witnessed the myth of the Palestinian "misery" and "sacrifice" and the corruption of the Palestinian leadership.
The leaders did end up leaving their fancy Tunisian villas behind and moved to Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Less than 30 years later, locals have forgotten what they had seen and experienced and began to admire the Palestinians again, probably in an effort to compensate for the resounding failure of democracy in the country.
It is a common tendency in the Arab world: the more failures a country is going through, the more solidarity it expresses with the Palestinians. Tunisia's markets carry scarves in Palestinian flag colors and paintings of mosques in Jerusalem. On one of the main roads of Djerba, I saw a Palestinian flag hoisted above a school.
The country that was considered a democratic success in the Arab world just a decade ago – compared to the bloody civil wars in Lybia, Yemen, and Syria and the military rule in Egypt – has failed to build a strong enough political system. The socio-economic crisis that prompted the revolution, and subsequently the Arab Spring, not only wasn't solved but only become worse.
Last month, the country's health system was on the verge of collapse. The daily coronavirus mortality rate reached 200-300 deaths, among the highest in the world. Most of the local population, especially in poor communities, did not adhere to health guidelines like wearing masks or social distancing.
Thus far, over 23,000 Tunisians have lost their lives to the virus of the 12 million population. About 8,000 test positive for the virus every day, and local hospitals are overwhelmed. The situation got so bad that Tunisia had to resort to using ventilators donated by the Palestinian Authority. It is this catastrophic situation that Saied used – or took advantage of – to go ahead with his controversial political changes.
The national vaccination campaign began only in August, using inoculations donated by other countries. More than half a million Tunisians ages 40 and up received their inoculations the next day. Another million aged 18 and up received it a week later. The never-ending lines to the vaccination sites were a source of an infection outbreak of their own.
"The main problem is that Tunisia does not have the proper infrastructure for such mass vaccination," one US healthcare worker, who came to Tunisia to aid the campaign, said. "Moreover, we have to make sure that there are enough vaccines for a second shot for those who have already been vaccinated, and for that, Tunisia depends on the goodwill of other nations."
The pandemic affected the Tunisian Jewish community as well, although not as bad as the rest of the country or Jewish communities abroad.
"We had many who got infected with the virus, but thank God, did not die," one Djerba community leader said. "A lot of members received their jabs at the beginning of the vaccine drive. With the outbreak of the pandemic, in April 2020, we closed all the synagogues, and they remained closed for months.
"Slowly-slowly, they began to operate again. Worshippers wore masks and kept social distancing. We limit the number of people allowed to enter based on the size of the synagogue. In the past, we used to have three synagogues for the High Holidays, but this year, we might set up six of them to allow for social distancing. If many more members get vaccinated, then we might keep it at three synagogues in order to minimize expenses."
The Tunisian Jewish communities receive no state funding whatsoever. They cover all expenses themselves, mostly from donations of former members who left Tunisia.
The community leader, just like many members, requested to remain anonymous. The political situation in the country, especially the president's decision to waive the immunity of the parliament, has made Jews more fearful, wondering if they are living on borrowed time. Many tried to present the current situation in the country as less grim than it really is out of fear that local authorities might find out they criticized the government.
Tunisia presents itself to the world as a tolerant and democratic state, even to Jews. In 2018, it appointed Rene Trabelsi, a Jewish businessman born in Djerba, as tourism minister. The move ignited protests over Trabelsi's "pro-Zionistic" views. He served in office for a year and a half before the government's term ended.
At the same time, there have been several attacks on Jews in recent years that were attributed to Islamist elements. In January 2018, unknown individuals threw Molotov cocktails into a Jewish school in Djerba. Fortunately, no one was injured, and damage to the property was minimal. The local Jewish community said the attack was most likely linked to the protests that were taking place in Djerba at the time due to a rise in basic product prices. Perpetrators took advantage of the fact that the police presence in public places had been reduced to avoid escalating the situation.
Antisemitic content was also spread on social media. "The synagogue in Djerba must be targeted until it disappears," one post read. Another one called for the exile of Jews from the country and the burning of the El Ghriba synagogue.
In the mid-1950s, when Tunisia gained independence from France, more than 100,000 Jews lived there. According to locals, there are currently 1,400 of them left. The largest Jewish community is in Djerba, with 1,000 members. Some 300 Jews live in the capital, Tunis, and another 100 in Zarzis, which is near Djerba.
"At the end of the 1980s, there were six or seven active synagogues in Tunis," the community leader said. "Today, there are only two."
Saied was only seven years old when Habib Bourguiba – the father of modern Tunisia and its first president – called for the recognition of the state of Israel in 1965, and only 15 years old when the second Bourguiba initiative to end the Arab-Israel conflict (based on the United Nations Partition Plan) was published in July 1973.
He experienced the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War, which prompted violent demonstrations against Jews throughout Tunisia and led to a wave of immigration to France and Israel. He also experienced the Arab "victory" in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which also ignited fury in the country.
During the presidential election campaign in 2019, reporters asked Saied a few days before the second conclusive round of voting about his opinion on the Abraham Accords - in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized ties with Israel.
Speaking in literary Arabic, which he uses to communicate with the world and present himself as a sophisticated and loyal Arab, Saied began his answer with a story about his father, Moncef, who he claims had saved the life of a French-Jewish activist of Tunisian descent during the Holocaust.
"The Jews are not the problem," he told reporters. "The term 'normalization' is a faulty one. Whoever cooperates with an entity that exiled an entire people for more than a century is a traitor and should be prosecuted for treason. The natural reaction should be to go out to war with the occupier."
"What will you do to Israelis who come to Djerba?" the reporter asked.
"We work with Jews and we will protect Jews," the Tunisian president answered. "But not those who have Israeli passports. Never."
In the second round, Saied won 73% of the vote, which came from a contradicting set of voters – young Tunisians, Ennahda Movement voters, and supporters of Arab-nationalists who oppose the Islamist Ennahda Movement. Since then, he has taken every opportunity to express support "not for the Palestinian cause, but the rights of the Palestinians," as he puts it.
And yet, unlike many Arab countries who condemned the UAE and Bahrain for signing a peace deal with Israel, Saied refrained from doing so, most likely due to Tunisia's dependency on the Gulf States.
The Saudi and Bahraini foreign ministers recently visited Tunisia and expressed support for Saied's efforts to keep the Ennahda Movement from gaining political power. Recently, Saied also refused to meet with a representative from Qatar, considered a top supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Even when fellow Maghreb nation Morocco normalized ties with Israel, Saied kept quiet due to close regional ties with Rabat. When Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid inaugurated a liaison office in the Moroccan capital two weeks ago, the Tunisian media kept silent. As such, is there a chance that Tunisia will be next to normalize ties with Israel?
"No way," another Jewish community official said. "The Abraham Accords surprised everyone. No one could have predicted that something like this would happen. And yet, Tunisia is not ready for such a step. Only after Israel signs a peace deal with the Palestinians will Tunisia follow suit."
Q: Would you say that the Jewish community lives life in fear?
"I don't think that as Jews we have more worries than the rest of the population: the difficult economic situation, the political limbo, the coronavirus. Since the revolution and the swearing-in of the president on July 25, there have been no special developments with regard to Jews. The status quo remains.
"The revolution brought about freedom of the press and fair elections. Beforehand, Islamists used to keep a low profile. Today they are in the streets, expressing their opinions. For years, Jews have been emigrating from Tunisia. The young ones were the first to leave, and parents followed suit.
"Every family that moves away leaves a gap behind. Djerba has become the Jewish center of Tunisia. It has many synagogues, Jewish schools – a few years ago, we established a girls' school, yeshivas and kindergartens. The Jewish population in Djerba is 100% religious."
Q: Is there a future for Jews in Tunisia?
"The Jewish community in Tunis will come to an end at some point, it has already begun disappearing. But there will be a community in Djerba. What can be done? It is expensive to run a community: you need a synagogue, a school, kosher food. There is only one kosher meat shop in Tunis, opposite the main synagogue. Jews do not like instability, and the political crisis has led to it in Tunisia."
When the summers get unbearably hot, residents of Tunis seek haven in the La Goulette city on the seaside. It is also a popular destination among Jews, who chose to spend the High Holidays here, instead of France, as many others do.
"All of the houses you see around used to belong to Jews," one member of the local Jewish community said. "Today, we have one nursing home, surrounded by a fence with police security, and a synagogue that struggles to gather 10 men for prayers.
"Tunisia used to have a vibrant Jewish community, with Jews that came here from Spain and Portugal, as well as Italy. Today it's Jews in the south [Djerba] who keep the flame alive.
"The community in Tunis has very few young people, there are maybe 20-25 of them. In Djerba, there are five or six weddings every year, in Tunis maybe one wedding every two or three years. As soon as they are done with their SATs, young people run away from here.
"The situation will improve if things get better on a national level. There are synagogues, cemeteries, Torah scrolls in Tunisia. We cannot protect them if there are no Jews here. But people will move to Djerba and Tunis if that provides them with financial stability. Until the Messiah arrives, who will take us to the land of Israel?"
According to the resident, the new political situation in Tunisia and the Islamists gaining more power did not create difficulties for the Jews.
"We have no problems with the parties," he said. "We stay out of politics. We just want to know what is going on around us.
"After the revolution, there were fears and worries, especially whether the Islamists would be bothered with the presence of other religions in the country. But the fears disappeared. The government met with Jewish community leaders and the chief rabbi and sent more police to protect us.
"We have no conflict with the general population, quite the opposite. Many [non-Jews] say that Trabelsi was the only minister who did his job well. Tunisians do not have a problem with Jews."
However, they do have a problem with Israel.
"The Tunisian and Arab media have created this image of Israel as a state of thieves, murderers and criminals. Most of the public thinks Israel has no right to exist. They didn't like the Palestinians who lived here, but they also don't like Israel.
"During the latest conflict in Gaza [Operation Guardian of the Walls], I stood up for Israel on social media. My friends said that Israelis are criminals, murderers of children, the usual propaganda. There was no one with public influence and social media presence who would defend Israel."
Q: Do you think that Tunisia is unlikely to ever normalize ties with Israel? After all, there was an official Israeli office here in the past, but it was closed in October 2000 at the beginning of the Second Intifada.
"The general atmosphere in Tunisia is grim. Some understand that developing ties with Israel would only help Tunisia, that Morocco and Sudan and other countries who normalized ties with Israel are receiving aid. But they are a minority. As long as someone with an influence on the public does not explain the situation accurately – that Israel is defending itself against terrorists – nothing will change.
"When the Tunisian tennis team decided to play against Israel in the Federation Cup in February 2020, the criticism was overwhelming. When Tunisian singer Noamane Chaari recorded a song with Israeli singer Ziv Yehezkel, last December, people protested."
Chaari and Yehezkel collaborated to promote peace between religions, but instead the Tunisian singer began to receive death threats.
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"We thought that with the advent of democracy and freedom of expression after the revolution, there would be a change with regard to Israel as well, as happened in many other Arab countries, but it did not happen. Israelis should not run after Tunisians to seek peace. Tunisians should be the ones chasing after Israelis."
Unfortunately, it is not only Tunisia's Jewish community that is dwindling. So does the memory of coexisting. The country's young generation has never seen Tunisians and Jews on excellent terms, as they were in the 1950s. They also do not know of all the contributions Jews have made to the country.
When I first visited Tunisia, locals expressed hopes that Jews would help rehabilitate the country's economy. Ben Ali's presidency was considered the golden age of cooperation between Tunisia, Jews and Israel. But in 2021, almost no one talks longingly of the return of the Jews.
S., a Jew from the south of the country, splits his time between Djerba and France. He remembers the reactions of his Arab friends to the First Lebanon War in 1982.
"I had a lot of Arab friends then," he said. "Even though we were careful not to assimilate, I had a lot of non-Jewish friends. But they completely changed, just like that, in a matter of a single day. I think they have an underlying hatred of Jews and Israel. They are taught to do this from a young age.
"My non-Jewish friends knew very well that I was religious, that I went to synagogue, that I kept kosher. We studied together. We played football together. But as soon as the war started, they said to me, 'When the opportunity arises, we will kill you first.'"
Q: What is keeping Jews in Tunisia?
"Some have gotten used to living here and do not want it to change. They hear about the problems in France and Israel. The option of moving to France is no longer on the table, everyone here knows that there is no future for the Jewish community there. It is nothing like it used to be. The only possible destination is Israel.
"But people are afraid of change. Some families don't have the means to make aliyah. Life is very expensive in Israel, and here the standard of living is much lower, Jews can earn a living and make ends meet. Moreover, Jews in Tunisia are religious. In Israel, there are yeshivas, but some still worry that they might lose their Judaism. In the meantime, we pray for the redemption and ultimate aliyah to Israel."
One of the rare Tunisian voices calling for normalizing ties with Israel is Mounir Baatour, lawyer and head of the Tunisian Liberal Party. In 2019, he was the first openly gay presidential candidate in the Arab world. The election committee rejected his candidacy for no apparent reason, and after receiving death threats, Baatour fled to France in 2020. From exile, he hopes that one day Tunisia will normalize ties with the Jewish state.
However, "as long as Saied is president, with the populism, antisemitism and his fear of Jews, it is impossible," Baatour said. "The president's latest moves are unconstitutional. Article 80 of the Constitution, which he keeps justifying his actions with, does not allow a president to relieve the parliament of its responsibilities."
Q: How would you sum up the last decade in Tunisia since the Arab Spring?
"It was a lousy ten years, excuse me for using such language. The Islamists have been in power for 10 years, and all they have done is drag the country into an economic crisis. Poverty has peaked, unemployment increased, there is more illegal immigration. Moreover, the country's health system is in a catastrophic state. Tunisia has done nothing but walk backward for 10 years."
Q: Do you think it is possible for Islamists and democracy to coexist?
"No. Islamists do not believe in democracy. For them, it is just a means. They use democracy and elections to seize power and use it as they please. Islam is an anti-democratic religion, for it says that power is in the hands of God and his representatives, not the people."
Q: Do you think Tunisians understand this?
"The Tunisians have seen Islamists fail, that they poisoned the lives of the people and took over the public leadership. More than 200,000 Islamists have been appointed to public positions since the Arab Spring. They also sought compensation for their years of 'struggle' against Ben Ali. Tunisians know this, and therefore, the current president has widespread support."
Q: Tunisia used to be known as a liberal and open-minded country. What is left of that perception today?
"Women's rights – to get divorced, to abort a pregnancy, to adopt a child. All of these, adopted by Bourguiba, are still in place. However, the situation for minorities is terrible. From 2011 to 2021, more than 1,225 homosexuals were arrested by the Tunisian police. Christian missionarism has been outlawed, and anyone caught proselytizing can be sentenced to five years in prison. Many Christians have been imprisoned for this.
"The Jewish minority keeps to itself. They are attacked by antisemites, provoked. The president himself is an antisemite. He is not a moderate Arab leader who supports the two-state solution. He thinks all of Israel should become Palestinian territory and Jews be thrown into the Mediterranean, all of which no doubt, affect the public's perception of the Jews as well."
