Throughout much of the Arab world and Europe, three and a
half years of intensive Israeli-Palestinian violence has deepened anti-Israeli
and even anti-Semitic sentiment among populations, recent polls have shown. But
in Tunisia, home to one of the last significant Jewish populations in the Arab
world, Jews there say their lives have continued peacefully.
Tunisia, regularly referred to as one of the most repressive
police states in the Arab and Muslim world by human rights groups, is also one
of the most progressive when it comes to women’s rights, education and
tolerance of others.
Despite an Al Qaeda bombing at the historic El Ghriba
synagogue in Djerba, an island off the coast of Tunisia, in April 2002, which
killed 19, including 14 German tourists, anti-Jewish violence is extremely rare
and thousands of Jews continue to make an annual pilgrimage to Djerba on Lag
B’Omer.
The core of Jewish life in Tunisia, Jews have lived in
Djerba, some say, since the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar in 566 B.C.E.
Today, roughly 1,500 remain there, many living very traditional lives and
working as artisans whose main craft is making delicate silver jewelry. Tunis’
Jews live comfortably among their Muslim neighborhoods. A Jewish school run by
the Lubavitch movement is guarded, but not overly so. There are several small
minyans every Sabbath. A kosher butcher is easily identifiable by the Hebrew
letters on its sign on Liberty Street. And Tunisian Jews are among the most
prominent businessmen in the capital.
“We live perfectly well,” Jewish community leader Roger
Bismuth said. “I have many factories. Honestly, we have no problem … I wear
my [Star of David] on the beach.”
Bismuth is well-connected. Founder of the Tunisian-American
Chamber of Commerce, he has also served as chairman of the board of UTICA, an
association of top businessmen, and is an adviser to Tunisia’s minister of
cooperation. Before President Ben-Ali traveled to Washington in February to
meet President Bush, Bismuth, 77, received word from the president’s office
that he would be joining the delegation. In the end, the president changed his
mind and Bismuth did not attend. No reason was given. “In a way you can say I’m
the government’s Jew,” he said jokingly.
Bismuth lives in La Goulette, a suburb of Tunis where many
of the capital’s Jews live. There is a kosher restaurant there still, and a
Jewish home for the aged that care for about 50 Jews. Tunisia and Israel had
preliminary relations via interest sections in the 1990s before the intifada
erupted in September 2000, ending all formal contacts.
While traveling to most Arab countries with an Israeli stamp
in an American passport would be prohibited, it is not a problem in Tunisia.
Entering on an Israeli passport is generally prohibited, though exceptions have
been made. During the Oslo period, Yossi Beilin, then a member of Israel’s
Labor party, visited with an Israeli delegation. In late March, while
preparations were underway in Tunis for what had been scheduled to be the 16th
Arab League Summit — Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali abruptly
canceled the event after many leaders including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah
said they weren’t coming — Jewish children at the Lubavitch-run school,
prepared for Passover, searching for chametz and baking shmura matzah. At the
guarded main synagogue on Liberty Street in the center of town — photographing
the ornate, though weathered facade, is prohibited for security reasons —
two-dozen Tunisian men gather weekly to pray. After the Saturday morning
service, five or six friends drink a pre-paid coffee at a nearby cafe and walk
through Tunis’ vast Belvedere Park. Khalifa Atoun, a prominent Tunisian
businessman, leads the group, often stopped by passerby who bid him a good day.
On Friday evenings, roughly two dozen gather at the Pinson
residence for the Sabbath service. Rabbi Nison Pinson is too old to venture out
so the community comes to him. The boys, upon departing, cover their yarmulkes
with baseball caps as a precaution, one routinely taken in France and elsewhere
in Europe today.
Pinson and his wife were sent by the Lubavitcher rebbe four
decades ago to Tunis when most of Tunisia’s 130,000 Jews were swiftly
immigrating to France or Israel. His wife said: “The rebbe had the foresight to
know that there would be a need for us here.” Â
Janine Zacharia is Washington correspondent for The Jerusalem Post.
