At one of the main intersections on the island of Djerba, in the Almai neighborhood, local residents last February placed an official-looking directional sign pointing east.
The sign reads: "Al-Quds Capital of Palestine, 3,090 km".
The sign was placed after the authorities gave their blessing to the initiative.
"This is a message about the devotion of the Djerba, and all the Tunisians, in defending the Palestinian problem and Al-Quds as the eternal capital of occupied Palestine," the signers at the time told local media.
Reports sailed in praise of the show of solidarity in the conflict thousands of miles from its peaceful tourist island.
Djerba currently has about 1,000 Jews - the largest Jewish community in Tunisia, and the second largest in the Arab world, after that of Casablanca in Morocco, which has about 2,000-1,500 people.
A few hundred meters from the road sign pointing towards Jerusalem is the Algarve Synagogue, which according to tradition actually connects Jerusalem to the Jewish people as its eternal capital: Priests who fled Jerusalem with the destruction of the First Temple brought a door and stone, or stones, from the destroyed temple, and incorporated them into a house. Historical Knesset.
This synagogue was one of the first to be established in North Africa, and since then it has been enlarged and expanded to a place of pilgrimage, attracting tens of thousands of Jews from Tunisia and other visitors, Jews and non-Jews, every year.
The name "Algariba" ("the miracle", in Hebrew) was given to him because of a Jewish maiden, who according to legends her house caught fire but her body was preserved intact, and some saw her spirit wandering near the synagogue when it was built.
It used to be one of the island's most important sources of income, but the corona plague and the unstable security situation in southern Tunisia have done their part.
Twice in the last decade the annual pilgrimage to Algarve has been completely abolished.
First in 2011, after the overthrow of President Zine El-Abdin Ben Ali's regime in the popular revolution that began the "Arab Spring" in Arab countries;
And again, last year, because of the corona.
Tunisia's current president, Case Said, made it clear even before he was elected to office, two years ago, that he would no longer allow Israeli passport holders to enter the country, even for the purpose of pilgrimage.
He called normalization with Israel "supreme betrayal."
The importance of the historic synagogue and the influx into it have made it a target for terrorist attacks.
The last and deadliest of them was carried out 19 years ago, when a suicide bomber, a member of al-Qaeda, blew up an inferno truck at the entrance.
19 people were killed, including 14 German tourists who visited the place.
The last time I visited here was when the pilgrimage was renewed, in 2012.
The country's new democratic authorities then did everything in their power to allay fears of turning the Islamist movement, al-Nahda - led by Muslim Brotherhood official Rashad al-Nushi - into the country's powerful political force.
The security measures taken were maximum.
Two weeks ago I returned to Algarve.
I went through the concrete walls built around the synagogue and the many fences at the entrances to it, and came across minimal security: one armed soldier, and a tired inspector near the metal detector.
It was a Friday, shortly before Shabbat began.
The number of visitors did not exceed a dozen: tourists from France, Italy and the US. The severe coronation crisis and coup carried out by the president in late July - when he fired the prime minister, stopped parliament and declared a state of emergency - made Tunisia a dangerous country again.
The ornate halls of Algarve stand desolate today.
The donation box at the entrance to the old part of the synagogue is almost empty.
"Go to 'Alhara al-Kabira' (the big neighborhood) if you want to see active synagogues," one of the local workers advises me.
A woman in a synagogue in Djerba.
"The Jews here are the ones who keep the embers burning," Photo: Eldad Beck
• • •
Some of the entrances to the homes of the Jews in Alhara al-Kabira are decorated with paintings of a lamp and fish (a symbol of fertility and abundance).
On one of the doors I even saw a sign in Hebrew: "We live here for fun".
There are 13 synagogues on the island, and most of them are open and not subject to heavy security.
At the entrances to them hang large signs in Hebrew-Arabic, reminiscent of the obligation to wear masks.
Next to the Algarve Synagogue is the small village of a-Riyadh, which in recent years has become another tourist attraction for visitors to the island of Djerba.
In 2014, dozens of artists from 30 countries raided the village's small alleys and turned the walls, houses, and ruins into an open-air museum of some 250 works painted on them.
"Djerbaud" ("Djerba neighborhood") was called the project, and the only topical political issue I saw in it, among all the works, was the Palestinian struggle.
At the entrance to the shabby-looking alley, called "Palestine Street," next to the small sign with the name of the street, is painted a large red heart, surrounded by a barbed wire fence and next to it, in black, the word "Salam."
Other works in the art project show young Palestinians throwing stones over the headline "Return to Palestine," or Mary carrying in her hand the body of the dead Jesus and the Palestinian flag, with the golden dome of the Temple Mount behind it.
On my first visit to Tunisia, on the eve of the signing of the Oslo Accords and beyond, most of the residents I met wanted to get rid of PLO members who settled with them as soon as possible after their escape from Lebanon in 1982.
The Palestinians led a life of luxury from eye-popping, while the locals were content with modest living conditions.
The contrast between the "myth of Palestinian misery and sacrifice" and the corruption and waste of the Palestinian leadership has skyrocketed.
The PLO leadership has indeed left the luxury villas in Tunisia, and moved to Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip. : As the number of failures in dealing with internal problems increases, so does solidarity with the Palestinians.
• • •
Tunisia - considered a rare democratic success in the Arab world a decade ago, in the face of bloody civil wars in Libya, Yemen and Syria, and military rule in Egypt - has failed to build a strong enough political system.
The socio-economic crisis that drove the popular revolution was not resolved, but only deepened.
Last month, the country faced a complete health collapse.
The daily death toll from Corona ranges from 200 to 300, one of the highest in the world.
Most of the local population, especially the weaker sections, still do not respect the simplest precautions: wearing a mask and keeping a distance.
To date, some 23,000 people have died from the virus in Tunisia, out of a population of about 12 million.
The daily number of infections jumped to about 8,000, and the hospitals could not cope.
The Tunisian health care system has even had to resort to donations of several dozen oxygen machines from the Palestinian Authority.
The catastrophic health situation was one of the motives - or excuses - for the government coup carried out by President Said.
Mass vaccination campaigns began only in August, when Tunisia received millions of vaccines as donations from various countries.
On the "National Immunization Day," held the day after my arrival in the country, more than half a million 40-plus-year-old Tunisians received the first vaccine, at 400 medical centers.
A week later, another million, more than 18 years old, were invited.
The huge queues for vaccinations were incubators of infection in their own right.
"The main problem is that Tunisians do not have the proper infrastructure for such mass vaccinations," an American aid man who came to Tunisia specifically to help with the campaign admitted to me.
"What's more, we need to make sure there are enough complementary vaccine doses for those who have already been vaccinated, and that depends on the goodwill of other countries."
The Great Synagogue in Tunis.
"Today there are only two active synagogues in the city," Photo: Eldad Beck
• • •
The corona plague in the country did not miss the Jewish community, although it did not hit it like the rest of the population or other Jewish communities outside Tunisia.
"We have had many patients, but thank God, not dead," one of the community leaders in Djerba tells me.
"Many members of the community were vaccinated at the beginning of the vaccination campaign. At the beginning of the epidemic, in April 2020, we closed all the synagogues, and they remained closed for months. We slowly opened them. People came back with masks and kept social distance.
"We keep track of the number of attendees, depending on the size of the synagogues. In recent years we have celebrated the Tishrei holidays in three synagogues. This year we opened six, to allow for distance.
The Jewish community finances all its expenses itself.
She receives donations from former friends who emigrated from Tunisia, but does not enjoy any state assistance.
The speaker, like other members of the Jewish community I met throughout Tunisia, asked that I not be named.
The general political atmosphere in the country, especially after the president's decision to suspend the activities of parliament, increased the fear among the Jews, who in any case feel that they are living on borrowed time.
Many of them tried in conversations with me to embellish the grim reality - mainly to convince the authorities that they are loyal to the state, and do not slander it in public.
Officially, Tunisia presents itself as a tolerant and open state, even to Jews;
In 2018, a Jewish businessman born in Djerba, Rene Trabelsi (who also holds French citizenship), was even appointed Minister of Tourism.
The appointment provoked stormy protests over Trabelsi's "pro-Zionist" stance.
He served in that position for about a year and a half, until the end of the government term.
However, there have been several cases of Jewish attacks in the country in recent years, attributed to Islamist elements.
In January 2018, unknown individuals threw a Molotov cocktail into one of the Jewish schools in Djerba.
No one was injured, and minor property damage was caused.
The local Jewish community attributed the attack to the popular protest that erupted in those days against the rising prices of basic goods.
The attack was carried out taking advantage of the fact that the police presence in public places was reduced, in an attempt to avoid escalating the situation.
At the same time, a wave of anti-Jewish incitement spread on social media in Tunisia.
"The synagogue in Djerba should be attacked until it disappears," read one of the posts, and some also called for the expulsion of the Jews from Tunisia and the burning of the synagogue in Djerba.
By the mid-1950s, when Tunisia gained independence from France, more than 100,000 Jews lived there.
According to one of the youngest members of the community in Djerba, there are currently about 1,400 Jews left in three large communities: in Djerba, where about 1,000 Jews live;
In and around the capital Tunis, where 300-200 Jews live;
And in Jarjis (Zarzis), near Djerba, where about 100 other Jews live.
"At the end of the 1980s, there were six or seven active synagogues in Tunis," he says.
"Today there are only two - the Great Synagogue in the Lafayette neighborhood in the city center, and the 'Beit Mordechai' synagogue in the suburb of La Gault, on the seafront."
• • •
Case Said was 7 years old when Habib Bourguiba, the father of modern Tunisia and its first president, first called for recognition of Israel in 1965, and 15 years old when the second bourgeois initiative to end the Arab-Israeli conflict (based on the UN partition plan) was published in July 1973. He experienced The Arab defeat in the Six Day War, which ignited violent demonstrations throughout Tunisia and led to a large wave of Tunisian Jews to France and Israel, and experienced the Arab "victory" in the Yom Kippur War, which inflamed the winds in Tunisia.
In the 2019 presidential election campaign, Said mobilized the Arab-Israeli conflict alongside him.
In the televised confrontation that took place a few days before the second and decisive round of voting, he was asked for his opinion on the issue of normalization with Israel.
In the literary Arabic he uses to communicate with the world, which gives him the image of an uplifted and loyal Arab, he began his answer with a story about his father, Munsaf, who he claimed defended a French-Jewish human rights activist of Tunisian descent during the Holocaust.
"The problem is not with the Jews," said Said, a nationalist conservative and expert in constitutional law.
"I mention again Gisele Halimi, the militant activist in the Socialist Party, whom my father would take with him to school to protect her from the Nazis."
He then went on to attack Israel: "The term normalization is wrong. Anyone who cooperates with an entity that has expelled an entire people for more than a century is a traitor who should be prosecuted for a supreme betrayal. The natural situation is that we are at war with the occupying entity."
"What will you do with the Israelis coming to Djerba?" The interviewer asked.
"We work with the Jews and we will protect the Jews," Said replied.
"Not with Israeli passport holders. Never."
President Case Said.
"Dangerous man", Photo: Reuters
In the second round, he won about 73 percent of the vote, including those of young voters, Islamist a-Nahda voters and supporters of Arab-nationalist currents (who oppose the Islamic Movement) - an almost impossible coalition.
Since then, he has taken almost every opportunity to express emotional and overwhelming support "not for the Palestinian cause, but for the rights of the Palestinians," he said.
And yet, when the UAE and Bahrain signed the normalization agreement with Israel last year, Said - unlike most politicians in his country - refrained from condemning the two countries.
This was probably due to Tunisia's economic dependence on the Gulf states;
These helped her, for example, during the Corona crisis.
During my stay in the country, it was visited by the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, who expressed support for the president's steps to reduce the power of the a-Nahda party.
At the same time, the president refused to accept a representative from Qatar, who is considered the main supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Even when nearby Morocco normalized its ties with Israel, President Said remained silent because of the close traditional connection between Tunisia and Morocco.
When the Israeli delegation in Morocco was inaugurated two weeks ago, the Tunisian media maintained complete wireless silence.
So is there a chance that Tunisia will be next in line to normalize relations with Israel?
"There is no chance," one of the senior members of the Jewish community tells me.
'Abraham's agreements surprised everyone.
No one estimated that such a turn would occur.
And yet, Tunisia is not ready for such a move.
Only on the day that Israel makes peace with the Palestinians, will Tunisia make peace with Israel. "
Do you live in fear?
"We have no special fears as Jews, we have the same fears that the rest of the population has: from the difficult economic situation, from the stuck political situation, from the corona.
Since the Revolution (Arab Spring; AB) and the proclamation of the President on July 25, there have been no special developments regarding the situation of the Jews here. The status quo has been maintained.
"The revolution allowed the freedom of the press and free elections. Before it the Islamists hid. Today they are seen in the streets, they express their opinions. The migration of Jews from Tunisia has been going on for years. The young people emigrate first, followed by the parents. "Today, Rabba has become the Jewish center of Tunisia. It has many synagogues, Jewish schools - a few years ago a girls' school was also established - yeshivas, kindergartens. The Jewish population in Djerba is 100 percent religious."
Like many of the wealthy members of the community, my interlocutor went to study in the West in the late 1990s.
But unlike the others, he was forced to return home, after being prevented from extending his residence documents in the country where he studied.
He never thought about immigrating to Israel.
Is there a future for Jews in Tunisia?
'In Tunis the community will disappear, it is already in the stages of disappearance.
In any case, the organized community will disappear.
There will be a community in Djerba.
There is nothing to do, it is very expensive to have a community: you need a synagogue, a school, kosher food.
In Tunis there is still one kosher meat shop, opposite the main synagogue.
"Jews all over the world do not like instability, and now a political vacuum has been created in Tunisia."
• • •
Last summer was the hottest Tunisia has known since the beginning of the temperature measurement.
When I was in Tunis, the heat record ever recorded in the city broke, reaching almost 49 degrees.
In other cities, the 50th threshold has been crossed.
Huge fires raged in the north of the country and consumed forests.
Suburban La Gault, on the seafront, has always been a haven for the residents of the capital Tunis on hot summer days.
Even today, Jews from Tunis flee here, who did not travel to spend the summer and the Tishrei holidays with their families in France.
"All the houses around you used to belong to Jews," one member of the local community, in his 50s, tells me.
"Today we have one nursing home, behind fences and with regular police security, and a synagogue that fails to convene a quorum for prayers or forgiveness.
"Once upon a time there was a diverse Jewish community in Tunisia - the Tunisian Jews, the Jews who came from Spain and Portugal, and the Jews who came from Italy, the 'Grana'. Today the Jews from the south (from Djerba) are the ones who keep the embers. Of Jews in the cities of Sosa, Sfax and Monastir, without the Jews from the south it is doubtful whether the synagogues in Tunisia were still active, except on Yom Kippur.
"The community in Tunis suffers from a great shortage of young men and women, there are maybe 25-20 of them. In Djerba, five or six Jewish weddings are celebrated every year, in Tunis one wedding every two or three years. The young people run away from here after completing their matriculation studies. .
"If the general situation in Tunisia improves, people will return here.
In Tunisia we have synagogues, cemeteries, Torah scrolls.
We can not keep them if there are no Jews here.
People will move to Djerba and Tunis if they have a job.
Until the coming of the Messiah, who will take us all to the Land of Israel. "
The synagogue in Djerba.
"The Jewish population is 100 percent religious," Photo: AP
According to him, the new political situation in Tunisia and the transformation of the Islamists into an influential force did not create any difficulties for the Jews.
"We have no problems with all the parties," he emphasizes, "we do not interfere in politics.
We just want to know what's going on around us.
"After the revolution there were fears and apprehensions, especially we were afraid that the Islamists would not be interested in the presence of other religions in the country. But these concerns were refuted. They met with the community committee, with the chief rabbi, they sent policemen to guard us.
"There is no tension between us and the general population, on the contrary. On Rene Trabelsi they said he was the only minister who really worked. The Tunisians have no problems with the Jews."
They have problems with Israel.
"The Tunisian and Arab media have created for Israel an image of a state of thieves, murderers, criminals. In the eyes of the majority of the public, Israel has no right to exist. They did not like the Palestinians who lived here, but they also do not like Israel.
"In the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip, I defended Israel on social media. My friends said that Israel is a criminal, a murderer of children, the usual propaganda they receive from Al-Jazeera. There are no people with public influence and a media presence who will defend Israel."
So Tunisia will not follow Morocco in establishing relations with Israel? After all, there was already an Israeli interest office here until the second intifada, it closed in October 2000.
'The general atmosphere in Tunisia is bad.
There is a minority that is beginning to understand that ties with Israel will only help Tunisia, that countries that have normalized relations with it are receiving aid - Morocco, Sudan.
But it is a minority.
As long as influential people do not explain the situation correctly - that Israel defends itself against terrorist attacks - nothing will move.
"When the Tunisian women's tennis team decided to face Israel in the Federation Cup in February 2020, the criticism was enormous. When Tunisian singer Noaman a-Shaari recorded a song with the Israeli bard Ziv Yehezkel, last December, a great protest arose.
"We thought that with the advent of democracy and freedom of opinion after the revolution, there would be a change in Israel as well, as happened in other Arab countries, but this did not happen. Israelis should not run after Tunisians to achieve peace. Israelis should let Tunisians run after them."
• • •
Not only is the Tunisian Jewish community declining.
The memory of living together is also disappearing.
The young people in Tunisia, who now make up the majority of the population (the average age is 32), do not know Jews and do not share the nostalgia of previous generations, who experienced the large Jewish community's contribution to life in the country and coexistence until the 1950s.
During my first visits here, I also expressed hope that the Jews would return to help rehabilitate the country's economy.
Ben Ali's presidency was considered the golden age of Tunisian, Jewish - and Israeli relations.
But in today's Tunisia there is hardly anyone left to speak longingly about the return of the Jews.
S., a Jew from the south who now divides his time between Djerba and France, remembers the reactions of his Arab comrades to the First Lebanon War.
'I had a lot of Arab friends then.
Although we were very careful not to interfere with the non-Jewish population, I had non-Jewish friends.
And they completely changed their skin, one day old.
I think they have a basic hatred for Jews and Israel.
They are educated for it from a young age.
But that will not bring them to kill Jews.
"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, 'If we can, we will kill you first.'
"It is true that Ben Ali's period was very good. When he fled, there were Jews who said, 'We woke up from a good dream.' The fact that the Jews did not oppose the political changes calmed many, and therefore there was no widespread desire to harm them.On the contrary: people - especially in the Djerba area - said: We need them, with their thriving businesses.
"There were moments of tension. There were extremists who tried to cause problems. There were hostile elements who thought they could now do whatever they wanted. But the state made it clear to them that it was impossible. Beyond that, because of freedom of expression, there are no taboo issues today, including Israel. I grew up in Tunisia, where we were afraid to say "Israel."
And today?
"Today you can write freely about Israel on social media, it is something that has become legitimate. There were attempts to ban Jews from traveling to Israel, but the Jews explained that they could not sever ties with their families, and that those who travel to Israel are not necessarily Zionists. These explanations were accepted. The Israeli flag will not be hoisted in Djerba. "
What leaves the Jews here?
'There are those who are used to the lifestyle and do not want to change it.
They hear about the problems in France, in Israel.
The thought of moving to France does not exist at all, everyone here knows that there is no future for the Jewish community there.
It's not like it used to be.
The only possible destination is Israel.
"But people are afraid of change. There are families who do not have the means to immigrate to Israel. In Israel life is very expensive, and here the standard of living is low, Jews can earn a living and manage to make ends meet. Beyond that, Jews in Tunisia are very religious. Fear of losing Judaism.
"בכל מקרה, כל עוד יש כאן יהודים, אסור לנו להזניח אותם, להפקיר את הקיום היהודי הזה ולאבד את המורשת. במדינה ערבית־מוסלמית הכל רגיש. אנחנו חייבים להיות זהירים, נחמדים, לא לומר דברים שליליים על המדינה. ובינתיים, אנחנו מתפללים לגאולה ולעלייה לישראל״.
יהודי בבית הכנסת בג'רבה. "יש משפחות שאין להן אמצעים לעלות לישראל", צילום: אי.פי
• • •
אחד הקולות התוניסאיים הנדירים והברורים, העומדים מול הזרם העכור וקוראים לכינון יחסים עם ישראל, הוא זה של מוניר בעתור, עורך דין, ראש המפלגה הליברלית, פעיל למען זכויות להט״ב, שהיה ההומו הראשון שהגיש את מועמדותו לנשיאות ב־2019. ועדת הבחירות פסלה את מועמדותו, ללא סיבה רצינית, ולאחר שקיבל איומים על חייו, הוא נמלט בינואר 2020 לצרפת.
ממקום גלותו מעריך בעתור שהתקווה שתוניסיה תלך בעקבות איחוד האמירויות, בחריין, סודאן ומרוקו ותכונן יחסים עם ישראל, היא אשליה. ״תחת נשיאותו של סעיד - עם הפופוליזם, האנטישמיות והפחד שלו מהיהודים - זה בלתי אפשרי״, הוא אומר. "צעדיו האחרונים של הנשיא הם אנטי־חוקתיים. סעיף 80 של החוקה, שעליו הוא הסתמך, לא מאפשר לו לפטר את הממשלה או להקפיא את עבודת הפרלמנט. הוא אימץ פרשנות מאוד מיוחדת של הסעיף הזה. בכל מקרה, האיש הזה הוא אוטיסט, שמרני קיצוני, מיזוגן והומופוב".
איך אתה מסכם את העשור מאז המהפכה?
"זה היה עשור מחורבן, סליחה על הביטוי. האסלאמיסטים בשלטון כבר עשר שנים, וכל מה שהם עשו זה לדרדר את המצב הכלכלי של המדינה. העוני גבר, האבטלה גדלה, ההגירה הלא חוקית התחזקה. מעבר לכך, מערכת הבריאות בתוניסיה במצב קטסטרופלי. אלו היו עשר שנים של הליכה לאחור".
בשעתו הובעה התקווה שיהיה ניתן למצוא נוסחה שמחברת בין האסלאמיסטים לדמוקרטיה. חיבור כזה אפשרי?
"לא. האסלאמיסטים לא מאמינים בדמוקרטיה. עבורם הדמוקרטיה היא אמצעי להשגת מטרתם. הם משתמשים בכלים הדמוקרטיים, בבחירות, כדי לתפוס את השלטון ולעשות באמצעותו כל מה שהם רוצים. צריך להבין שהאסלאם הוא דת אנטי־דמוקרטית, שסבורה שהשלטון נתון בידי האל ונציגיו, ולא בידי העם".
האוכלוסייה התוניסאית מבינה את זה היום?
"התוניסאים ניסו את האסלאמיסטים וראו שהם נכשלו, שהם הרעילו את חיי האנשים והשתלטו על השירות הציבורי. יותר מ־200 אלף אסלאמיסטים מונו לתפקידים במנגנון הציבורי מאז המהפכה. הם ביקשו פיצויים עבור שנות ׳המאבק׳ שלהם נגד בן עלי, ולמעשה בזזו את המדינה. העם מודע לכך, ולכן יש תמיכה נרחבת למהלכים האחרונים של הנשיא".
"מצב נורא". מוניר בעתור, צילום: אי.פי
תוניסיה היתה ידועה בעולם הערבי כדוגמה נדירה לפתיחות ולליברליות. מה נשאר מזה היום?
"הזכויות שהושגו עבור הנשים: הזכות להתגרש, הזכות לבצע הפלה, הזכות לאימוץ. הצעדים המתקדמים הללו, שאומצו על ידי הנשיא בורגיבה, נותרו בעינם. מנגד, מצבם של המיעוטים נורא. מ־2011 עד 2021 בוצעו 1,225 מעצרים של הומוסקסואלים. הועבר חוק שאוסר מיסיונריות נוצרית, פעולה כזאת גוררת עונש של חמש שנות מאסר. אנשי דת נוצרים רבים נעצרו בגלל החוק הזה.
"המיעוט היהודי סגור בעצמו. הם נתונים להתקפות אנטישמיות, להתגרויות. הנשיא בעצמו הוא אנטישמי ידוע. זה לא מנהיג ערבי מתון, שתומך בהסדר שתי המדינות. מבחינתו, צריך לעקור את ישראל מפלשתין ההיסטורית ולזרוק את היהודים לים. זה אדם מסוכן, ולדעותיו יש השפעה על הציבור גם ביחס למיעוט היהודי בתוניסיה".
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il