TUNISIA'S JEWS CLING TO HERITAGE
United Press International
11-24-1999
Tunisia's Jews cling to heritage
TUNIS, Tunisia, Nov. 24 (UPI) It's a typical afternoon at the Lubavitch Institution in downtown Tunis, as children wind down their lessons and wait impatiently for the end-of-school bell to ring.
In one classroom, boys stumble over the haftara, the special Torah passages studied in preparation for their upcoming bar mitzvahs. In another, kindergartners draft brightly colored pictures.
Some 80 students, ages five through 19, study at the small, two-story school. But their weekly curriculum _ 20 hours of lay instruction and another 12 hours studying Hebrew and other religious teachings _ is anything but normal in this staunchly Muslim country.
The small, two-story institution is the last Jewish school in Tunis.
Together with a handful of schools in the southern island of Djerba, they are among the remnants of an erstwhile Jewish community that left a powerful mark on the economy and culture of this North African country.
Just over 50 years ago, Tunisia's Jewish population numbered more than 100,000. Today, only about 2,500 Jews remain, most of them split between Djerba and the capital Tunis.
``The old remain, but the young go,'' said Haim Madar, the Grand Rabbi of Tunisia. ``What can they do here? There's no work.''
Across the Middle East and North Africa, the story is the same. With the obvious exception of Israel, Jewish communities are dwindling and dying. Only some 5,000 Jews remain in Morocco, compared to more than a quarter of a million only 30 years ago.
Jews have all but disappeared from Algeria, Libya, Egypt and from many Persian Gulf countries.
In Iran, the status of one of the region's oldest and largest Jewish communities is uncertain. In March, security officers arrested 13 Jews on charges of spying for Israel. Iranian Jews now fear a larger crackdown may ensue.
It's unclear exactly when Judaism arrived to Tunisia. Some scholars trace its roots to King Solomon's time, when Jews first settled in Djerba, a tiny sun-washed island that houses one of the world's oldest Jewish synagogues.
According to other accounts, Jews first arrived to Djerba carrying doors from Israel's First Temple, destroyed in 586 B.C.
Yet another wave of Jews arrived to Tunisia between the 15th and 19th centuries from Spain and Italy.
The two groups _ Djerba's stolid merchants, and the Europeanized artists and intellectuals of Tunis _ had little in common and mostly went their separate ways.
But the fortunes of both rose and fell with each successive foreign invasion.
World War II was perhaps the most recent low point, when Nazi occupiers seized property of Tunisian Jews and shipped them to concentration camps.
It was only after the war, however, when the real exodus began.
A newly independent Tunisia passed a series of anti-Jewish decrees, and destroyed synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish quarters in an ostensible quest for urban renewal.
During the Arab-Israeli six-day war in 1967, Muslims torched the Great Synagogue of Tunis.
A smattering of other bloody incidents _ including a 1985 massacre of five worshippers in a synagogue by a Tunisian guard _ didn't help matters.
Overall, nearly 100,000 Jews fled Tunisia, seeking homes in Europe, the United States and Israel.
Those who remain in Tunisia are tilting against demographic odds, determined to keep the country's Jewish traditions alive. On their side are a handful of Jewish schools, government good will and recent statistics which indicate that, in Djerba at least, the Jewish population is once again growing.
``We're not afraid the Jewish community will die out,'' said the Lubavitch Institution's director Rachel Pinson. ``There are people who will come back, and who will open up businesses here. I'm optimistic about this.''
The school's mission is not just education, Pinson said, but to preserve Tunisia's Jewish heritage. It's a mission powerful enough to bring the Polish-born director and her husband to Tunis nearly 40 years ago to establish the institution. Besides classrooms, the school has a small synagogue and a micvah, or ritual bath, for female students.
Other traces of Tunisia's Jewish legacy are scattered across the city. Two kosher butchers and a pair of kosher restaurants still operate in the Tunis area. There are also five working synagogues, including the massive, rebuilt Great Synagogue, which sits locked and guarded on Tunis' leafy Avenue de la Liberte during non-service hours.
And there is Rene Chiche, the elegant 90-year-old leader of the city's Jewish community, who talks at length about services for the indigent, but falls into icy silence when asked how Jews are treated here.
``I live here but I don't do politics,'' Chiche snaps. ``I pay my taxes, but I don't do politics.''
Surprisingly, only about 40 percent of Tunisia's Jews have ever visited Israel. Some are financially strapped, others prefer to visit relatives in Europe.
The government insists there are no travel restrictions, although it's unclear whether any exist in practice.
Nonetheless, public sentiment toward Tunisian Jews often rides the volatile currents of Israeli-Arab relations. That's been particularly true for Michele Lycia, an office manager at the 3-year-old Israeli Interest Office in Tunis.
Under Israel's former hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the office ground to a virtual halt, and Lycia was ignored by some of her Muslim friends.
``I told them, 'don't forget I'm a Tunisian, and you turned your back at the time of Netanyahu,''' she said. ``Don't forget, Tunisia is my country also.''
But officially, the signals are positive, as the government of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali takes pains to separate foreign from domestic policy.
``The Jews who remain here practice their faith freely and enjoy the same rights as full-fledged citizens as the rest of the population,'' said government spokesman Oussama Romdhani, offering a view supported by the U.S. government.
Official funding has helped restore synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, and the government has sponsored seminars on religious tolerance.
Tunisia's tourist-driven economy has also found a new goldmine _ thousands of Jews of Tunisian extraction now visit Djerba's ancient El Ghirba Synagogue during a special local holiday known as Lag BaOmer.
``Our impression is that the government is also interested in attracting Jews to come back to Tunisia,'' said Gideon Behar, the Israeli Interest Office's deputy chief. ``They have been here for thousands of years and they have always been part of the society. And of course, they are important economically for the country's development.''
But Tunisian Jews like Lycia offer a more sober assessment of their future.
The younger Jewish community in Djerba will likely survive, she said. But the one in Tunis will soon disappear for good, as children move to Europe, Israel and the United States, never to return.
``The Jewish problem will resolve itself,'' said Lycia, recalling with irony a statement once made by Tunisia's former president, Habib Bourguiba. ``The young will leave, and the old will die out.''
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By ELIZABETH BRYANT
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