Annual Pilgrimage to Djerba Gets Personal for a British Rabbi and His Friends

By Delinda C. Hanley


Sephardic Jews come from Europe, Israel and North Africa to make the annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba. A joyous two-day festival celebrates the holiday Lag B’Omer with laughter, music, dance, drink, and prayer, culminating in an auction, parade and a barbeque (photo by Michael J. Keating).

ONCE A year Jews from around the world gather on the Tunisian island of Djerba, home to the world’s second oldest Jewish community. They visit the Ghriba synagogue, built 1,900 years ago, reportedly using a stone from Solomon’s Temple. While the present synagogue is only 100 years old, some of its Torahs, sheepskin parchments, mystical stories and traditions date back to 586 BC.

The annual Ghriba pilgrimage coincides with the Jewish holiday Lag B’Omer, which falls on the 33rd day after Passover. Tradition has it that, in the midst of a terrible plague, 24,000 pupils of the famous sage Rabbi Akiva died. After the plague Rabbi Akiva started over and taught a brilliant student, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Years later, when Rabbi Shimon died, a fire appeared revealing all the hidden meanings of the Torah to his students. Jews around the world commemorate this event with a fun-filled holiday complete with bonfires and picnics. In Djerba, however, it has evolved into a two-day party, with revelers dressed to the nines, praying, singing, dancing, eating and drinking, and meeting up with friends old and new.

A large contingent of French Jews comes each year for a festival reunion. A famous Jewish singer in France, Esther Dalal, is one of the regulars. Surrounded by her Tunisian and French fans and friends, Dalal’s singing of old Tunisian love songs, as well as current French and Israeli pop tunes, was a highlight of the festival.

Rabbi Israel Elia, from the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation in London, brought a group of 18 young British pilgrims to Djerba for the festival. This was his first visit to his birthplace in 18 years. Elia left Djerba in 1971 to attend school in Tunis, followed by university in London, when his family emigrated to Israel.

The British group landed in Tunis following an easy two-and-a half-hour flight from London. After speaking with many of the young people in Rabbi Elia’s group, it was clear that, with the exception of trips to Israel, this was their first visit to the region—and they were pleasantly surprised. They expressed delight with the history and color of the capital, and the interest and hospitality they received from Tunisians.

As the group sat in a tearoom in Sidi Bou Said, Rabbi Elia said, an older Tunisian man had guessed the rabbi’s family name by his accent and his face. He remembered a time when many of his friends and neighbors in Tunis were Jews, he told Rabbi Elia. On the other hand, according to the rabbi, a young Tunisian was surprised to meet a Tunisian Jew, and hadn’t realized Jews had lived in Tunisia for nearly 2,000 years. “We need to educate both Westerners and Tunisians about the history of Jews in North Africa,” the rabbi said.


	A woman leaves her scarf and her prayers on the cart with the Menorah (photo by Michael J. Keating).

Nothing prepared the 48-year-old rabbi for his reception in Djerba on the first day of the festival. The eight-hour minibus ride from Tunis to the ferry crossing and onto the island of Djerba “transported us to a different planet,” Rabbi Elia said. The proud traditions of the Sephardic way of life are alive and well in Djerba.

The rabbi said he was surprised by the impact of once again seeing his hometown, Hara Kebira, one of two Jewish neighborhoods on Djerba. The open-air courtyard where he spent his childhood playing with friends surrounded by adults chatting and young people flirting, is now full of flats, he noted. The communal baths are also gone. Among the many changes, however, he spotted plenty of familiar sights that brought all his good memories flooding back.

As soon as he stepped off the van passersby gasped, “You are Elia!” His very proper young English pilgrims were shocked seeing strangers instantly hugging and kissing the rabbi. “The warmth and bonds were still there after nearly 20 years,” Elia marvelled. “In England when you see an old friend, you may give him a push or a nudge—you don’t embrace like we do in Tunisia,” he joked.

Rabbi Elia’s special connections gave his British group an insider’s view of the festival. When they wanted an after-hours visit to the synagogue, the rabbi asked a passing child to go to his uncle’s house to get the keys. Elia’s other uncle runs the school, and a cousin is president of the local community. They were welcomed into countless homes for refreshments and saw the careful preparations for the Sabbath. Observant Jews left covered dinners warming in the public ovens to eat on Saturday, when they are forbidden to cook or work. The visitors were thrilled to hear an ancient shofar horn announcing the coming of the Sabbath 20 minutes before sunset. Djerba is the only place in the world where this is still done.

“Djerba is called the corridor to Jerusalem because of the learning and sanctity of the Jewish scholars who have studied here for centuries” Rabbi Elia said. He was surprised, he added, that few American or British visitors, of any faith, have discovered the fascinating spot.


Rabbi Elia (r) with one of his British pilgrims (photo by Michael J. Keating).

One American, Naomi Stone, a graduate of Dartmouth University, did find Djerba, and spent three months as a Fulbright scholar teaching English to Jewish students on the island. (Before that she’d lived with a Muslim family in Tunis.) After the festival Nõomi was returning home to the suburbs of Washington, DC, where her father, Rabbi Warren Stone of Temple Emanual in Kensington, MD, is known for his work promoting interfaith dialogue including Jewish-Muslim programs for confirmation students.

Mr. Nicola Rosenfelder and Kevin Sefton also discovered Djerba on their own. The Londoners said they jump on a plane to explore a new country whenever they have a holiday. Rosenfelder said she was amazed to find fields of flowers, rolling green hills, glorious ruins and storks’ nests in Tunisia. But the Djerba festival stirred something in her soul, she said, explaining that she’d never forget seeing ancient rituals come alive in this village, including killing goats according to kosher laws for the barbeque, and baking bread. It was a relief to see Tunisian flags instead of Israeli ones adorning the streets of the Jewish quarter, she added, unlike some Jewish celebrations at home.

On the final day of the festival, revelers enjoyed music and dancing in the courtyard of the synagogue’s dormitories. Women hung their colorful scarves from the Menorah, a wooden candelabra balanced on a three-wheeled cart. Both men and women kissed the Menorah, which until eight years ago held a Sefer Torah. Now the holy book stays behind, safely ensconced in the synagogue. An auctioneer took bids from people vying for the right to add decorations to the Menorah, or to push the cart from the Ghriba Synagogue in Hara Kebira to another synagogue in the next village, Hara Sghira.

The uproarious parade set off for the two-mile walk led by Yacov Bachiri, now nearly 90 years old, playing his oud. The procession was punctuated by more auctioneering and good-humored ribbing. Muslim neighbors stood at their doors smiling and chatting with the Jewish celebrants.

The Ghriba is shrouded in mystery, according to Rabbi Elia, who said he can feel centuries of heartfelt prayers, tears, and rejoicing that have poured into this hallowed ground. “Very few places have that effect on me,” he said.

One of the customs of the Djerba festival is for supplicants to write a wish for a miraculous cure, health, marriage, money, or even a child on the shell of an egg and leave it in a tunnel warmed by candles beneath the synagogue. The next day both faithful and nonobservant Jews eat the now-cooked egg along with their wish. And they believe their prayer will be answered.

Rabbi Elia patiently explained the background behind this unique tradition. “The egg symbolizes life moving on and on, since it has no beginning and no end,” he said. “The first meal Jews eat when they mourn the dead is an egg.” When Elia was a child in Djerba, he said, his mother would give him an egg to present to his teacher. His teacher would break the shell and write “Have great success,” or some other blessing on the egg inside. By eating the egg, Elia would swallow the symbolic blessing.

As vacationers return to their lives with a suntan from the Djerba beaches, and a few extra pounds from sampling the excellent food and wines in Djerba’s 150 hotels, they leave their prayers, along with their scarves on the Menorah in the synagogue, in Djerba. Both men and women go home having found what they came for on this special island: relaxation, spiritual renewal, adventure, camaraderie, beauty and history.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.