feature
Interior of La Ghriba
Synagogue, Djerba, Tunisia
‘JEWISH LIFE GOES ON’:
Ron Kampeas | JTA.org
T he day after a gunman killed four people
outside an ancient place of Jewish worship on
the Tunisian island of Djerba, men gathered in
the same synagogue not to mourn, but to celebrate.

They were there to witness the blessing of a new
life: a brit milah, or ritual circumcision. Not long after,
a recording of the ceremony, complete with the men
chanting in Hebrew as they surrounded the eight-
day-old baby, made its way to the phone of Isaac
Choua, a Sephardic rabbi living in New York.

For Choua, watching the ceremony was a relief from
the horrors that had emerged the day before, when
a rogue security official at the Tunisian synagogue
killed two Jewish cousins, Aviel Haddad, 30, and
Benjamin Haddad, 43, as well as two security guards
before being gunned down.

20 MAY 18, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
“Something beautiful happened,” said Choua, the
Middle East and North Africa communities liaison for
the World Jewish Congress, in an interview. “They
had a brit milah in Djerba, even with all the chaos.

Jewish life goes on.”
The May 9 deadly shooting came during the
Hiloula, an annual pilgrimage and celebration of
Jewish sages held on or around Lag b’Omer, which
takes place a little more than a month after the
beginning of Passover. The annual festivity attracts
thousands of Jews from around the world, many
of Tunisian descent. It is held at the El Ghriba
synagogue — a 19th-century building constructed
on a site believed to have been a Jewish house of
worship for as long as 2,500 years.

The pilgrimage has grown substantially in recent
years, after trepidation following an attack on the
synagogue by Al-Qaeda in 2002 that killed 20
people, and a suspension of the pilgrimage in 2011
amid security concerns in the wake of the Arab
Spring, which began in Tunisia.

The Tunisian government has invested in the
pilgrimage, billing it as a symbol of the country’s
tolerance, and has provided intense security. Last
year, Tunisia was one of six African countries that
signed the “Call of Rabat,” an initiative of the American
Sephardi Federation that sought a commitment to
preserving Jewish heritage on the continent.

Jason Guberman, the executive director of the
American Sephardi Federation, said the numbers
that the Hiloula attracts today have not yet reached
the 10,000 or so who attended before the 2002
attack. The Arab Spring and COVID-19 pandemic,
he said, “have also deterred pilgrims in the past
decade.” He estimated that fewer than 5,000 people
attend annually now.

Additionally, Tunisia’s authoritarian president Kais
Saied remains unfriendly to Israel and has rebuffed
Hasan Mrad/DeFodi Images via Getty Images via JTA.org
Djerba Jews and Their Supporters Show
Resilience After Deadly Attack