Hundreds of Jewish pilgrims flocked to the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba on Wednesday for a key event of the tourist season in Tunisia, after two years of interruption due to the epidemic.
The Ghriba synagogue sees its pilgrims return after two years of absence due to Covid-19. Hundreds of Jewish believers flocked to the island of Djerba on Wednesday, May 18.
The first visitors arrived in the morning and passed through security gates under heavy police guard in this place hit 20 years ago by a suicide attack that killed 21 people.
Inside, pilgrims light candles before entering a small cave where, according to tradition, there is a stone from the first temple in Jerusalem. Then, they exchange dried fruits and sweets around a prayer pronounced by the rabbi of the synagogue. Many pilgrims immortalize with photos and videos their visit to this synagogue with columns painted in white and blue, whose construction dates back to the 6th century BC.
An unmissable religious event
The Ghriba pilgrimage brought together some years of up to 8,000 people over two days in this synagogue, one of the oldest and most important for Jews from North Africa. “My father is from Djerba and it was very important to him. I kept this memory, I came when I was young”, says Solange Azzouz, 75, born in Tunis and who has lived in Marseille for 58 years.
Tunisia had more than 100,000 Jews before independence in 1956, a community that had fallen to about a thousand members. In a party dress with her silk shirt and pearl necklace, Ms. Azzouz waits outside under the scorching sun. “As I get older, I begin to appreciate the pilgrimage, the atmosphere. I even have a little family here”, confides the septuagenarian, for whom this event is “a lucky charm”.
The pilgrimage also consists of following in procession a large menorah, the Jewish candelabra, mounted on three wheels and decorated with colorful fabrics. Born in Morocco, Adi Wizman Nicodeme, 74, comes for the first time at the invitation of a friend. An Israeli citizen living in Paris, he came to “know the place” in the name of his faith. “All my friends told me about it as well as my students,” says this Judaism and Hebrew teacher. “I feel something, it’s very strong for me,” he adds.
