In a rare and unprecedented move, leaders of the ancient Jewish community on the Tunisian island of Djerba have cancelled their annual Lag B’Omer celebration.
The festive event, which every year draws tens of thousands of people to the historic El Ghriba Synagogue, has always been a high point for this coastal island, the largest in North Africa. But last Friday, government authorities, citing security concerns, asked the community to cancel the May 22 celebration.
Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shmuel Pinson, who is based in Brussels, but frequently travels to Tunisia and helps coordinate Jewish services there, said that given the current political climate, security officials were concerned they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the estimated 20,000 people who were expected to converge on the El Ghriba synagogue. Events in the former French colony last winter set in motion the downfall of the government and ensuing “Arab Spring” all across the Middle East.
Two terrorists affiliated with the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb organization were caught in a town barely half an hour’s drive from Djerba, said the rabbi. A large weapons cache was also discovered close by.
“Every year, we send teachers from our yeshiva in Tunis to help Jewish men don the prayer boxes known as tefillin and give out Sabbath candles at the celebration,” said Pinson. “Rabbinical students also come from France and Israel and all over Europe. It is wonderful. Past students from our yeshiva come back with their wives and children.”
People are still expected to travel to Djerba, but in far less numbers.
“There is a risk,” he said. “There are many Libyan refugees there, and Libyan troops have tried to cross the border to attack the rebels in Tunisia.”
Israel’s National Security Council released an updated travel alert for the country in advance of the holiday, warning people to stay away from the island.
“In light of the intention to perpetrate revenge attacks following the elimination of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and given the number of Israelis and Jews expected in Tunisia ahead of the Lag B’Omer holiday, the National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau recommends not visiting Tunisia,” the government warned.
For the most part, Tunisia’s Jews have escaped the violence now plaguing the region. The lone exception was one riot in which Islamists demonstrated outside the El Ghriba synagogue, the oldest in Africa.
According to tradition, the ancient synagogue was built in 586 B.C.E. with a stone from the ruins of the First Temple in Jerusalem, and houses one of the oldest known Torah Scrolls in existence.
The synagogue was also the site of a deadly suicide bombing in April 2002 by Al Qaeda that killed 21 people. On Simchat Torah in 1985, a police officer charged with securing the synagogue killed three Jews inside, including a child.
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