Every year, thousands of Jews from around the world flock to the historic El Ghriba Synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba. They come to pray, marvel at the Moorish architecture, and see the stone held by local tradition to have once been part of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Last month, a team of Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidim joined the trek to assist the more than 8,000 people who came for the holiday of Lag B’Omer. Rabbi Schneor and Odaya Hadad, a young married couple from Israel, and yeshiva students Levi Hecht of Israel and Levi Pinson of France spent several days doing whatever was required, much as Pinson’s grandfather, the late Rabbi Nisson Pinson had done until his death last winter.

Their visit was sponsored by Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.

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Shlomo Gabasi, a 30-year-old realtor living in France, said that the kosher meals provided by the group to local hotels were a nice touch. The team also helped women light Shabbat candles, and some 800 men don tefillin. They taught classes in Chasidic thought at the local synagogues and Jewish school, and led Shabbat services for the visitors.

“Everything – the people, Shabbat – was excellent,” said Gabasi, who lived in Tunisia with his family until he moved to Paris at the age of 13.

According to Hadad, while many tourists from Israel, France and Canada come specifically to visit the synagogue, “many also come to enjoy a relaxing vacation at hotels with kosher food.”

Local tradition on the Tunisian island of Djerba holds that the El Ghriba Synagogue was founded by Jewish priests fleeing the destruction of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.
Local tradition on the Tunisian island of Djerba holds that the El Ghriba Synagogue was founded by Jewish priests fleeing the destruction of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

For Hecht, who also traveled to Djerba from his hometown of Eilat, Israel, last year, seeing the locals again was an added bonus.

“We knew everyone,” said Hecht, a 22-year-old rabbinical student. “Everyone in the neighborhood was happy to see us again.”

Local community members were also thrilled to see the 16-year-old Pinson, whose grandfather moved to Djerba to establish a Jewish educational system in 1959.

Organized by Rabbi Yossef Yitzchok Pinson, director of Habad Loubavitch of Nice Côte d'Azur, and Rabbi Shmuel Pinson, co-director of Ohel Menachem in Brussels, Belgium, the team of temporary Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries also paid a visit to the Ohr Hatorah school system founded by the late Pinson.

“It was beautiful to see how the community upholds traditions,” said Hecht. “Everything is very authentic, like the olden days when elementary school children would learn until nine at night.”