Tunisia (Djerba): Pilgrimage, protection, and a house that keeps memory
HERITAGE AS A BRIDGE
Takeaway: Traditions survive when communities refuse indifference, protect each other’s rituals, and rebuild the crowd one careful year at a time.
On Djerba, the spring pilgrimage to the El Ghriba Synagogue folds faith into everyday hospitality. Pilgrims arrive for the hiloula around Lag BaOmer. Most local hosts are Muslim. They point people to guesthouses, help with directions, and work the security checkpoints with a kind of practiced calm. In quieter years the crowd runs from hundreds into the low thousands. In 2018, reporters called it the biggest since the 2011 upheaval. Visiting imams spoke about the island’s habit of coexistence. One young greeter handed spare headscarves to visitors who needed them. The message felt simple enough: public reverence can be shared.
History never sits far from the door. In 2002, an al‑Qaeda truck bombing at El Ghriba killed 21 people, many of them European visitors. Security has been tight since. In May 2023, during the pilgrimage period, a Tunisian National Guardsman carried out another attack near the site. Two Jewish visitors and two police officers were killed. Investigators said he had already killed a colleague at a naval post before driving over. Officials offered public assurances. The president met the chief rabbi, the archbishop, and the mufti to underline a commitment to coexistence. In 2024, organizers scaled back or cancelled the festivities and kept the focus on prayer, citing grief and regional tension. The pattern may be familiar by now. Shock, mourning, then a return to the work of living together.
Memory is tended in other places too. In January 2020, Bayt Dakira, the House of Memory, opened in Essaouira on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. It preserves Moroccan Jewish history through archives, ritual objects, and scholarship around a restored synagogue. Essaouira sits far from Djerba, yet the gesture seems part of the same North African conversation. Jewish heritage treated as national heritage. A refusal to let indifference erase neighbors from the story.
Djerba itself now carries a global label. In 2023, UNESCO inscribed “Djerba: Testimony to a settlement pattern” on the World Heritage List. The listing highlights low‑density neighborhoods connected by roads and religious sites. El Ghriba sits within that landscape. Heritage status does not remove risk. It does place the island under a wider watchlight and may invite both visitors and scrutiny.
On the ground, the pilgrimage rises and falls with security and geopolitics. The Gaza war and the 2023 attack reshaped scale and tone. Even so, the core tends to hold. Candles are lit. Blessings are spoken. Police presence is visible on purpose. Metal detectors hum at the gate. Buses idle on side streets. Food sellers work the edges. Muslim and Jewish residents, with local officials, map out routes and crowd control. It looks prosaic. Permits, barricades, schedules. That is likely why it works. It takes a village to keep a tradition from becoming a target.
There are critiques worth noting. Some visitors say the security footprint can feel heavy. Others worry that authorities use the event for image‑building. Both points may be true at times. They do not cancel the fact that neighbors still show up for one another and keep showing up after bad nights.
If there is a thread through these years, it is this one. Indifference is the enemy of coexistence. After violence, communities can retreat into suspicion or return to the habit of making space. Djerba’s answer, again and again, has been presence. Reopen the doors. Adjust the plan. Continue the pilgrimage with help from people who may not share the faith but do share the place.
Sources (selection)
Reuters coverage of the Djerba pilgrimage, 2018 scale, and the 2002 and 2023 attacks
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point on the 2002 El Ghriba bombing
Al Jazeera on the 2023 attack and official response
Religion News Service on the toned‑down 2024 hiloula
UNESCO World Heritage Centre on Djerba’s 2023 inscription
Reporting on Bayt Dakira’s opening and purpose
