El Ghriba Synagogue
Interesting facts
- During the spring pilgrimage, women leave eggs inscribed with the names of unmarried young women in the synagogue's grotto, then retrieve and eat them in the hope of a wedding.
- A tall wheeled menorah, decorated with the names of the twelve tribes, rabbis and the patriarchs and matriarchs, is paraded through the village during the closing days of the pilgrimage.
- The pilgrimage runs from the 14th to the 18th of the Hebrew month of Iyar and draws several thousand Jewish visitors from Tunisia and abroad.
- Since the late 19th century an independent committee has organised the pilgrimage and shared its revenues among village elders and Torah students.
- Unlike Djerba's other synagogues, which have a single prayer hall, El Ghriba has two.
- The 2002 truck bombing killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals.
- The synagogue has been struck by violence more than once: a policeman opened fire here in 1985, and a naval guard attacked the site in May 2023.
- About 1,300 Jews still live on Djerba, whose villages kept around 20 working synagogues until the 1950s.
- Local tradition links the missing third column to mourning for the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.
Why it is worth it
Behind a plain whitewashed exterior in the village of Er Riadh on the island of Djerba, the El Ghriba Synagogue opens into halls lined with ceramic tiles in blue, green, yellow, brown and white, with arches and vaults linking the rooms. It is often described as possibly the oldest synagogue in the world, and it is the most famous of the synagogues of Djerba's Jewish community.
Its origins are wrapped in tradition. One account holds that priests fleeing Jerusalem after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC settled here and built the synagogue with a stone or a door carried from the Temple. Another tells of a young girl, a stranger who lived alone and died here, whose body was found uncorrupted; the name Ghriba, often explained as "the isolated one" or "the stranger", is linked to her, and a recess in the synagogue marks the place associated with her. The present building owes much to a thorough renovation in the nineteenth century. Two covered halls follow one another: the second was created by roofing over a former courtyard. In the first, two columns divide the room into three parts; local tradition says a third column was deliberately left out. The Torah ark stands beneath a skylight, surrounded by wooden benches, and the twelve original windows are said to recall the twelve tribes of Israel.
Every spring, between Passover and Shavuot, the synagogue hosts a pilgrimage that culminates on Lag BaOmer, honouring Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai; pilgrims stay in the lodgings built around the courtyard, the oldest dating from the late nineteenth century. Djerba once had around twenty synagogues in its Jewish villages, and El Ghriba is the most celebrated. The synagogue has also known violence: in 2002 a truck bomb exploded outside, killing 21 people. In 2023 the island of Djerba was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Getting there
The synagogue stands in Er Riadh (formerly Hara Seghira) in the south of Djerba. The island's main town, Houmt Souk, is about 7 km to the northeast. The nearest airport is Djerba–Zarzis International Airport (DJE), about 10 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The El Ghriba Synagogue, also known as the Djerba Synagogue, is an ancient Maghrebi Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the Jewish village of Hara Seghira, several kilometres southwest of Houmt El Souk, the main town on the island of Djerba, Tunisia. The synagogue appears to be the oldest synagogue in the world.
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