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Synagogue, La Marsa, Tunisia
The city of La Marsa is a tropical coastal suburb of the sprawling city of Tunis. Its broad, flat avenues are lined with tall palm trees, and the ocean is visible on the horizon from almost anywhere you stand. This is true too of the Keren Yeshua Synagogue of La Marsa. The tall, narrow, blue and white building lies only two blocks from the beach. The city is also a site of great antiquity – it is the home soil of the ancient civilization of Carthage. All this, and more, makes La Marsa a popular vacation destination during the summer months. [1]
Description
The Synagogue:
In more recent years, the Synagogue itself has been reduced to a vacation destination, where it was once a bustling year-round house of worship. This has occurred as Jews have become a smaller proportion of the overall population of La Marsa. At its height, the Jewish population of La Marsa was about 360 people in 1921, 131 in 1936. [2] During those same years, the total population of La Marsa had risen substantially, with 3,001 people in 1926, and 5,669 people by 1936. [3]
The city has always hosted visitors and vacationers – Jews and non-Jews alike have been coming to La Marsa by train in droves since the construction of the TGM railroad in 1872. In the early 1900s, these Jewish visitors and residents maintained a culture of small private oratories that ran family services during the summer. Such private endeavors culminated in the construction of the Synagogue of La Marsa in 1923. It was private donations that made the creation of the Synagogue possible. Saveur Ichoua Kisraoui, a prominent proprietor from L’Ariana, Tunisia, significantly contributed to the project, and the Synagogue therefore bears his first name. [4] The role of private donors was acknowledged in a ceremony honoring the laying of the first brick of the synagogue. In the ceremony, Doctor Hayat, President of the Board of Directors of the Tunis Hôpital Israélite, gave a speech evoking the power of tzedakah, the spirit of just and generous charity. [5]
The architecture of La Marsa is Andalusian in style, but it is painted in the famous blue and white colors of Tunsia’s Sidi Bou Saïd. It prominently features a unique and ornate octagonal hekhal, made in Switzerland by master cabinetmakers. Panels on the base of the hekhal feature the names of founders and donors, further emphasizing the importance of private community in the formation of this Synagogue. [6] Overall, the synagogue is unusual yet classical, effortlessly Tunisian yet traditionally Jewish – a gem that stands apart even in the glamorous tropical city of La Marsa.
Recent History:
The Synagogue has seen difficult days since its creation. It has sometimes been called “The Synagogue of Miracles” because it has managed to survive more than one serious threat. In one probably apocryphal story, it was set to be destroyed in Allied bombing campaigns during World War II, due to its proximity to a German command headquarters. It is said that the Synagogue only avoided destruction because an American bomber spied the Star of David on the top of the building and diverted his path. [7]
Then, in 2002, the Synagogue did face real destruction. In April of that year, visitors unlocked the Synagogue to find it had been desecrated. The attackers had broken in through a window, threw prayer books onto the ground, tearing some and lighting others on fire. They covered the Teba with a Palestinian flag, and on the walls they pasted portraits of Yasser Arafat. They left without taking any valuables, indicating that money was not the focus of the invasion. [8]
Despite these events, the bones of the Synagogue are still intact, though in some places it is very worse for wear. It is still used for services in the summer, though recent visitors note that it is more and more difficult to get enough people for a minyan, a minimum number of people required to begin worship. [9]
Sources
Notes:
[1] Peter Morris and Daniel Jacobs, Tunisia: The Rough Guide, (London: The Rough Guides, 1995), 118-119. Accessed July 12, 2018.
[2] Robert Attal, Regards sur les Juifs de Tunisie, (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1979), Table II.
[3] Paul Sebag, Tunis: Histoire d’une Ville, (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998), 455.
[4] Robert Hagége, O! Ariana, Petite Jerusalem, (Paris: Imprimerie ALVI, 1987), 30.
[5] Colette Bismuth-Jarrassé and Dominique Jarrassé, Synagogues de Tunisie: Monuments d’une Histoire et d’une Identité, (Paris: Éditions Esthétiques du Divers, 2010), 264.
[6] Ibid, 266.
[7] "Keren Yutcha Synagogue of La Marsa," Wikipedia, last modified December 23, 2016.
[8] Denis Elkoubi, “Saccage d’une synagogue à Tunis”, Metula News Agency, April 16 2002, http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guysen.com%2Fmena.php%3Fsid%3D115.
[9] Hatem Bourial, “La synagogue de la Marsa entre hier et aujourd’hui”, Webdo Tunisia, September 11 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20171216043814/http://www.webdo.tn/2017/09/11/synagogue-de-marsa-entre-hier-aujourdhui/.
Bibliography:
A Summer in La Goulette, directed by Férid Boughedir. Aired December 25, 1996. Paris: Les Filmes du Losange, 1996. DVD, 100 minutes. Accessed July 12, 2018.
Abramski-Bligh, Irit. “La Marsa”, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: K-S. Edited by Shmuel Spector, Geoffrey Wigoder, et al. New York: New York University Press, 2001.
Attal, Robert. Regards sur les Juifs de Tunisie. Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1979.
Bismuth-Jarrassé, Colette, and Dominique Jarrassé. Synagogues de Tunisie: Monuments d’une Histoire et d’une Identité. Paris: Éditions Esthétiques du Divers, 2010. Accessed July 12, 2018.
Bourial, Hatem. “La synagogue de la Marsa entre hier et aujourd’hui”. Webdo Tunisia, September 11 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20171216043814/http://www.webdo.tn/2017/09/11/synagogue-de-marsa-entre-hier-aujourdhui/. Accessed July 12, 2018.
Elkoubi, Denis. “Saccage d’une synagogue à Tunis”. Metula News Agency, April 16 2002. http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guysen.com%2Fmena.php%3Fsid%3D115. Accessed July 12, 2018.
Hagége, Robert. O! Ariana, Petite Jerusalem. Paris: Imprimerie ALVI, 1987. Accessed August 28, 2018.
"Keren Yutcha Synagogue of La Marsa," Wikipedia, last modified December 23, 2016. Accessed July 9, 2018.
Parks, Richard. “The Jewish Quarters of Interwar Paris and Tunis: Destruction, Creation, and French Urban Design”. Jewish Social Studies 17, no. 1, (Fall 2010): 67-87. Accessed July 12, 2018.
Additional information:
The Synagogue of La Marsa was featured briefly in a 1996 Tunisian film, A Summer in La Goulette, which explores interfaith relationships between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Tunisia on the eve of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. [8] For those interested in a snippet of Jewish life in Tunis in the last years of its vibrancy, A Summer in La Goulette is an excellent recommendation. A copy of this film, in French, can be found on Youtube.
Write up produced by Madeleine Turner, July 2018.
Photos Courtesy of Chyrstie Sherman, Summer 2016.