c. 1999 Religion News Service

TUNIS, Tunisia _ It is a typical Friday evening at the elegant apartment of Michele Lycia and her husband. Half a dozen middle-aged Tunisians are gathered for dinner.

They are old friends, these guests who dine on steaming bowls of couscous, clink glasses of scotch and greet each other with the words echoed by Jews around the world:”Shabbat shalom.”(Hebrew for”Have a peaceful Sabbath”).

The meal-time conversation is carried out in flawless French mixed with a sprinkling of Arabic, Tunisia’s official language. It touches on politics and business before settling on children _ sons and daughters living in France, England or the United States.

They are the children who left Tunisia for work or study, and who will never come back to live.

The Friday night guests are the remnants of a once flourishing Jewish community that left a powerful mark on the economy and culture of this North African country. Just over 50 years ago, Tunisia’s Jewish population numbered more than 100,000. Today, only about 2,500 Jews remain, most of them split between the capital Tunis, and the southern island of Djerba.

At first, persecution and discrimination chased the Jews from Tunisia. Now,time is taking care of the rest.”The Jewish problem will resolve itself,”said Michele Lycia, recalling with irony a statement once made by Tunisia’s former president, Habib Bourguiba.”The young will leave, and the old will die.” Those who remain in Tunisia are tilting against demographic odds, determined to keep the country’s Jewish traditions alive. On their side are a handful of Jewish schools, government good will and recent statistics indicating that in Djerba, at least, the Jewish population is once again growing slightly.

Across the Muslim Middle East and North Africa, the story is largely the same; Jewish communities are dwindling and dying out.

Only about 5,000 Jews remain in Morocco, compared to more than 250,000 only 30 years ago. Jews have all but disappeared from Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

In Iran, the status of one of the region’s oldest and still one of its largest Jewish communities is uncertain. In March, security officers arrested 13 Jews on charges of spying for Israel. Iranian Jews now fear a larger crackdown may take place.

It’s unclear exactly when Judaism arrived to Tunisia. Some scholars trace its roots to King Solomon’s time, when Jews first settled in Djerba, a tiny, sun-washed island that houses one of the world’s oldest Jewish synagogues.

According to other accounts, Jews first arrived to Djerba carrying doors from Jerusalem’s first Temple, destroyed in 586 B.C.

Beginning in the 15th century, yet another wave of Jews arrived to Tunisia from Spain and Italy. The two groups _ Djerba’s stolid merchants, and the Europeanized artists and intellectuals of Tunis _ had little in common, and mostly went their separate ways.

The fortunes of both rose and fell with each successive foreign invasion. World War II was a low point, when Nazi occupiers seized the property of Tunisian Jews and shipped them to concentration camps.

It was only after the war, however, when the real exodus began. A newly independent Tunisia passed a series of anti-Jewish decrees, and destroyed synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish quarters in an ostensible quest for urban renewal.

During the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in 1967, Muslims burned down the Great Synagogue of Tunis. A smattering of other bloody incidents _ including a 1985 massacre of five worshipers in a synagogue by a Tunisian guard _ didn’t help matters.

Overall, nearly 100,000 Jews fled Tunisia, seeking homes in Europe, the United States and Israel.

Today, only scattered traces of their legacy remains. Two kosher butchers and a pair of kosher restaurants still operate in the Tunis area. There are also five working synagogues, including the massive, rebuilt Great Synagogue,which sits locked and guarded on Tunis’ leafy Avenue de la Liberte during non-service hours.

And there is Rene Chiche, the elegant, 90-year-old leader of Tunis’ Jewish community, who talks at length about services for indigent and elderly, but falls into icy silence when asked how Jews are treated here.”I live here, but I don’t do politics,”Chiche snaps.”I pay my taxes, but I don’t do politics.” Surprisingly, only about 40 percent of Tunisia’s Jews have ever visited Israel. Some are financially strapped, others prefer to visit relatives in Europe. The government insists there are no travel restrictions, although it is unclear whether any exist in practice.”There is no relationship with Israel,”said Tunisia’s Grand Rabbi, Haim Madar.”We’re Tunisian, that’s it.” Nonetheless, public sentiment toward Tunisian Jews often rides the volatile currents of Israeli-Arab relations. That’s been particularly true for Michele Lycia, the office manager at the 3-year-old Israeli Interest Office in Tunis.

Under Israel’s former hawkish prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the office ground to a virtual halt, and Lycia was cold shouldered by some of her Muslim friends.”I told them, `don’t forget I’m a Tunisian, and you turned your back at the time of Netanyahu,”she said.”Don’t forget, Tunisia is my country also.” But officially, the signals are positive, as the government of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali takes pains to separate foreign from domestic policy.”The Jews who remain here practice their faith freely and enjoy the same rights as full-fledged citizens as the rest of the population,”said government spokesman Oussama Romdhani, offering a view supported by the U.S. government.

Official funding has helped restore synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, and the government has sponsored seminars on religious tolerance. Tunisia’s tourist-driven economy has also found a new gold mine _ thousands of foreign Jews with Tunisian roots now visit Djerba’s ancient El Ghirba Synagogue during the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Lag ba-Omer.”Our impression is that the government is also interested in attracting Jews to come back to Tunisia,”said Gideon Behar, deputy chief at the Israeli Interest Office.”They have been here for thousands of years and they have always been part of the society. And of course, they are important economically for the country’s development.” At the two-story Lubavitch Institution, where a sign welcomes visitors in Hebrew, French and Arabic, Rachel Pinson also wants Tunisia’s Jews to return.

Pinson and her husband immigrated here from Eastern Europe almost 40 years ago. They established the only existing Jewish school in Tunis, with classes from first grade through high school.

The school is connected to the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish movement.

Never mind that the school’s student body has plummeted from a peak of 300 to only 80 pupils today. Never mind, too, that most graduates will continue their studies and lives abroad.”We’re not afraid the Jewish community will die out,”Pinson said.”There are people who will come back, and who will open up business here. I’m optimistic about this.” IR END BRYANT