Today the Djerba community of about 1,300 preserves ancient traditions and lives with a sense of community and heritage that is rarely seen in the Diaspora. Our group visited the Jewish neighborhoods a number of times. They are home to numerous active synagogues, schools for boys and girls from kindergarten through high school, kosher restaurants and bakeries.
Today the Djerba community of about 1,300 preserves ancient traditions and lives with a sense of community and heritage that is rarely seen in the Diaspora.
One of the things that struck me most when visiting the Djerba community was the utterly natural way in which Judaism was practiced and experienced. There was no pretense or artifice—it was simply the fabric of their lives, the very skin in which they lived.
The sense of community was equally extraordinary. On Friday afternoons before Shabbat, teenagers would arrive at the communal bakery on motorbikes, carrying trays of challah dough prepared by their mothers. These were baked collectively by the entire community in preparation for Shabbat. Later in the day, they returned with their families’ hamin—the traditional Shabbat stew—which was placed in the communal oven on Friday afternoon and retrieved after synagogue services on Shabbat morning to be eaten for lunch.
About half an hour before Shabbat, the chief rabbi walks out to the public square and blows the shofar to announce its arrival. This beautiful custom dates back to the time of the Second Temple, when one of the priests would stand atop the Temple walls and blow six trumpet blasts to signal the people to close their shops, cease work, go home, prepare for Shabbat, and light their candles.
