The Last Jew in Sfax

by Steven Aiello (Israel)

I didn't expect to find Tunisia

I expected Tunisia to be magical, but I couldn’t have imagined this. As I sat next to Muhammad in the front of the louage, the minibuses that are the only way to get around Tunisia, we alternated listening to Jewish, Arabic, and Judeo-Arabic music on his phone, bouncing around with every bump that the old van went over. I wanted to pinch myself--I was on the way from ancient Roman sites, in a Muslim majority North African country with 2,000 years of Jewish history, and I had managed to find the only person for hours around who shared my interest in Jewish Arabic music and heritage. I had been introduced to Muhammad through a mutual friend, who vouched for him. Still, I was venturing into the unknown, when I arranged to stay at his house. It meant detouring to Sfax, an industrial town well off the tourist circuit of beaches, archeological sites, and Berber towns used as Star Wars sets. Was it worth all this stay with a stranger I had never met? Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith to really enjoy surreal travel experiences. This was a case in point. My two days with Muhammad would be the highlight of a trip steeped with rich experiences and incredible interactions. Muhammad introduced me to the wonderful world of intertwined Arab-Jewish-Muslim-Tunisian life, exactly what I had come to find. And in ways that I could have never found on my own. There were two synagogues left in his city; both close together, and one so large it was unmistakable. Alone, I could found these relics, long abandoned, although I had Muhammad to thank for getting the smaller synagogue unlocked for me to pray in. But I wouldn’t have found the synagogue in the old market area whose roof had long since caved in. I wouldn’t have known about the many shops and houses that used to belong to Jewish families. And I certainly wouldn’t have known the story for each one that Muhammad told me, who had reached out to him with old photos and stories, as he walked around tracing hundreds of years of Jewish Tunisian history and locating these vestiges of personal and collective heritage. Together, we stopped at the largest population center left in Sfax- the Jewish cemetery. And as I read out the names, in Hebrew, Muhammad’s eyes lit up. “That’s my friend’s grandfather” he said. Soon we were calling his friend, and sure enough, we had found the grandfather’s tombstone, and the friend requested that we send a photo. As the sun began to set, we stopped at a bookshop. Though I love books, most of the books were in French, and even the Arabic ones were far too advanced for my rudimentary Arabic. But we weren’t there for the books. Muhammad greeted the storeowner warmly, and then introduced me, his Jewish friend. It turned out that the owner was one of the last Jews left in Sfax, perhaps even the last one. It was an honor to meet him, and again, an experience I could have never reached alone. Eventually it was time to continue my journey. I took yet another louage, then another, and another, finally reaching the Berber outposts of southern Tunisia. From there it would be on to Djerba, one of the oldest Jewish heritage sites in the world, and eventually back to Tunis, before heading home. But the memories live on, the experience of seeing Sfax through Muhammad’s eyes will accompany me forever. Only two weeks after my trip I was in Israel, celebrating my brother’s wedding to a Jewish woman of Tunisian heritage. As the Hebrew and Arabic songs played, the Jewish and Tunisian customs mixed, I flashed back to that louage ride, a Jew and a Muslim, sitting side by side, sharing the rich musical heritage that epitomized the cultural fusion of Andalusia. Travel isn’t just about where you go, but also how you travel, and who you meet along the way. It took a Muslim to show that beneath the surface of a sleepy industrial town, there is a rich Jewish history living on in Sfax.