The Grand Synagogue of Tunis () is a

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

inside the Tunisian capital of

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

History

20th century

The idea for a synagogue was originally requested by the 19th-century Italian Jewish statesman , and finally established in 1937 by French architect , who chose to design it in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

. The synagogue was shut down by Nazi Germany during the German occupation of Tunisia, but resumed operations after the country was liberated by Allied forces. In 1967, anti-Jewish rioters motivated by the then-ongoing

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

trashed and looted the synagogue, burning it to the ground and destroying the sacred

Torah scrolls A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tora ...

, resulting in the abandonment of the building. In the

1990s File:1990s decade montage.png, From top left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War ...

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ( ar, زين العابدين بن علي, translit=Zayn al-'Ābidīn bin 'Alī; 3 September 1936 – 19 September 2019), commonly known as Ben Ali ( ar, بن علي) or Ezzine ( ar, الزين), was a Tunisian politician ...

funded the building's restoration.

21st century

In 2011

Islamic extremist Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism, or radical Islam, is used in reference to Extremism, extremist beliefs and behaviors which are associated with the Islam, Islamic religion. These are controversial terms with varying definitions, ranging ...

rioters attacked the synagogue and damaged it, chanting Khaybar, Khaybar during the riot.

Tariq Ahmad, Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon Tariq Mahmood Ahmad, Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon (born 3 April 1968), is a British-Pakistani businessman and a Conservative life peer. He was appointed Minister of State for the Commonwealth and United Nations, and later for South Asia; then Cen ...

toured the Grand Synagogue during a two-day visit to Tunisia in early June 2022. On 24 June 2022, a person ran towards the synagogue and stabbed two officers, lightly injuring them. Authorities identified the stabbing as a

terrorist attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

and said its perpetrator had previously been arrested on terrorism and violence-related charges.

References

{{reflist Synagogues in Tunisia 1937 establishments in Tunisia 1937 in Judaism Religious buildings and structures in Tunis Antisemitism in Tunisia