Keren Yechoua Synagogue

This entry contains information known to us from a variety of sources but may not include all the information currently available. Please be in touch if you notice any inadvertent mistakes in our presentation or have additional knowledge or sources to share. Thank you. 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] 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 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] [2] Robert Attal, Regards sur les Juifs de Tunisie , (Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1979), Table II. [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. 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. Elkoubi, Denis. “Saccage d’une synagogue à Tunis”. Metula News Agency, April 16 2002. 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, Cr