In light of the recent attack that took place at the annual Jewish pilgrimage to Djerba in May 2023, Daniel Lee, a historian at Queen Mary University of London and member of the British Tunisian Society, will discuss the past, present and future of the Jews of Tunisia. 

In 1945 a historic Jewish population numbering more than 100,000 lived in Tunisia, where they were spread out across the county’s main towns and cities. Jews played leading roles in all aspects of the country’s economic, cultural and political life. Just as Jewish performers thrived in music, cinema and theatre during the inter-war years, Jews assumed important positions in the nationalist and Communist cause. 

The creation of a Jewish state, decolonisation and the local reverberations of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, led to Jews’ mass migration. Today, fewer than 1,500 Jews live in the country where they are mostly concentrated on the remote island of Djerba.