17 May, 2006
Thousands of people have attended the annual Lag B’Omer pilgrimage to the Tunisian island of Djerba. The two-day celebration at the Ghriba Synagogue marks the end of a legendary plague 2,000 years ago. In 2002, the ancient synagogue became the site of an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in which 21 people, mostly German tourists, were killed. The synagogue is the oldest Jewish house of worship in Africa and serves one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities. The president of the European Jewish Congress, Tunisian-born Pierre Besnainou, and the leader of the French Jewish community, Roger Cukierman, were among the participants.
