Bibliography

Histories, memoirs, novels, and children's books on the Jews of Tunisia, from JIMENA's library.

Explore the references, sources, and research that support Tunisia's stories and cultural content.

  • Literature and folktales

    Stories and Writers of the Jews of Tunisia

    Tunisia gave the Jewish world one of its earliest books of stories, a beloved legend about the island of Djerba, and some of the most important French writers of North Africa.

    Medieval voices

    The first book of Jewish folktales

    In the eleventh century, the city of Kairouan was one of the great centers of Jewish learning. There, Rabbi Nissim ben Jacob wrote An Elegant Composition Concerning Relief after Adversity, a collection of stories written to comfort his grieving father in law. It is often called the first medieval book of Jewish stories, and many of its stories traveled across the Jewish world.

    Folktales and legends

    The stranger of Djerba

    The name of Djerba's El Ghriba synagogue means the stranger, or the wondrous one. One legend says it was founded by priests who fled Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, carrying a stone or a door from it. Another tells of a mysterious young woman who lived alone and was found unharmed after a fire. Every year on Lag BaOmer, pilgrims still come to El Ghriba.

    Modern writers

    Between two worlds

    Albert Memmi, born in Tunis in 1920, wrote The Pillar of Salt, a novel about a Jewish boy growing up between cultures, and The Colonizer and the Colonized, read around the world. The writer Ryvel described life in the Jewish quarter of Tunis in his tales, L'Enfant de l'Oukala, and Colette Fellous and Nine Moati have written novels and memoirs of Jewish Tunis. Tunisian Jews also printed hundreds of books and newspapers in Judeo Arabic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

    Read with students

    Start with these

    • The Pillar of Salt, Albert Memmi (novel, high school)
    • Judeo Arabic Literature in Tunisia, 1850 to 1950, Yosef Tobi and Tsivia Tobi (adult)

    See all books on the Jews of Tunisia in JIMENA's bibliography →

    Sources: Nissim ben Jacob; El Ghriba synagogue; Albert Memmi.