Ile de Jerba Off The Beaten Path

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Ali Berbere is an old man who makes pottery and is happy to give you a history (in French) of pottery and the making of olive oil on Djerba. This history he explains of how they made olive oil in former times is especially interesting.

He lives in Guellala, a village on the southern end of the island. The town is sort of famous for pottery, in that a lot of the pottery found on the island comes from this town. Ali Berbere is entertaining and accomodating. In the end, you're supposed to give him a Dinar or 2 for his time. You can also buy pottery from him, or help him make some pottery. The building he lives and works in was built in Roman times, he says.

I'm not sure how to describe where he is located. If you want to find him, I imagine asking a local will get you there very quickly. He's well known in the area.

The West coast of Jerba is one of the quietest parts of the island. In contrast to the developments on the East coast, there are no tourist hotels, no great beaches and not too much to see on the West side. If peace and solitude are what you crave, then it could be the ideal place to visit.

There are 2 sights along the coast road which may be of interest to Star Wars fans. About 3km north from Ajim is an old abandoned mosque which was used as Obi Wan Kenobi's home in the original Star Wars movie. A further 8km up the road is another mosque which was also used in the same movie.

On our last day in Jerba we planned to drive down the coast road to Ajim before taking the ferry to the mainland. I'm not a huge Star Wars fan anymore though I did like it when I was younger, and I thought it would be quite interesting to see the mosques.

The coast road, however, is more of a dirt track than a road, and we were reluctant to risk our rental car on such a bad road. So we had to return to Houmt Souk and take the main road to Ajim.

Borj Jillig was the first place of interest we saw after renting a car at Jerba airport. We actually took the wrong road from the airport and ended up out on the coast. The road circled around to Houmt Souk along the North of the island so it wasn't too much of a diversion.

Borj Jillig is a lighthouse out on the West coast, constructed on the site of an earlier fort. There's not much to see out here and it's not really worth visiting unless you're in the area.

In daily life, Djerbian Jews speak Arab and French but the rituals are done both in Hebrew and in Aramean. If you enlarge this picture, you will read a benediction for the former President Habib Bourguiba, now dead. On the left, it is in French and on the right in Arab.

Other Jewish tribes arrived later. They converted local Berbers (later some of them converted to Islam) and settled in "Hara Kebira", the Big Jewish District, in the neighborhood of Houmt Souk where more than 800 of them still live. They used to have various jobs but now they are all goldsmith. This photo shows various votive plates.

On the left, the Synagogue itself is standing with its vaulted entrance. In Djerba is living the oldest Jewish community of the Maghreb (Northern Africa). The oral traditions says that when the first temple of Jerusalem was destroyed under king Nabuchodonosor, in 565 BC, the servants of the Temple, the "Cohanim" (plural of Cohen) escaped from the slaughter and sailed to Djerba with a door from the Temple that they buried where they built the first Ghriba. In the following centuries, Jews from other tribes settled in Djerba too.

This woman carries on her back a terracotta ware jar to fetch water from a village tap or a village well. This picture was taken a few years ago. Now, there are more taps and plastic jars are used instead of terracotta ware jars as they are much lighter to carry !

On this picture, the woman with a young boy wears a black Djellabah with a red stripe at the bottom (you must enlarge the photo to view it). It is the same that the woman on the previous picture wears. Though I am not sure, they might belong to the Jewish community.