Ile de Jerba Off The Beaten Path

As you may have already seen on previous photos, the inside of the Ghriba is beautifully decorated with earthenware tiles. The colors are mainly blues but they use also much brown. If you enlarge this picture and the next one, you will see that the design is always geometric but that each area hold a different design of tiles.

On this picture, a text in Hebraic fonts is written on both side of a door. I would like to give the meaning of this text but I am unable to read it ! Is there anybody that might give me this meaning ? Thanks in advance !

The two Jewish communities do not mix. Jews from Hara Kebira are wealthier than those from Hara Sghira and consider themselves as more religious. They come to the Ghriba only for the pilgrimage and otherwise, attend small synagogues close to their home.

The offspring of the Cohanim live in "Hara Sghira", the Small Jewish District, which is a part of the village of Er Riadh. There are about fifty families remaining, that have not emigrated to Israël in the 50s. Most of them work in the Ghriba.

This poster recalls in four languages, Arab, French, English and German the history of the Ghriba.and appeals to the generosity of the visitors for the maintenance of this holy place, in order to sustain the rabbis that dedicate their life to the study of the Holy Books.

On the right, the large building is the "oukala" or caravanserai that is used at the time of the pilgrimage, each year in may (in 2005 it will be 26 and 27 May). Poor pilgrims will be lodged in the "oukala" and a temporary cosher restaurant will be open.

The road from Er-Riadh leads to an enclosure wall with an arched entrance that opens into a block of several white buildings.

I visited the Ghriba several times and last time was on April 9th 2002. On April 11th 2002, a suicide bomber drove a gas truck to the proximity of the synagogue. The ensuing explosion resulted in the death of twenty one people, among them fourteen German tourists.

The Ghriba is surrounded on three sides by olive tree orchards. Most are very old. I doubt that the oldest one have been planted at the time the first synagogue was built but olive trees like the one of the picture may be several centuries old.