The Torah VeHaim Synagogue for the Immigrants from Tunisia

The story

On Bezalel Street, in Neighborhood Bet, stands a community of immigrants from Tunisia. The name of the community — “Torah VeHaim” — is the name of the yeshiva that Rabbi Haim Huri founded in Gabès, in the south of Tunisia, and by that same name was also called the synagogue that was built in Beersheba in the name of the rabbi, who is buried in the Old Cemetery of the city. What is known about the community with certainty comes from two official sources, and both of them speak of the same address. In the associations registry of the Ministry of Justice there is registered on 21 July 1983 the association “Committee of the Worshippers of the Torah VeHaim Synagogue for the Immigrants from Tunisia”, at 24 Bezalel Street, Neighborhood Bet, Beersheba. The association was struck from the registry on 20 September 2001. The community itself continued: it appears today in the register of synagogues of the Religious Council of Beersheba, at the same address, with the name of the gabbai and the times of prayer. The striking of an association is not the closing of a synagogue, and the two records together say exactly that: a committee of worshippers that organized itself in 1983 in order to run the place was dissolved eighteen years later — and the minyan remained. The Jewry of Tunisia in Beersheba is far larger than one community. In the associations registry of the city two more synagogues are registered in the name of Rabbi Haim Huri — one in 1984 and one in 2000 — and in the year 2018 an association of the “Ahdut Synagogue for the Immigrants from Tunisia and Djerba” was registered. In the Old City stands the community “La Ghriba”, whose name is the name of the ancient synagogue on the island of Djerba, and in the city there also operates a center for the preservation of the heritage of the Jews of Tunisia.

• Communities
• Beersheba