The Center for the Preservation of the Heritage of the Jews of Tunisia

The story

The Center for the Preservation of the Heritage of the Jews of Tunisia stands at the corner of Yehuda Halevi and Shimon Bar Giora streets, in the northwest of Beersheba. In the register of synagogues of the city's Religious Council it is listed as a synagogue in the Sephardi rite, but its name states its second role: it is not only a place of prayer of those who came from Tunisia, but a place intended to preserve their heritage. The Jews of Tunisia are not one community in the city: in that same register there also appears a synagogue by the name “La Ghriba”, after al-Ghriba on the island of Djerba, the oldest synagogue in Tunisia and a focus of pilgrimage for its Jews — that is, two different Tunisian traditions, that of the mainland and that of the island, received in Beersheba two separate houses. The place in which the center stands holds a further layer: the triangle of Yehuda Halevi, Shimon Bar Giora and Rabbi Akiva streets is also the place of an old quarry, from which Ottoman rule cut the stones for the building of the Old City of Beersheba.

• Communities
• Beersheba