Tunis תוניס

When Kairouan emptied, the learning of Ifriqiya passed to Tunis. The community here was old, spoke Arabic and kept its own custom; it was called the Twansa—"the Tunisians".

The Grana. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Jews from Livorno began to arrive—descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese exiles, subjects of the Duke of Tuscany, with European connections and European dress. They were called Grana (from Livorno's Hebrew name). They did not merge with the Twansa: their own synagogue, their own cemetery, their own court, their own levies, their own shechitah and their own rabbis—and for a century and a half fairly cold relations. Two communities in one city is a rare thing in Jewish history; they were joined only under the French, at the end of the nineteenth century, and not willingly but by order.

The Hara. The Jewish quarter of Tunis was called the Hara. Out of it came rabbis whose books were read across the Maghreb—among them Rabbi Yitzhak Taieb, whose Erech ha-Shulchan stands in Tunisian homes to this day.

The end. In 5703 (the winter of 1942–43) Tunis was held for half a year by the Germans: there were levies, hostages and labour camps, and only the swift defeat in Africa prevented worse. After 5708 the community began to leave; after 5727 (1967) nearly all of it left, for France and for Israel. Jewish Tunis ended; Tunisian Jewry remained—on Djerba and in Bat Yam.