Tunisia Jews

About 1,500 Tunisian Jews live in Tunisia today and they are spread in different areas of the country, from Sousse to La Goulette, Djerba and La Fayette neighborhood in Tunis. Their presence dates back to over 2 300 years.
They came to Tunisia across the sea, landed on the island of Djerba and then dispersed to many areas of Tunisia, integrating into local societies ... Even after the Islamic conquests; Jews maintained their presence, their temples and their beliefs, developing their own lifestyle, side by side with Muslim communities...
Since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the British government supported the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine, Zionists began grabbing Palestinian land by force. The creation of Israel was followed by policies of marginalization, murder and displacement of Palestinian Muslim families, especially after the 1967 war... amid full support from Britain and America. ... Tunisian Jews had to face retaliatory threats on their synagogues and properties in sporadic violent shows of solidarity with the Palestinian people...
Israel took advantage of these events to encourage the immigration of Tunisian Jews ... Some families fled from Tunisia leaving their homes and neighborhoods behind...
But they kept on visiting Tunisia every year for the pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue in Djerba for festivities that last 9 days...
After the 14 January revolution, Israel has tried to lure Jews from Tunisia by planting rumors using tactics of scaremongering and intimidation about Tunisia’s future, after the dictator Ben Ali fled the country ... but they refused to leave, clinging to their properties and acknowledging the good treatment from their Muslim neighbors and Tunisian authorities alike.
Through our filming of this vibrant community daily life and through archive images dating back to the mid 20th Century, we wanted to show the living conditions of this minority, trying to understand the roots of the love they have for their homeland and their attachment to Tunisia, a country they have been living in without any interruption for the last 2300 years.