Is the phenomenon a Tunisian one alone? To judge by certain events of the last two years, several countries have decided to demonstrate, very officially, their interest in their Jewish community:
After the commemorations in France of the Emancipation of the Jews, we had, in March 1992, “JÜDISCHE LEBENSWELTEN” [Jewish Lifeworlds], the highly prestigious Berlin exhibition — hundreds of paintings, art objects, photographs, lectures. It was the occasion for Germany to do honor to Jewish Culture of yesterday and of today.
1992: 500 years later (the Fall of Granada with the expulsion of the Arabs, the discovery of America), Spain also commemorates the sinister Edict of Expulsion of the Jews promulgated by Isabella the Catholic in March 1492. King Juan Carlos then attested, in a symbolic speech delivered in a Synagogue, to his country’s will to turn a distant page of History, which had remained frozen until then.
May 1993, in its turn, Poland solemnly commemorates the 50th anniversary of the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto, in the presence of Mr. Y. RABIN, Prime Minister of Israel.
In the course of 1993, a lavish and likewise highly publicized reception of the Chief Rabbi of France by the President of the Tunisian Republic, BEN ALI. The ties between Tunisia and the Jewish diaspora of France are then very officially renewed.
Let us cite, finally, the older evolution of Morocco, which, after having chosen a Jew as Adviser to the King — André AZOULAY — reconnected with a distant tradition by appointing Mr. BERDUGO as Minister of Tourism.
What meaning should be given to all these initiatives? What sincerity should be accorded to these efforts — perfectly laudable in other respects, and which one ought, a priori, to welcome? A “marketing” operation, under the pressure of international “realpolitik,” in the light of the evolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict? Or a restoration — in certain respects exculpatory — of the image and the role that these Jewish communities truly had in these various countries? Or again, quite simply, a natural evolution whose fruition only time could allow? One certainty: in all these cases, it is plainly a matter of problematics specific to each of these countries; in a sense — let us hope — a work of Memory of these peoples upon themselves.
The Jews, notably those of France, were very divided in their reactions. Some expressed their regrets, tinged at times with suspicion, in the face of speeches judged by some to be encouraging, and by others insufficient or not followed by more significant acts. Between the optimists — at times without nuance — and the skeptics, some, finally, preferred to grant credit to the extended hands and to dialogues of a new kind, without however concealing their reservation. In the face of these events, each was able to express their feelings with a legitimate subjectivity. Only the unfolding of events should allow us to arrive at a just appraisal.
We wished to follow particularly the case of Tunisia, which has multiplied the signs of rapprochement. In May 1993, TUNISIA organized in PARIS, at UNESCO, an important Symposium, under the title “TUNISIA IN THE MIRROR OF ITS JEWISH COMMUNITY.” Mr. Abdelbaki HERMASSI, Ambassador of Tunisia to UNESCO, delivered a speech, recalling first the long history and the anthropology binding the Jews to this country where, he said, “neither colonization, nor subsequently decolonization, truly succeeded in eroding” the exemplary character “of a universe of affinities and belongings,” to judge by the works of intellectuals and artists who continued to take an interest in this shared life. Mr. HERMASSI drew a picture of the most recent history. “Certainly, we know that the vessel of history always loses something in advancing (according to Herder’s formula), and decolonization, in having given a more dignified and freer homeland to the Tunisians who had too long been deprived of citizenship, imposed upon other Tunisians the necessity of a dramatic choice between separation and assimilation, exile or settlement. By that very fact, there was harmed this cultural dichotomy of age-old harmony and daily coexistence that the conflicts with the metropole had upended. At another level, there were also the perverse effects of the Israeli-Arab conflict, which darkened the mood of our peoples and brought about a reciprocal withdrawal on both sides, into the bosom of their respective communities. But if these ties slackened, they were never broken, and we can say today that benevolence and friendship are about to recover all their rights, if, as I think, it is permitted today to augur that this historical drama is perhaps not far from reaching its end…. Today, moreover, after the change that has occurred in Tunisia, a new momentum is taking shape, a Tunisian humanism is being accomplished… Our meeting today is an illustration of it, for it is the first of its kind. It is the proof that history is not the logic of a determinism made of resentment, ruptures, and fatalities, but the fruit of our freedom and our intelligence. It did not depend on us alone that it took place, and, in paying tribute to that indefectible part of itself that is its Jewish culture, Tunisia crosses an additional threshold of sovereignty…”
The Jewish figures invited, while saluting the initiative and the innovative tone of the official speech, did not nonetheless fail to recall that there was no cause to content oneself with an idyllic vision of the past and present situation. Annie GOLDMAN insisted above all on the flourishing, the values of pluralism and democracy that the Jews had tasted during the French Protectorate, and on certain forms of discrimination, shortly after independence, that had motivated their departure. Did the Jews really have the choice of staying or leaving? Albert MEMMI expressed the wish to see a real recognition confirmed by significant acts. Lucette VALENSI, finally, then sketched — with a historian’s rigor, and more than an impressionistic painting — a photograph of the real relations between the different communities, in which a certain compartmentalization prevailed. We publish below the text of this intervention. Of this past, Tunisia wished to underscore the new turn taken: A particular Tribute was solemnly paid to Mr. Paul SEBAG, a Professor who had fought for Independence and had remained in Tunisia for a long while still after it.
It is certain that, while one must welcome this evolution, such an event organized in Tunisia, for the Tunisians — and notably the youth, who did not know this period — would have taken on a stronger symbolic meaning and an effectiveness commensurate with the media coverage accorded to the event. We wished to know what follow-up has been given to it by the Tunisians in Tunisia.
The occasion was offered to us by a journey of the “alumni of the Lycée Carnot of TUNIS,” last November. This journey allowed an encounter with current students of the Lycée Carnot — now the Lycée Habib BOURGUIBA. Certain projects favored by the Tunisians were able to be set in motion, such as the restoration of the synagogue of Ariana, a suburb of Tunis.
However, while the warm welcome both from the Officials and from the man in the street is in no way in question; while the “welcome home” or “you are children of the country” and the recollections of a shared life multiplied, the concrete signs of this rapprochement are slow to come. Having clearly questioned the Tunisian Authorities on this point and on certain simple measures (street names, teaching, media coverage, etc.), we were given to understand, in reply, that one had to “give time time.” It now falls to those in charge to bring about the encounter, in a sound pedagogical approach, of the legitimate aspirations of one side and the other. The task is certainly difficult, but in the light of the future, the stakes appear paramount.