You know you have reached the Jewish district by the sign of a menorah, painted in typical local turquoise on a white wall. On a warm spring evening in Hara Kebira, heart of the Jewish community of Djerba, the kosher stalls are cooking their street food, kebabs browning on barbecues and sizzling pans of brik — the crispy pastry envelopes filled with egg or tuna and rounded off with an explosive burst of harissa sauce.
The island in the south-east of Tunisia is one of the last Jewish outposts in the Arab world, home to a 1,300-strong community that has lived there since at least Roman antiquity and, according to legend, long before.
Its founders were said to be refugee priests from the Destruction of the Temple — a tradition that probably grew out of the high proportion of Cohanim within the community.
Legend has it too that the priests brought with them some objects from the Temple, now buried beneath the most venerable of the island’s synagogues, El Ghriba. While the current building dates from the 19th century, it stands on an older religious site.
The worshippers believe they are walking on a holy ground, removing their shoes before they step on to the palm mats inside the sanctuary. El Ghriba lends its name to Djerba’s most famous Jewish offering too, the annual festival that reaches its celebratory peak on the eve of Lag Ba’Omer.
Pilgrims throng the synagogue to light candles: cries of chazak uvaruch — strength and blessing — greet the downing of another tot of boukha, fig liquor: in the courtyard the audience sways to an Arab folk band fronted by a kippah-wearing singer.
As the kabbalistic party rolls on, towards the evening the local Jewish girls appear in their finery, their mothers perhaps spotting a potential shidduch among the many expat Tunisian Jews who return for the festivities.
Security was tighter than ever this year, owing to the presence of the country’s Prime Minister, who was keen to promote the Ghriba as an oasis of religious co-existence in the Middle East. At the synagogue gates, masked soldiers by an armoured car dodged thrusting tourist cameras.
When you enter the Talmud Torah in Hara Kebira, you could be walking back into a past century — not a whiteboard in sight, a bare classroom adorned only by a stack of fusty books.
By contrast, the Hasdrubal Prestige Thalassa and Spa, the base for our stay, is a showpiece of modern comfort, a spacious complex of arched passages and art-lined walls.
Djerba’s claims as a holiday destination have been recently enhanced by the reopening of Club Med there, and the Hasdrubal Prestige, the grandest of the island’s seven five-star hotels, lies close to the golf course and casino.
The balcony to my junior suite was large enough for a cocktail party, overlooking the garden and the vast lagoon pool with seawater and freshwater basins. Beyond lay a stretch of beach and gentle sea.
There was plentiful fish on the various menus and the hotel was happy to oblige one observant Jewish visitor who had his seabream grilled in foil for reasons of kashrut.
Known as the ‘island of the thousand palm trees’ — and the island of the lotus eaters from the Odyssey — Djerba itself is roughly a third larger than the Isle of Wight, and so flat that you fear for its future if ever the sea were to rise.
There’s more to see beyond its beaches and Jewish heritage too. If you have children, you may want to take a trip to the crocodile farm — hundreds of crocodiles have been imported from the Nile and Madagascar to live here.
Elsewhere, places to visit include Guellala, village of pots — the painted pottery you’ll see around Djerba is almost certainly made by the potters who live here, many of whom are Berbers, and whose workshops are open for visitors to look around.
At the Foundouk Guellala de Poterie, you can learn about the local craft and see a demonstration at the wheel, watched by a pair of idle camels that are now just pets; their ancestors would have once been put to work turning the antique olive press below.
Outside the pottery, a clay oven stands like a sentinel: you would put your couscous in a holed pot on the upper rack and it would be steamed by the meat and vegetables cooking beneath.
Another unmissable taste of Djerba is a morning exploring the market at Houmt Souk, a maze of alleyways among those traditional whitewashed buildings.
You can shop for spices or straw hats, take your fish fresh from the slab and have cooked straightaway at the “pick and grill”, or buy a mezuzah case from one of the Jewish jewellers, celebrated for their silverwork.
You might come across a calligrapher in a boutique that is barely a hole in the wall or Mohamed Khacha, who for more than 50 years has been practising the traditional craft of basketry.
And who, as his daughter proudly tells us, makes the mats for the Ghriba Synagogue.
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