Djerba, the biblical Island

INA00622

Note

Djerba, the biblical Island

Collection title

Documentaries

INA00622

Source

INA (FR)

First broadcast date

01/01/1952

Production year

1952

Abstract

In the footsteps of a young Jewish who came back to Djerba to say goodbye to his loved ones before attempting the journey on the continent, the director Philippe Este offers a tour of an island where time seems to have stood still two thousand years ago. The young man goes to Hara Kbira, the Jewish quarter of Houmt Souk, where a small community still lives in respect of the oldest customs. But the decay of houses is a reflection of its demise. In a classroom, children learn their prayers. Later in the library of the yeshiva, the future rabbis study and, in one of the thirty synagogues in the neighborhood, the boys unroll the Torah for the departing visitor. Before leaving Djerba, a Jew must participate in the pilgrimage to the Ghriba, which is held each year for three days. The pilgrims gather at the caravansary adjoining the synagogue and go in procession, accompanying the Menorah through the peaceful countryside. Back to the Jewish synagogue, they proceed to an auction of the Menorah ornaments. Bank notes pass from hand to hand, while women light candles and, in a corner, some elderly with antique faces pray. In the countryside, a group of farmers harvest by hand a poor harvest. Further, men with the help of camels carry wheat threshing; an ancient well allows irrigation of orchards.

Type

video

Production companies

The French News - Own production

Broadcaster

Other

Audiovisual form

Documentary

Primary theme

Religious Practices

Secondary themes

Tourism and cultural sites
Historical heritages / Judaism

Credits / Cast

Este Philippe - Director

Period of events

1951

Map locations

Tunisia - Chotts and desert - Djerba

Original language

French

Media running time

12m8

Additional information

This valuable documentary filmed in Djerba in May 1950 before the invasion by tourists, was presented in the "" shorts "" at Cannes in 1952. " This valuable documentary, filmed in Djerba in May 1950 before the invasion by tourists, was presented in the "short films " category at Cannes in 1952.

Context

Djerba, biblical Island

Cyril Isnart

The documentary of French News on the Tunisian island of Djerba deployed, under the garb of barely sketched fiction, a whole rhetoric of nostalgia of a golden Mediterranean age that have miraculously survived in this primitive oasis, combining a community of Jewish and Muslim population in a peaceful coexistence, living as the origins, in a world that has vanished now. A young Jew decided to leave Djerba seeking for his destiny and began a tour in the island which constitutes a description of the gestures menus of everyday life (laundry, market, and transport via donkeys), local artisans (weavers, potters, and weavers), work songs, but also spectacular rites.

While establishing an imaginary biblical of the ancient times (the Jewish community dates back to the destruction of Solomon's temple), of the Ancient Greece (Ulysses has set foot on the island of the Lotus Eaters, which is traditionally associated with Djerba) and a society with Mediterranean origins, the film oscillated between the visual description of a primitive, ordinary, poor and unattractive life with the nostalgic charm of the probable end of the world miraculously saved by the modern times. Craft techniques, boats, architecture, costumes and daily activities are presented as living relics of Homer era and the prophets of the Old Testament, as the Jewish community and its rites, who will become the descendants, still intact, of the Bible’s Israelite society. A wide period of time is devoted to the synagogues and Jewish schools of the island, to the pilgrimage of Griba and to the inclusive popular procession.

Alike many Mediterranean islands, the traditional multiconfessionalism and the biblical character of Djerba have been affected by the tourism evolution in the second half of the twentieth century having dramatically changed the way of living, while preserving some cultural characteristics that were enhanced by the process of tourism development. The craft, architecture and religious festivals are part of this group, while the archaic character of the techniques and local lifestyles have fundamentally evolved toward global economic and cultural standards. Published in 1951, this fiction-report was initiated few years before the rise of tourism in Djerba, but we already heard doubts about the survival of such an oasis of purity. Actually, it is in 1954 that the first of the three Club Med institutions was built in Djerba, while the Island is for Tunisia, an icon of the economic success of tourism development.

Miossec, J.-M 1996, the tourism in tunisia. A developing country in the international touristic space, Doctoral thesis, University of Tours.

VALENSI L. and UDOVITCH A. L. 1985, Jews in Muslim Lands. The Communities of Jerba, Contemporary archives Edition, Paris, 1985. Trad. The Last Arab Jews: The Communities of Jerba, Tunisia, Harmond Academic

Publishers, 1984.

Foucaud A. 1962, « Lotus and lotophages. One small problem of the Greek history » journal of the history of pharmacy, 50/175, pp. 422-424.

Carpenter-Latiri D. 2012, « The Ghriba in the Island of Jerba (or Djerba) or the re-invention of a shared shrine as a metonym for a multicultural Tunisia » In Sharing the sacra: the politics and pragmatics of inter-communal relations around holy places. Berghahn Books, London.