Hundreds expected at Tunisia's revived Jewish pilgrimage
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-Pastor-Dale-Morgan-
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May 8, 2012, 5:14:09 AM5/8/12
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Perilous
Times
Hundreds expected at Tunisia's revived Jewish pilgrimage
Nearly 1,500 Jews are expected on Thursday at Tunisia's Ghriba
synagogue, the oldest in Africa, reviving a pilgrimage scaled back
last year amid security fears, organisers said Monday.
Some 200 pilgrims from France and Italy had already arrived on the
tourist island 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of Tunis and 300
others were expected on Thursday, chief organiser Rene Trabelsi
told AFP.
Hundreds of Tunisian Jews were also expected to participate in the
two-day pilgrimage under tight security.
Festivities around the annual pilgrimage to the synagogue on the
island of Djerba were cut back last year as Tunisia struggled to
stabilise in the wake of the protests that forced former president
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee after 23 years in power.
In April Trabelsi said a successful 2012 pilgrimage would "show
the world that Tunisians accept difference and that the new
Tunisia is not as Islamist and radical as some think".
"It's a country that respects religious minorities as always," he
added.
The pilgrimage is linked to the Jewish holiday of Lag Baomer and
generally attracts thousands of Jews from Europe, Israel and the
US.
The Jewish community in Muslim Tunisia has seen its numbers
dwindle from 100,000 in 1956, when the country won independence
from France, to around 1,000 currently.