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The Passover Haggadah is a unique ritual text because it is used in a religious ceremony celebrated at home with the participation of the entire family. The children are at the center of the event. Since the text is primarily Hebrew, whoever led the seder in various Jewish communities felt compelled to translate the text to the language spoken by Jews in that community so that the content of the Haggadah would be clear to all the participants and their children enabling them to fulfill the commandment 'And you will tell your son.' For this reason we find Haggadot in many Jewish languages. The Haggadah of the Jews of Djerba includes a passage in Arabic, which, according to the author of this article, does not appear in any other version. This Haggadah adds, after the passage: 'At first our fathers were idolators' an adaptation of three midrashic traditions on the Patriarch Abraham and how he came to acknowledge and believe in the one God even though he lived in a totally idolatrous environment. The article surveys the various Djerban traditions in which the passage appears, councluding that this text came to be included in the Djerban custom no later than the early eighteenth century. The text is presented revealing the variations in the way it was written, though changes of content were few and insignificant. Obviously the text is written in a very vulgar form of Judeo-Arabic as befits its function and purpose. A literary analysis of the text reveals how the midrashim were adapted to the seder service. Details that were irrelevant to the educational purpose of the seder were omitted and others were altered in order to fit better into the story of the Exodus from Egypt. In conclusion, the text is a witness to the dynamic character of the seder among the Jews of Djerba and a unique expression of the Passover Haggadah tradition in Djerba. In addition to its special context it may be added to the midrashic traditions concerning the Patriarch Abraham adding a unique Djerban dimension to them.

The author describes the ancient synagogue of Hara Saghira on the island of Jerba in Southern Tunisia, perhaps the most famous synagogue in North Africa. By a study of the design and comparison with other synagogues on the island he arrives at a reconstruction of the original form of the building. His main point is that one the two portions of the present interior was originally a peristyle. The general layout of the synagogues on Jerba is reminiscent of the type of synagogue common in Mediterranean countries in the centuries immediately after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Taking the Weberian use of the term "secularization" as a point of departure, the author questions a recent identification of the term with the abandonment of religious beliefs per se. He shows that an abandoning of religious beliefs, which can be effected either through the eradication or the effacement (terms he posits in his typology of religious changes) of religious symbols, is not necessarily an index of secularization. The two concepts in turn are demonstrated to be distinct phenomena growing out of very different sociological conditions and circumstances. Three cases of symbolic change which occurred in a Djerban synagogue in Israel are discussed and the analysis is extended through a comparison with an African ritual. The three Djerban examples in the Israeli environment and the African ritual were found to be instances of effacement. In all four cases the very act of abandonment of the religious symbols, which was due to the fact that the particular symbols in question no longer conforms with the experiential situation of the actors, led to a reaffirmation of the symbols.

This article deals with one aspect of the cultural and social problems encountered by Tunisian Jews in the course of their absorption in Israel. The article concentrates on the study of one of the outstanding occupations distinguishing the community — the publication of the works of Jewish sages, especially from Djerba Island. The publication of religious books, most of which are commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud, was a common phenomenon among the Jews of Djerba Island in particular. If the author of the work was dead, the publication of the work by the descendants raised the latter's social status since it proved that learning and wisdom were part of their family legacy. It also contained an element of honour for one's parents. After immigration to Israel another motive was added to the wish to publish the religious commentaries of a father or other relative — the desire to rescue these writings from oblivion in view of the decline of religious tradition and the secularization process among members of the Tunisian community The activity involved in publication among South Tunisian Jews is thus studied against the background of a rich religious-cultural tradition in which importance was attached to writing and publication and a present which is conceived as an age of decline and degeneration as far as religion is concerned. The amount of books published and circulated is relatively large considering the potential reader market — Jews who immigrated to Israel from South Tunisia. The findings reveal that the relatively wide circulation is not to be attributed to an improvement in their economic situation or the desire of people for prestige and social recognition. These factors explain only part of the phenomenon. A fuller explanation may be presented in symbolic and cultural terms. By engaging in publication or financing it, people express their respect for the deceased, especially if the authors are their ancestors. From this point of view, the content of the book is unimportant because the books as such has a religious value of its own and it is intended to express the loyalty of children to their fathers. This phenomenon may also be defined as the ritualization of literature. Another aspect of this ritualization is that a magical protective power is attached to the book i.e. the latter serve as amulets. This ritualization is apparently a substitute for the numerous specific religious acts many of which are no longer performed today. Instead of them, various activities to which a defusive religious value is attached, are now making their appearance.

Ever since the early 1970s, the dynamic approach of "situational ethnicity" has been widely accepted in ethnic studies. However, since then little progress has been made in the field. This paper seeks to link "situational ethnicity" with the older cultural approach and thereby to advance ethnic studies both in theory and in methodology. A series of comparable ethnic incidents are presented with the aim of uncovering the nature of our Israeli ethnicity. An earlier version of the thesis of this paper appeared in English in Ethos 4 (1976).

The paper examines the nature of the changes in ritual that occurred in an Israeli ethnic synagogue and their symbolic expressions, particularly the tension between citizenship and ethnicity. Certain events taking place in, or concerning, a particular synagogue were studied. The symbolic expression of the changes was found to be a means of communion of the worshipper with his new heterogeneous environment. The symbolic reference was now wider and the symbolic changes implied a shift in a relationship formerly obtained. In order to analyse the symbolic changes more definitely, the author developed a typology of religious changes comprising several types of symbolic changes of which the examples in this paper fall into the category of "innovation."

יתרונה של היסטוריה מקומית הוא במורכבות שהיא תורמת לדיון ההיסטוריוגרפי ובייחוד להיסטוריה ההשוואתית ולנטייתה ליצור תזות גורפות. שפע המקורות שהותירו אחריהן הקהילות היהודיות במיוחד באי ג'רבה בתקופה הקולוניאלית מאפשר מחקר היסטורי וסוציולוגי עשיר בפרטים. אלה מאפשרים להרכיב תמונה מקומית וייחודית אשר בה בעת משמשת גם מקרה מבחן לדיון היסטוריוגרפי השוואתי בדבר ההבדלים בין יהודי ארצות הנצרות לאלה של ארצות האסלאם. נראה כי הפרמטרים המקובלים במחקר מסוג זה, המתמקדים בנסיבות היסטוריות כלליות ובמאפיינים של דתיות אשכנזית לעומת ספרדית, אינם בהכרח עונים על מכלול ההבדלים בין יהודי ארצות הנצרות לבין אלה של ארצות האסלאם. העיון מקרוב בפסיקה של חכמי ג'רבה שופך אור חדש על דיון היסטוריוגרפי זה

Pendant longtemps, les historiens ont considéré que le Maghreb avait “bénéficié” d’un choc culturel venu d’Occident, qui avait révolutionné ses modes de vie et de pensée et l’avait fait basculer dans la modernité. Le cas de la Tunisie aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles permet de relativiser cette thèse en montrant comment une double influence des Lumières orientales et occidentales a permis le développement d’une vie publique et culturelle où les communautés juives et musulmanes, écartées également du pouvoir colonial, ont pu vivre dans un dialogue constant jusqu’à l’aube des affrontements idéologiques du XXe siècle. Des chercheurs français, tunisiens et israéliens ont ainsi participé à ce volume, fruit d’une rencontre qui eut lieu à la Sorbonne en avril 2003.