Muslims more tolerant than westerners besides having a deep respect for Abraham through Ishmael they descend, have always exercised towards the Jews who missed a hospitality or liberality or magnanimity. Accepted
foreign, for eighteen centuries, they are still in the same position as the day of their arrival, not participating in any of the privileges reserved for citizens, but do not undergo any office of the state except tax Dhimmis, governed by the holy books, by priests and magistrates of their choice. It is true
past, every fifteen or twenty years periodically following a popular uprising caused by fanaticism or greed of the Arabs and Jews, the government intervened, restored order after the looting of some houses, and pay his protection was ready money. But these events occur with such regularity that every Jew, so little provision, drawing on his savings and put in a corner of his safe money for this kind of ransom. Also, despite the state of abjection more apparent than real in which they lived, Jews they flocked in large numbers on this point in the world where they were ultimately the most welfare and safety.
Their superiority over the Muslims was so obvious that many times the rulers, sacrificing their prejudices to their interests, attracted to their court bankers of this nation, and within the scope of benefits received, have called the most eminent state functions.
Quoiqu'émancipés completely by the French intervention in the politics of the Regency, Jews mourn the Turkish rule, and do not see in the French barely established a future competition which do not serve their interests 1a land of Africa.
This race, and that positive self-esteem has long been blunted, willingly endured the insults of the populace ignorant and rude, well knowing that, having concentrated in its hands all the wealth it has too much foresight not to see that Christians with such a role is now impossible.
Jews, like Christians indeed, live in a neighborhood that is theirs, which is located in the heart of the city. But it is not, as formerly in Germany and Italy, a ghetto where they were repressed and kept even against their will. There are no doors or walls that separate them from other people.
This is not a species of cursed city, the leper colony, where you could not go out on certain days or certain times before and whose doors had jailers, such as prisons. Jews are grouped together on the same point in their interests, for their convenience, and under the law of affinity that draws one to the other men whose passions and principles are the same.
In the East, a country of violence, anarchy and despotism, we experience more than elsewhere that need help and protection. That is to obey the same food vendors, artisans of the same trades, followers of the cult, met in the same neighborhood as members of one family in one house.
The Jewish quarter is called Hara and in fact, Hara Jews can not be translated into ghetto. Hara was at the heart of the medina, not even in the suburbs. The Jewish community has always lived near power. There was a Jewish community in Kairouan Kairouan was the capital when the Ifrikya and Mahdia time of the Fatimids and then in Tunis with Hafsids. There were even Hara in distant villages as Nafta to Jerid. All because the Muslim state had been an area of protection and association for Jews.
In Tunis, the Jews live, preferably in the street and the street Halfaouine Sidi Mehrez , around this amazing mosque, a sort of large white cube of masonry, surmounted by nine domes, which houses the remains of Sidi Mehrez, defender against the Spaniards from Tunis and common pattern of creditors and debtors, which does not quite understand.
Legend attributed the presence of Jews in the role of Sidi Mehrez was, historically, the man who helped rebuild Tunis. He was an agent of boosting economic life in the city. He personally participated in the reconstruction of the souks near his zaouïa. To achieve this it was necessary to allow Jews to live in the city. Previously, Jews living outside the city, near Mellassine. Sidi Mehrez appealed to their craftsmanship, and commercial and technical mastery of their money. For the saint, the Jewish presence in the city was vital.
Leghorn Jews called Grana (or Gornim), descended from Marranos expelled from Portugal under the constraint of the Inquisition, and many of those expelled had settled in the Tuscan ports, including Livorno, who welcomed it, mostly from 1593. Taking advantage of the large Jewish community in Tunis, Livorno managed to establish active trade relations with the regency and then to form a strong colony in the city resulting in the aggravation of the housing problem. The Livornese constituted by far the largest foreign community in Tunis during the seventeenth century.
Some sources call "French Jews," "European Jews" or even "Jewish Christians". The first Deys Ottomans and the Beys Mouradites encouraged their establishment in the capital of the Regency.
ordered Hammouda Pacha housing construction in areas bordering the Hara and put at the disposal of immigrants. Indeed, at this time, Jewish immigrants were forced to rent expensive houses belonging to Muslims. However, deeds reveal that at the time of Mouradites, Bey was building houses in the neighborhood of the Hara or in the border area and gave it to rent houses to Jews. Incorporated Endowments, rents these properties were intended for food budgets of charitable institutions and religious foundations.
Thus, the act the constitution of the Wakf the Mosque Hamouda Pacha, dated early January 1664, reports that the founder endowed the mosque he built in Tunis from 23 donations imposed in Endowments. Most donations were in the Jewish quarter.
Similarly, records of rental charges, Al-Kharrubi, dating from 1843 and from 1854 to 1855 identify the real property of Endowments Mosque Hamouda Pacha of houses, rooms or floors with separate entrances located in different parts of the Hara, sometimes the census gives the name of the house like those of Lambroso, Boukhobza, Bourjila, Saada, and Dayyen Chatboun. In addition, the same records to identify real estate industrial use (shops, warehouses) and the documents indicate their locations: at the entrance of the Hara, in the souk of granite, in the streets of granite, in the market the Fish, etc. Some rooms are designated by the names of their occupants, some by their activities: grocer, cobbler, coffee. Three decades after
Hammouda Pasha, Mohamed Bey built his grand mosque in the Bab Souika. During this operation, urban, Hara was definitely the area that benefited most from the rise of this magnificent monument. Several sectors of the Jewish neighborhood were renovated. New houses, new local business or service were built and allocated to the religious foundation of Endowments.
Besides homes, the Bey Hammouda Pasha and his successors contributed to the development of this area by equipping shops, cafes, baths, slaughterhouses, etc.. Two souks were built at that time, Souk el-Hout, fish market and souk el-granite that bears the name of the immigrant community. The two main shopping souks were among the finest and most gifs of the medina.
the eighteenth century, this form of government intervention in favor of the Jewish community of Livorno, and in particular will continue. Houssein Ben Ali and realized a subdivision al-Drina, in an area bordering the northeast side of the Hara, and praised the newly built houses in Israel for most of European origin.
Thus, the Beys building new houses and the granting to Jewish tenants, certainly at high prices, the Hara allowed to exceed its medieval boundaries. The operation was much easier than this neighborhood had never been restricted by a fence and many houses were abandoned and in ruins in the nearby areas.
Note also that due to the high density of occupation, the Jewish neighborhood was an area of real estate speculation, so the authorities, like individuals, had they focused on this area of high housing rent to finance many of their foundations and in particular those which are public.
The history of Hara is the story of a poor neighborhood in the city. Arab neighborhoods, if properly maintained they are, take a clean appearance on the side of the Hara, whose winding streets are crowded with women and children half naked, playing and rolling in the midst of dirty rags and filth to raise the strongest stomach.
Intensification of the Jewish population in that area, which was less than ten hectares, has resulted in the fact that Hara had become a hotbed of epidemics in the late nineteenth century.
At this time, the outputs are also Hara Jewish elites who are then installed in or near La Fayette La Goulette. The Kingpin Scemama Nessim, who was the richest of the rich of this country, is a child Hara. It was Mahmoud Ben Ayed, the treasurer of the Bey, who had combined and made his broker. He then inherited the post of treasurer of the state after the flight of Ben Ayed France. Hara has been a hotbed for recruiting Makhzen its most dynamic. But those Jews who have invested in the service of the state broke with their original group. The poorest Jews continued to live in the Hara. They are the ones who have emigrated to Israel in 1948 and not the rich who chose after independence from France.
continued ...
Bibliography:
- Tunis in the 19th Century (part 2): Marginality and Social Change - Abdelhamid Larguèche
- Algeria and Tunisia - Alfred Baraudon
- History of North Africa (Barbary) - Since the ancient times until the French conquest - Ernest MERCIER
Description - Northern Africa - El Bakri
- Ancient History of North Africa - Stéphane Gsell
- History of French institutions and trade in Africa's Barbary (1560-1793) (Algeria, Tunisia, Tripoli, Morocco) - Paul Masson
- Tunis, Description of the Regency - Dr. Louis Frank
- In Tunisia - Albert of Berge
- Europeans in Tunis in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - Ahmed Saad
- The other through the French newspaper La Tunisia - Hassan El-Annabi
- Payment or annexation - At the cross roads history of Tunisia - Daniel Goldstein
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