He brews Aquavit?

The Jewtective

After my project failed to pan out in Egypt, I was basically to resigned to the same fate in Tunisia, where the tiny community of Jews is roughly 1,500, a far cry from the 8 million Copts in Egypt that I hoped to meet.  However, I've learned this year that strange opportunities come when you least expect them.

After a bit of research before my departure, I knew the name of a prominent member of the Jewish community here.  After I arrived, I tracked down his phone number.  Then the drama started.  If it had been in montage form, you the viewer would have seen me sitting by the phone, dialing the number, then pressing cancel, thinking about what to say, getting nervous, etc.  It was like a teenage crush that I wanted to impress.  I was a wreck, and I was just calling an 80-something year old man.

When I finally got the courage to press "call," other than me being terrible at French it went well.  He invited me to his synagogue for shabbath.  When I say "his," I mean: he built it in 1956.  Apparently, my project is going to work out here.  However, what I could not understand was where it was.  He said, "La Goulette," which is a seaside suburb of Tunis, but he didn't say where.  So Friday was spent wandering around a large suburb, looking for any signs of Judaism.  After a few hours of wandering, I found a well-kept, but otherwise unmarked building.  The block on which it sat was barricaded and there were police.  Okay, I think I found it.

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Edward Bar Columbo

The next morning, I took an early bus and train to get to La Goulette for services.  When I arrived I met a few older gentlemen of the congregation, but the rabbi wasn't too pleased with my presence.  They were under the impression that I don't speak French (true), but they didn't know that I can follow a conversation in it, and this one was clearly about what the hell I was doing in their synagogue.

[I should note here that I have very mixed emotions about basically the real work of my project.  I feel like an interloper, a phony, and like I'm using people.  I frequently say things I don't believe to meet people and get into places.  For now, at least, this is my job.  As to my Jewish identity, it's a good bit more cultural than religious.  Basically, the God of the Marx Brothers and Sandy Koufax is okay in my book.]

Despite the initial questioning about my parental origins and why I only know a tiny bit of Hebrew (I went with a "those silly Americans" defense), I had the man who built the synagogue on my side, so I was staying.  In the past, I've only been to Carleton Jewish services, which, for better or worse, are hippy-dippy, everyone-is-welcome affairs, and they were probably about 80% English with lots of explanation, perfect for a shy kid with no Hebrew education.  This service was old-fashioned.  It wasn't Orthodox, but only the sermon (apologies for the Christian terminology) was in Arabic/French, and everything else was in Hebrew.

A few hours into prayers, the Torah was removed from the tabernacle, and reading began.  All the men got up to read, but as mentioned previously, I'm a big phony who can't read Hebrew.  They called me up.  I pleaded that I couldn't read.  They were not having it.  So I was up with the Rabbi.  He asked my name in French.  I told him.  No, he said, your Hebrew name.  In Arabic/French, I said that I didn't have one.  After some back and forth about my legal name, there was a moment of recognition on his face.

"OH, LIKE COLUMBO!"

My heart beating through my chest in a small synagogue in Tunisia, I couldn't help but laugh at the influence of a television show that's been off the air for a couple of decades.  I stumbled through a transliterated version of "baruch etah adonai" and was allowed to sit down, looking like a fool, which is pretty normal for me.

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A Terrorist Attack

A bit later, the door in the back of the synagogue opened, and a gunman entered.  Women shrieked.  Men covered their eyes.  He advanced up the aisle, letting off a few rounds in the air.  It was tense; no one was sure how this would end.

The rabbi walked towards him, grabbed the gun, put a yamulke on his head, and give him a firm spank on his rear.  Crisis averted.  The rabbi's son sat down sullenly in his seat.

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Are you sure you're not Catholic?


After service ended, the congregation sat down for a snack.  Cookies, trail mix, and soda were passed out to all in attendance.  Suddenly, a bottle of aquavit appeared.  As plans for passover were discussed (I snagged an invite!), the men in attendence poured shots.  There are many things that I've witnessed or experienced this year that I just would never have guessed would happen to me in a lifetime, and this certainly falls into that category.

I've reread the following sentence several times, and it just never makes any more sense:
"I was taking shots with a rabbi in a synagogue in Tunisia."

And that, dear readers, is what is happening in Tunisia.


[I decided not to write about the rest of my time in Egypt.  It wasn't fresh in my head anymore, so I figure I'll just keep moving forwards.  More about Tunisia hopefully soon.]