Nesrine Mansour
University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, USA
nesrine.mansour@colorado.edu
Introduction
The Ghriba Synagogue on the island of Djerba, Tunisia, is North Africa’s oldest Jewish building and an important testament to the role of sacred architecture in shaping collective identity and coexistence. For over 2000 years, El-Ghriba has expressed a story of refuge, resilience, and even a miraculous presence. Its architecture and associated myths continue until today to maintain a sense of belonging among Jewish and Muslim communities in Djerba.
In recent years, the synagogue’s identity has faced several pressures, from migration, security, to tourism and even digital media. This exposed the fragile balance between scared continuity and world conflicts. During these challenging times, global tensions, and cultural divide, this paper investigates how El-Ghriba’s architecture and rituals could preserve their meaning and adapt while sustaining their collective identity.
The research framework is situated within the concept of myth and sacred placemaking. Mircea Eliade saw myth as the instrument through which human experience transforms space into sacred place (Eliade 1959). It draws on historical, ethnographic, and digital sources to address how the synagogue’s sacredness materialized through the built form, rituals, and storytelling. The paper argues that El-Ghriba is a symbol of an architecture of coexistence that endures, and its survival depends on how local communities respond to global tensions. This is an opportunity to reflect on how places and their stories might contribute to an architecture of peace
Sacred Narrative and Historical Context
El-Ghriba’s mythology contains two foundational stories. The first one speaks of kohanim, Jewish high priests, fleeing Jerusalem after the First Temple’s destruction in 586 BCE. They are believed to have brought sacred relics, perhaps a door or stone from the Temple, to Djerba where they established a holy community, qahal qadosh Jerba, laying the foundation for one of North Africa’s most enduring Jewish communities (Udovitch and Valensi 1983). The second tells of Al-Ghriba, (the stranger in Arabic), a mysterious woman whose miraculous death transformed her into a local saint, an uncommon figure in Jewish tradition. The synagogue built in her memory became synonymous with her story, blending myth, memory, and sacred space (Carpenter-Latiri 2012). Together, these narratives defined Djerba’s Jewish community as ancient rooted in exile and open to coexistence.
Architecturally, the synagogue has a modest form. The whitewashed exterior walls, low height, and once-open courtyard (now closed) recall the mosques and houses in Djerba. The lantern above the bimah brings in the Mediterranean light always present in the island’s vernacular architecture (Bismuth- Jarrassé and Jarrassé 2010; Mansour and Geva 2017). The plan has two halls, one for prayer and one for gathering, used for sacred rituals and communal life. The space invites visitors in a circular movement and worshipers between study, song, and ritual procession, that transforms the architecture into a choreography of belonging. (Figure 1, 2, 3, 4).
Figures 1, 2, 3, 4: El-Ghriba Synagogue Exterior and Interior Spaces by author
Ritual and Place
The annual Lag Ba’omer pilgrimage is the biggest event in the history of the synagogue. Jews from Tunisia, Europe especially France, and Israel come together to honor Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and celebrate the revelation of the Zohar (Chabad.org). The celebration is symbolized by the Menara procession, a hexagonal form covered with fabric, carried from the synagogue to the nearby village of Hara Saghira and back. This ritual follows the rhythm of local wedding traditions, where a bride rides in a decorated palanquin toward her new home for the union. Through this ritual, the myth becomes physical, the community reaffirms its collective memory through the movements around that specific sacred landscape in Djerba.
Recent reports confirm that the pilgrimage still functions as the central inter-religious cooperation event in Djerba. Muslim neighbors sell food, fabric, candles around the synagogue showing an informal economy of hospitality. Le Monde (2024) describes the pilgrimage as “the last shared ritual of Tunisia’s plural memory,” despite the decline in participation. Attendance decreased from several thousand before the pandemic to a few hundred under current security restrictions (Al Monitor 2024). The reduction in number, does not erase the meaning of the ritual, the small gatherings still perform the same rituals maybe even with more focus and devotion.
Challenges of Continuity
The permanence of El-Ghriba’s sacred identity now depends on the survival of Djerba’s Jewish community, which decreased to fewer than a thousand residents. Today, there is heightened security and cancellations of public celebrations. These measures protect the building but alter its character. Metal barricades, armed guards, and restricted access replace the former openness that allowed Jews and Muslims to meet in shared celebration. The architecture of peace becomes an architecture of surveillance (Figure 5)
Migration increases this erosion. Younger Jews depart for Europe or Israel, leaving an aging population behind. The diaspora preserves emotional ties through memory and media rather than through pilgrimage. There is a shift from once a communal place to a heritage icon. The synagogue’s preservation depends mostly on tourism, which brings another tension: the sacred space turns into spectacle. Tour guides, photographers, and visitors consume the myth without living it, converting transcendence into image.
Figure 5: El-Ghriba Synagogue Security Entrance by author
Digital Mediation and Sacred Distance
El-Ghriba has acquired a digital presence that reshapes its mythic atmosphere. Facebook pages, YouTube videos, and local media streams broadcast the pilgrimage to global audiences. The visual snippets allow the diaspora to witness rituals in real time, yet experience is disconnected from its embodied context. The Menara procession appears as a series of gestures without heat, dust, or scent. The sacred journey, once defined by movement through the island’s topography, now unfolds within the interface of a screen. Digital access expands visibility but fragments collective memory. The sacred becomes searchable, a dataset rather than a revelation.
No organized virtual pilgrimage currently replaces physical attendance, yet digital circulation already mediates how the world perceives the synagogue. The 2020 cancellation of the festival due to the pandemic led to a proliferation of online retrospectives and photo essays rather than live worship (Times of Israel 2020). The absence of pilgrimage generated an archive of longing; maybe digital mediation can preserve myth through memories. The challenge lies in transforming this mediation into an ethical mode of participation that complements rather than replaces embodied ritual. Future placemaking strategies could employ digital storytelling to document oral histories, curate virtual exhibitions, or design virtual experiences that guide visitors toward deeper engagement rather than consumption.
Methodology
The study draws on analysis of recent media coverage to trace how architecture, ritual, and narrative interact under new conditions. Field visit to Djerba and documentation of the pilgrimage ground the interpretation of spatial sequence and sensory experience. Comparative reading of Arabic, French, and English press from 2023 to 2025 situates these observations within the broader socio-political context. This method shows how local myth adapts to global media without losing its theological essence. The approach follows how phenomenology insists on experience by extending it toward digital ethnography. The pilgrimage becomes both a lived event and a mediated phenomenon, a new reality that calls for a new vocabulary for sacred continuity.
Discussion: From Heritage to Future and Digital Placemaking
The collected information shows the tension between continuity and transformation. Recent publications describe El-Ghriba as a paradox: revered yet endangered, visible yet vulnerable. The shrinking pilgrimage and armed security redefine openness, turning the architecture of coexistence into one of safety. Tourism adds another layer as the commodification of the scared space could flatten the layered relationships that once united Jews and Muslims in mutual respect. The challenge lies in directing heritage initiatives toward cultural empathy rather than consumption. The nomination of Djerba to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2023 creates an opportunity to frame El-Ghriba as a living sacred landscape rather than a frozen relic.
Digital media introduces another transformation. Images, archives, and recordings extend El-Ghriba’s reach to dispersed communities but risk detaching myth from embodied experiences. A responsible digital documentation of voices, rituals, and memories can preserve the site’s continuity. Artificial intelligence and digital mapping can support this process if done ethically eliminating cultural biases. The synagogue’s future calls for collaboration among residents, diaspora, scholars, to keep its meaning as a local sanctuary and a symbol of coexistence.
Conclusion
El Ghriba represents the continuous dialogue between myth and modernity. Its architecture and rituals translate sacred narratives into collective memories. The recent crises, security threats, migration have impacted its use but not its identity. The synagogue persists as a symbol of coexistence for centuries, though the future remains uncertain. Whether it continues as a living sanctuary or becomes a memory will depend on how society redefines sacred experience. This building’s great significance is its capacity to be ancient and modern, isolated and global, fragile and radiant. Its myth converts the space into meaning, as Eliade observed, the sacred remains wherever humanity refuses to let the profane consume the memory. In that refusal, El-Ghriba continues to teach the architecture of peace, even if it is from a historical perspective.
References
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