Tunisia Wishes Jews a ‘Merry Christmas’
A Tunisian minister wished a Merry Christmas to the country’s tiny Jewish community.
“I want to wish all the Jews of Tunisia a happy holiday tonight, it is a big holiday all over the world,” Houcine El Jaziri, Tunisia’s state secretary for immigration and Tunisians living abroad, said while participating in the talk show “Attasia” on the Ettounisya network, which was aired on Dec. 31. He also wished the Jews a milaad Majid, or Merry Christmas.
Following the remark, dozens of bewildered comments appeared on the Facebook page of Ettounisya, with some users speculating that El Jaziri conflated the Jewish holiday of Chanukah with the Christian holiday.
The website of El Jaziri’s Renaissance Party, which is an Islamic movement and the country’s ruling party, says El Jaziri, 45, has studied philosophy in Tunisia, Morocco and France, where he obtained a master’s degree.
Tunisia had a Jewish population of 110,000 in 1948 but half of them left for Israel in the 1950s and most of the other half left for France. Currently, some 1,700 Jews live in the country, according to the European Jewish Congress.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
