I really like this place.   Djerba’s El Griba Synagogue is one of these most unusual and famous synagogues in the world.   It was built at the 19th century, although its not particularly big.

The glass cabinet thing top right appears to have prayer requests similar to the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem.

The wooden bannister around the synagogue has some flowers attached to it.  The blue and white stripes around the archways.

Things I learned about the Jewish community of Djerba:-

1. Almost all Jewish men don’t seem to have beards
2. You have to take your shoes off and wear a Kippur (if you are a man) when visiting the synagogue.  Removal of shoes is common in Muslim religious places and in homes of east Asian countries such as Japan, but the first time I’ve seen in a Jewish community.
3. There are groups of Israelis who come and visit here each year (more on that later and Israel and Tunisia relations)
4. Many of the Jews have jewellery shops in Hamout Souk in the north part of Djerba, alongside Muslim jewellery shops.   More soon.
5. The men were singing prayers when I visited this place, later when I was reading an article elsewhere, I saw the face of the man I saw here, he comes and prays every single day.
6. There is strict security to get into the synagogue following some terror attacks in the past, relatively rare, but two tragic incidents did happen.
7. The garden at the back of the synagogue is quite pretty with a big olive tree, and several of these tall look-out posts.
8. There are only approx 1,000 Jews left in Djerba, most families have 6-7 children, which means probably there’s a relatively small number of families who are quite big in number I think.
9. You have to drop in 1 dinar (UK 30p) minimum to visit the Synagogue.    Of course, it is closed to visitors on the Sabbath, as its a fully functioning house of worship as opposed to this one in Fez, Morocco which is beautifully restored but empty.
10. There were some Muslim women who had come just to visit.
11. There were very few visitors in the synagogue as I’m here in November so there were no more than 6-7 people there when I visited.

This is truly an amazing looking religious temple with a variety of colours, textures and character like no other.

1. Plans – 2. French Connection – 3. My hotel in Djerba – 4. El Griba synagogue outside – 5. El Griba synagogue inside – 6. Markets – 7. Christianity in Tunisia – 8. Ferry to mainland Tunisia – 9. Getting to Matmata, Tunisia – 10. Sidi Idris Hotel New Hope Star Wars filmset – 11. Secrets I learnt about the famous Matmata Star Wars set – 12. Cave homes for would-be Jedis – 13. More what you don’t see in Star Wars at Hotel Sidi Idris – 14. How hospitable is Sidi Idris? – 15. ATM machines and drought – 16. Matmata Nouvelle (New Matmata) – 17. Tunisian butchers and fisherman – 18. Libyan and Algerian neighbours – 19. Jewellery businesses in Djerba – 20. Tunisia and Israel relations – 21. Hara Kebira, Jewish school, soap and TV repair shops – 22. Jewish community of Hara Kebira – 23. Going home

One of these is a synagogue and one is a mosque a short walk away, actually, apart from the tower, they aren’t that different from the outside.   Many of the old buildings in Tunisia are white and blue and little domed roofs including once not used for religious practice.

For me as a Christian, I’ve worked quite closely with Jewish people.  After living in Israel, one of the reasons I wanted to visit this Tunisia, is I believe it is one of the last few mostly Muslims nations which still has a Jewish community left.

When I visited Morocco in 2015, I visited there to see a now deserted Jewish community, synagogues, cemeteries, and implements used with Jewish holidays in second-hand stores – but no Jews left.   Tunisia had 100,000 Jews and Morocco had 260,000 in the 1950s, today there are around 1,000 Jews in Djerba and 500 in Tunis the capital.

With the synagogue behind me, these plant pots are there to prevent car-ramming attacks, something Israel has implemented quite a lot, and European cities have experienced car ramming by Islamic terrorists in recent years have had to plan also.

Visiting the synagogue requires going through a checkpoint due to a couple of tragic terror incidents in the past.   This isn’t that much of an inconvenience, just putting bags through an x-ray machine and walking through a door frame metal detector.

Inside this place looks amazing and very different…

1. Plans – 2. French Connection – 3. My hotel in Djerba – 4. El Griba synagogue outside – 5. El Griba synagogue inside – 6. Markets – 7. Christianity in Tunisia – 8. Ferry to mainland Tunisia – 9. Getting to Matmata, Tunisia – 10. Sidi Idris Hotel New Hope Star Wars filmset – 11. Secrets I learnt about the famous Matmata Star Wars set – 12. Cave homes for would-be Jedis – 13. More what you don’t see in Star Wars at Hotel Sidi Idris – 14. How hospitable is Sidi Idris? – 15. ATM machines and drought – 16. Matmata Nouvelle (New Matmata) – 17. Tunisian butchers and fisherman – 18. Libyan and Algerian neighbours – 19. Jewellery businesses in Djerba – 20. Tunisia and Israel relations – 21. Hara Kebira, Jewish school, soap and TV repair shops – 22. Jewish community of Hara Kebira – 23. Going home

My journey from London to Paris might be the cheapest journey across water to another nation ever.

I like Flixbus, it is a German-owned coach company that joins many different European main cities together.    I didn’t even know that this journey existed cross-continent.  I used Flixbus to go from Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest, an emergency Luxembourg to Brussels last year after an airline strike.

This trip avoids to £40-200 fee of the Eurostar as a passenger, instead, the bus can drive onto a huge carriage of the train.   The downside is this journey is over eight hours overnight and try to sleep in a funny sort of position which made me wake up with cramp.   During the journey, you have to get off the bus and do the formal process of  passport check-in and have time to use the loo and get coffee (from a vending machine)

I like the Paris metro.   If the London Underground was this cheap, then I’d save enough from my commute to work for another trip.  You can get to see a few famous landmarks from a distance.

The Arc De Triomphe is interesting, mainly as I have seen a Spanish have a clone of it in Barcelona, and I think there is another one in Bucharest, Romania.   The most curious thing is no lines between traffic lanes so it’s not obvious how many vehicles can encircle this monument.

I think France has some strict laws on pollution, so older cars including classic French vehicles are absent, this is in contrast to elderly French automobiles which are everywhere in North Africa.   So from another train, I go to Orly airport south of Paris I got my flight to Tunisia.

1. Plans – 2. French Connection – 3. My hotel in Djerba – 4. El Griba synagogue outside – 5. El Griba synagogue inside – 6. Markets – 7. Christianity in Tunisia – 8. Ferry to mainland Tunisia – 9. Getting to Matmata, Tunisia – 10. Sidi Idris Hotel New Hope Star Wars filmset – 11. Secrets I learnt about the famous Matmata Star Wars set – 12. Cave homes for would-be Jedis – 13. More what you don’t see in Star Wars at Hotel Sidi Idris – 14. How hospitable is Sidi Idris? – 15. ATM machines and drought – 16. Matmata Nouvelle (New Matmata) – 17. Tunisian butchers and fisherman – 18. Libyan and Algerian neighbours – 19. Jewellery businesses in Djerba – 20. Tunisia and Israel relations – 21. Hara Kebira, Jewish school, soap and TV repair shops – 22. Jewish community of Hara Kebira – 23. Going home

Is it worth getting a Hebrew Roots type bible?

Since before I lived in Israel between 2009-2013, I’ve seen these speciality bibles that intend to appeal to those studying the scriptures to show a deep meaning of the original language.

David Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible.

David Stern is a nice elderly gent who is an American born Messianic Jew living in Israel. I think I saw him make an appearance a few times at King of Kings Jerusalem.

Some people get excited that this could be an ultra-authentic translation.  Really, this bible has words converted into transliterated Hebrew, and it’s intended for an Orthodox Jewish audience.   So for Orthodox Jewish community who find Yeshua, this would be wonderful to make the New Testament close to what they are used to, but I’m not sure of many people using it as a primary bible

Aramaic New Testament Bible
The Aramaic New Testament Bible is written by a chap called Andrew Gabriel Roth. Back when I was in Jerusalem I met a friend who knew this guy, and the bibles were around $70 (!) each, the quality of the cover and binding seems pretty good, but what about the translation?

People who were selling these told me the author is trying to persuade people that the New Testament is not originally Greek but Aramaic. This is quite a bold claim, as every Christian scholar I know anywhere will tell you that the NT was written in Greek, but does have portions of Aramaic in it, especially Jesus’ crucially important words like “Talita Kumi” (Little girl arise!) and “Eli Eli Lama Sabachtani?” (My God my God why have you forsaken me?)

Mr Roth I think is closely connected with the Refiners Fire website which is overly heavy type Hebrew Roots teaching site which has some good articles but very harsh and critical of everyone’s teaching that isn’t their own.   I spoke to a friend of mine who is a son of someone in leadership in an Israeli congregation asking about this version. He told me, he didn’t say anything bad about this particular bible, but that no one knows of Roth’s background, where he studied or why he should be credible in this subject. Hmmm.

My experience is that good scholarship and Christian ministries do not operate as a ‘lone wolf’ type thing and live as hermits on a farm somewhere, they operate in tandem with other churches and ministries, and all the good Messianic and Christian organisations do in Israel.

Amongst believer friends I know and respect, I know of very few people who use these versions, I think they might have been bought on a whim once but sit unused on a shelf and people would stick to more established bibles and refer to Strong’s concordance (I like it as part of biblehub.com) in print or electronic.

Why am I writing this? Am I heresy hunter? I’ve spoken to people online quite a lot, and people near me who have been distracted by some odd teaching, including two different friends of mine here in London who have mental health issues and is easily swayed by dubious stuff.

My thinking is this, does this make the scriptures more credible to their targeted audience, does it build up the reader, increase understanding of the word and offer extra value to the word of God? or does it just encourage arguments and splits??

Personally, I’d recommend Christians and Messianic Jews would give these books a miss and stick to a tried and tested translation. It is worth learning the Hebrew language from a trustworthy source though, you can find some fascinating things in it.  For me, to get a deeper and meaningful value from the Hebrew or Greek, I use Strong’s concordance, so I think I’m going to buy a real one to use for regular devotionals.

This is a great place to get a bible!  Cars aren’t allowed in Jaffa Street, so this is the Google cameras will show.

This shop in Jaffa Street in Jerusalem has a wide variety of them in Hebrew, English, Arabic and others too!

I’m going to bust the “sacred names” theology later in my explanation of my experience of Messianic congregations in Israel a little later.

So in the first parts, I’ve explained how the buildings used by Messianic Jews in Israel can be quite different just as much as traditional Christianity and traditional Judaism.

So is a building where they meet known as a church or a synagogue?

I’ve heard my Israeli Messianic believer friends use either occasionally, but actually, they are more likely to refer to a place as a ‘congregation’ in English or a Kehilat (קהילת) in Hebrew.

In fact, the main news site for believers in Jesus/Yeshua in Israel is called Kehilat News that gives English and Hebrew announcements of what’s happening in the land.

https://kehilanews.allisrael.com/

This is a great go-to site for the Messianic community for teaching, worship concerts, events and more.

1. Buildings 2. Christian or Jewish? – 3. Meeting place names – 4. Languages – more soon…..

In my first part, I described how the building styles for gatherings for Jewish believers in Jesus can vary quite a bit.

So are Messianic Jews

• Jewish or Christian?
• Both?
• Somewhere in between?

I think about 99% of all the first generation believers during the time of Jesus were Jewish.   The handful that wasn’t, is the Syrian-Phoenician woman and the Roman soldier whose servant were sick, who Jesus healed. Matthew 15:21-28 / Luke 7:1-10

So today’s Messianic Jewish movement in Israel is the same.   They are modelled on first-generation Christians, who were Jewish.

They are from a wide variety of backgrounds.

This road in Israel points towards Damascus – not that you can get there now, but its a thought of where Paul was journeying to.

Paul made things different, as he was a scholarly and traditional religious Jew who on a road I imagine like this heading the direction of Damascus after becoming temporarily blind, then having a real-life encounter with Jesus, U-turned his life from being a Jew antagonising followers of Jesus, to a pioneer of the gospel of Jesus to the mostly to the gentile world.

From clothing and physical attributes, Messianic Jews stand out less than Orthodox Jews who have instantly recognisable clothing like black hats, jackets and white shirts for the ultra-orthodox, and kippors worn by traditional orthodox.   Messianic Jews, for the most part, tend to wear more plain clothing.

Christians who live in Muslim countries are often persecuted.  In Israel, there is some degree of persecution to Messianic Jews, as they are considered not yet proper by many religious Jews, but generally, Messianics are used to this and tend not to draw attention to themselves.   For Messianic Jews from other countries making Aliyah, the formal process of immigration to Israel from another country can be difficult as the fact they are believers in Jesus could get them declined.   Immigration can be done, its just a little more complex, with some discretion required.

Messianic Jews in Israel all observe the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, most will speak Hebrew, and almost all will have family in the army or full-time employment and pay taxes.

Jews in Israel are made up of any of these, and Messianics can be found in these groups.

• Ashkenazi – European / America / Canada / Australia / Russia
• Mizrahi – Mahgreb (Morocco and North Africa) / other Middle east (Yemen, Iraq, or native Israeli)
• Sephardic – Spanish / Latin American / Other Middle east
• Falasha – Ethiopia
• Or, a family of a combination of any of the above
• Or, parents of a mixture of above Jewish descent and western gentile Christians

Jewish people of all kinds have suffered persecution under people calling themselves Christians.    Where it pains me to see this, we also know that Messianic Jews were also sent to the holocaust camps as well.  Because of this, there is much concern from Jewish people from some history which needs to be reconciled.

My Messianic Jewish friends in Israel generally cope well with some of the challenges of these things, but they would all consider Israel to be their home and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

What I learned and love about the Israeli Messianic community
1. Buildings – 2. Christian or Jewish? – 3. Meeting place names – more soon…..