Inside the grand Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in this bustling seaside city, five mostly elderly women and a middle-aged man from the Jewish community here gathered Tuesday evening to commemorate the holiday of new beginnings: Simhat Torah.
Members of the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue on Simhat Torah.
Photo: Brenda Gazzar
For the dwindling Jewish community of Alexandria, where fewer than 25 members now remain, six local attendees is nearly par for the course. And new beginnings seem far away.
The last minyan witnessed by the synagogue was last Yom Kippur, when participants sent by the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and several foreign visitors attended services.
"Now you see what the situation is," said Naftali Twitoo, an Israeli of Tunisian origin who regularly visits the country to lead holiday prayers here, following the service he conducted. "It hurts me that there aren't [more] people [here], but there is nothing that can be done."
At one point during the evening service, the soulful Mizrahi chanting of Twitoo was almost overpowered by the verses from the Koran emanating from a loudspeaker at a nearby mosque. At least 15 armed guards in uniforms stood watch around the high walls of the synagogue during the brief Simhat Torah service.
Members, who mostly spoke French among themselves, kissed the Torah during the service, feasted on rich pastries and then later congratulated one another with the traditional Arabic holiday greeting: "Kul Sana w'Antum Taibeen."
But it was hard not to notice that some familiar faces were missing.
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