After a terrorist murdered more than 30 holidaymakers on a beachfront in Tunisia in 2015, its travel trade suffered a devastating slump. UK visitors alone dropped from 425,000 to just 25,000 in a single year.
The man now tasked with overseeing a revival of that vital industry is René Trabelsi, a son of Tunisia’s 1,400-strong Jewish community, who was appointed tourism minister five months ago.
“I don’t think I was chosen because I’m Jewish,” he told a Jewish audience in London this week during a trip to meet travel operators. It was because he had professional expertise as the owner of a successful travel company.
But he acknowledged: “The Tunisian government has been brave by making this choice. It wasn’t so easy from a security point of view.”
He was speaking at a lunch in his honour at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Maida Vale, whose rabbi, Israel Elia, is a Tunisian compatriot too.
Mr Trabelsi took the opportunity to invite guests to the country’s famous Jewish event next month, the historic Lag Ba’Omer pilgrimage to the El Ghriba Synagogue on the Island of Djerba, which attracts thousands of Jews from across the world every year. Legend connects the site with Solomon’s Temple.
To take part, he said, would be “a sign of support” for Tunisia in combating terrorism. The appeal was echoed by Rabbi Elia, who said that every time he visited his native community he returns “full of hope”.
“Imagine that ancient community maintaining and preserving our glorious traditions and in the most beautiful, harmonious way. This is due to the fact that they co-exist with their Arab neighbours.”
Mr Trabelsi exemplified the classic Sephardi tradition of engagement with the society around him, the rabbi said. “He is a passionate Tunisian and a passionate Jew.”
When he wanted to phone the minister on Friday, he recalled, the Tunisian Ambassador to Britain, Nabil Ben Kheder, advised him to “make my calls quickly, because Mr Trabelsi doesn’t answer the phone on Shabbat”.
Visiting Tunisia, Mr Ben Kheder emphasised, was an act of support for its “young democracy, the only beacon of hope that has emerged from the Arab spring”.
Going to Djerba “sends a powerful message of tolerance, particularly in these times… We must come together to defeat hatred and violence and promote much-needed peace and tolerance in the world, particularly in the Middle East.”
By dessert, some guests were already in the holiday spirit, singing some of the songs associated with the pilgrimage.
And Rabbi Elia presented the minister and the ambassador with a gift that in own way symbolised Arab-Jewish connections — copies of the Penguin English translation of the Koran, which was done by a late member of the synagogue, Nessim Dawood.
