Qualla: Kairouan Synagogue https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/n/r/4/kairouan-synagogue-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Kairouan Synagogue https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue Kairouan Synagogue: Introduction https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue/ Photo credit Dorra la kairouanaise, CC BY-SA 4.0. For centuries, the city of Kairouan was home to one of the most important Talmudic academies outside of Babylon. The yeshiva of Kairouan drew scholars from across the Mediterranean, and its reputation rivaled the great learning centers of the East. Then the Almohads came, and in the mid-1100s, Jewish life in Kairouan ended abruptly. Those who refused to convert to Islam were killed. Those who survived fled to other Tunisian towns, and for nearly eight hundred years, no synagogue stood in the city.

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Image: Dorra la kairouanaise | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/n/r/4/kairouan-synagogue-wp/snr4-kairouan-synagogue-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Kairouan Synagogue: A Community Rebuilt https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue/ Photo credit Dorra la kairouanaise, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the French Protectorate brought a measure of stability to Tunisia in the early twentieth century, Jewish families began returning to Kairouan. In 1910, the community decided to make a statement. They acquired a plot of land in the heart of the hara, the old quarter, and bega...

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Image: Dorra la kairouanaise | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/n/r/4/kairouan-synagogue-wp/snr4-kairouan-synagogue-a-community-rebuilt.mp3 0:06 2 full Kairouan Synagogue: The Weight of Distance https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue/ Photo credit Dorra la kairouanaise, CC BY-SA 4.0. The second departure came more quietly than the first. After Tunisian independence and the ripple effects of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jewish families across Tunisia began emigrating. In Kairouan, the community that had rebuilt itself over generations dwindled again, and by the 1970s...

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Image: Dorra la kairouanaise | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/n/r/4/kairouan-synagogue-wp/snr4-kairouan-synagogue-the-weight-of-distance.mp3 0:06 3 full Kairouan Synagogue: Echoes in Stone https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue/ Photo credit Dorra la kairouanaise, CC BY-SA 4.0. What remains in Kairouan is the memory of intellectual brilliance. The yeshiva that once operated here was the first major Talmudic academy in all of North Africa, closely linked to the great yeshivot of Babylonia. Scholars at Kairouan corresponded with the most prominent rabbini...

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]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/n/r/4/kairouan-synagogue-wp/snr4-kairouan-synagogue-echoes-in-stone.mp3 0:06 4 full Kairouan Synagogue: Between Two Erasures https://qualla.com/kairouan-synagogue/ Photo credit Dorra la kairouanaise, CC BY-SA 4.0. The story of the Kairouan Synagogue is really the story of two endings. The first was violent, an expulsion driven by religious intolerance in the twelfth century. The second was quieter, a gradual emigration shaped by nationalism, war, and the pull of new homelands. Between thos...

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]]> Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/n/r/4/kairouan-synagogue-wp/snr4-kairouan-synagogue-between-two-erasures.mp3 0:06 5 full