page_title: Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries
section_title: Tunisia
hierarchical_section_title: Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries / North Africa region / Tunisia
caption_attribution_description: Groupe de juifs tunisiens vers 1900 / Group of Tunisian Jews (c. 1900)
context_page_description: The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, or Jewish exodus from Arab countries, was the departure, flight, expulsion, evacuation and migration of 850,000 Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab countries and the Muslim world, mainly from 1948 to the early 1970s. The last major migration wave took place from Iran in 1979–80, as a consequence of the Iranian Revolution.
  A number of small-scale Jewish exoduses began in many Middle Eastern countries early in the 20th century with the only substantial aliyah coming from Yemen and Syria. Very few Jews from Muslim countries immigrated during the period of Mandatory Palestine. Prior to the creation of Israel in 1948, approximately 800,000 Jews were living in lands that now make up the Arab world. Of these, just under two-thirds lived in the French and Italian-controlled North Africa, 15–20% in the Kingdom of Iraq, approximately 10% in the Kingdom of Egypt and approximately 7% in the Kingdom of Yemen. A further 200,000 lived in Pahlavi Iran and the Republic of Turkey.
  The first large-scale exoduses took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from Iraq, Yemen and Libya.
context_section_description: As in Morocco and Algeria, Tunisian Jews did not face large scale expulsion or outright asset confiscation or any similar government persecution during the period of exile, and Zionist agents were relatively allowed freedom of action to encourage emigration.
  In 1948, approximately 105,000 Jews lived in Tunisia.  About 1,500 remain today, mostly in Djerba, Tunis, and Zarzis. Following Tunisia's independence from France in 1956 emigration of the Jewish population to Israel and France accelerated. After attacks in 1967, Jewish emigration both to Israel and France accelerated. There were also attacks in 1982, 1985, and most recently in 2002 when a bombing in Djerba took 21 lives (most of them German tourists) near the local synagogue, a terrorist attack claimed by Al-Qaeda.
caption: Jews of Tunis, c. 1900. From the Jewish Encyclopedia.
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