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JewishHistoryעברית

Ghriba synagogue bombing

Date
11 April 2002Hebrew date: 29th of Nisan, 5762
Location
el-Ghriba synagogue, DjerbaTunisia
Then part of
Republic of Tunisia
Perpetrators
  • Al-Qaeda (Terror organization)
Killed (estimate)
16 – 19[2]People killed at the synagogue, not counting the bomber in every tally. A BBC report on 18 April 2002 gave 16 dead, including 11 German tourists. BBC on 23 June 2002, after an al-Qaeda claim, gave 19 dead (14 German tourists, one French citizen and four Tunisians). The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point gives 19 dead (14 Germans, three Tunisians and two French) and 30 injured. Jewish Virtual Library, citing the Washington Post, gives 17 dead including 11 German tourists.
Locality

2.4% – 2.8% of the Jewish population of el-Ghriba synagogue, Djerba[5]

Country

0.8% – 1.3% of the Jewish population of Republic of Tunisia (c. 2002)[61]

Worldwide

0.00012% – 0.00014% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 2000)[6]

Category
Terror attack
Confidence
DisputedEarly BBC coverage on 18 April 2002 gave 16 dead, including 11 German tourists. Later BBC and CTC tallies give 19, but they disagree on the French and Tunisian split (one French and four Tunisians versus two French and three Tunisians). JVL, citing the Washington Post, gives 17 including 11 German tourists.

Summary

On 11 April 2002 a truck filled with propane was driven into the wall of the el-Ghriba synagogue on Djerba, one of Africa's oldest synagogues, during the Lag BaOmer pilgrimage season. Tunisian officials first called the blast an accident. German prosecutors identified the driver as Nizar Ben Mohamed Nasr Nawar, a 24-year-old Tunisian who died in the explosion. The Combating Terrorism Center, using French and Spanish court files, states that Nawar was an al-Qaeda operative, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed directed the plot, and that Nawar telephoned Mohammed and the German convert Christian Ganczarski shortly before detonating the truck. On 23 June 2002 al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith claimed the attack on Al Jazeera as revenge for Palestinian deaths. Casualty figures in contemporary reports range from 16 to 19 dead, most of them German tourists.

Sources

  1. Al-Qaeda suspected over Tunisia blast. BBC News (2002)
  2. Al-Qaeda claims Tunisia attack. BBC News (2002)
  3. Aaron Y. Zelin, Fifteen Years after the Djerba Synagogue Bombing. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (2017)
  4. Jews in Islamic Countries: Tunisia. Jewish Virtual Library
  5. Virtual Jewish World: Djerba, Tunisia. Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,575,000[6]c. 2000
  • Republic of Tunisia: 1,500 – 2,000[61]c. 2002DellaPergola / JVL series: about 1,500 Jews in Tunisia in 2011 and 1,000 in 2023; JVL Tunisia narrative in related pages often cites about 2,000 remaining in the early 2000s. DellaPergola 2020 core table lists 1,000 for Tunisia. Nearest opened band for the 2002 Djerba attack.
  • el-Ghriba synagogue, Djerba: 670[5]Jews on the island of Djerba in 1993, nine years before the April 2002 bombing.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
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  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
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  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
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