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From Jewish Virtual Library

The Jews of Tunis at that time scrupulously observed most of the festivals but did not celebrate the second day; they entirely ignored the festival of Purim, although they observed that of Hanukkah.

Moreover, I have come across similar references before.

Why did the Jews of Tunisia ignore Purim? Is there any explanation for this?

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    what makes "Jewish Virtual Library" an reliable source of information
    – Efraym
    Commented Nov 20 at 2:22
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    I don't think that's true. Watch the Jews of Djerba, Tunisia, celebrate Purim in 2020: israelnationalnews.com/news/277067 Sure, you are talking about the past, but we need reliable sources with reasons.
    – Maurice Mizrahi
    Commented Nov 20 at 2:32
  • The Jewish Virtual Library is run by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise: jewishvirtuallibrary.org/about-aice I don't see a reason to doubt them any more than any other encyclopedia and a good answer could bring additional sources.
    – Mike
    Commented Nov 20 at 3:16
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    Not sure yet if JVL is using a reliable source, but they copied these words directly from an article on Tunis in the old Jewish Encyclopedia jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14542-tunis - other old sources are listed there but hard to tell the source re: the Purim comment due to lack of footnotes. Prior to the Purim part, the JE quotes "Maimonides, who, while on his way to Egypt, sojourned some time in the island of Gerba.....expressed himself, in a letter addressed to his son" indicating the Jews of Tunis of then were fairly ignorant about the Torah. (which איגרת was that?)
    – EraserX
    Commented Nov 20 at 5:19

1 Answer 1

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Partial answer:

The JVL's source, as already mentioned by @EraserX in the comments, is the 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia. The Jewish Encyclopedia's source is Meir (Marcus) Fischer's תולדות ישרון (Toledot Yeshurun), p. 22, who writes:

"בשמונת ימי חנוכה ששו ושמחו בישועת אלהים ויפצחו רנה לרועץ אויבי בת ציון ויהללו לשם תפארתו על אשר הוביש את צוררי יהודה עד לא יכלו קום...אמנם, לא כן היה עמהם בענין ימי הפורים, כי חוץ מערי אזילא - Azila - ועבי יאקוב - Ebi-Iacub - לא ידעו ממנם אף שמץ דבר, וכאין ואפס נחשבו להם אלה, כאשר ספרו לנו כותבי קורות הימים וסופריהם.
During the eight days of Chanukah they celebrated in great cheer and joy for God's salvation and shout aloud for the destroyer of the enemies of the Daughter of Zion, and praise His magnificent Name for His felling of the enemies of Judah until they were unable to rise...However, not so was the case regarding the days of Purim, for besides the cities of Azila and Ebi-Iacub, they did not know a single thing about them, and they were thought of as meaningless in their eyes, as we are told by the chroniclers and their scribes.

Fischer listed most of his sources in a note on pp. 12-14, however they are all in foreign languages (Arabic, Latin, Spanish, French, etc), which, even with Google Translate, makes it difficult to know from where exactly he took this particular tidbit. I skimmed a couple of the books but had no luck yet.

Two possible reasons may be hinted at in Fischer's book:

  1. As he stated (p. 21), in the first several centuries CE the Jews of the Mauretania region, as he calls it (a region which includes Tunisia, Morocco, and more), only followed the Written Torah and not the Oral Torah, because they did not have the Talmud. This may explain why they were only aware of some d'Rabbanan customs.1
  2. The statement about Chanukah and Purim is included within a list of minhagim held by the Mauretania Jews in their early years, and is immediately followed by a hatred for wine and drunkenness (pp. 22-23). It's therefore possible that they had been aware of Purim but at some point their aversion to wine and wine-based merriment led them to stop keeping Purim and eventually forgetting about it.

1 See also Rambam's letter to his son which mentions that the Jews of Tunis and other Berber lands were uneducated in the Talmud and other Chazalic sources and laws. It should be noted, however, that Rabbi Meir Mazuz, when he was younger, opined that the author of the letter (Rabbi Mazuz also voiced skepticism of its association with the Rambam) referred to the Jews between Egypt and Tunis, i.e., the Jews of Libya.

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  • The first answer (Oral Torah being unknown) is likely the real answer. According to what Tunisian Jews teach about how they arrived, they claim to be descended from Kohanim who escaped to Tunisia from Israel after the second temple was destroyed. This would have been before the Oral Torah was written down. This would match Ethiopian claims (who also didn't observe Oral Torah) as they claim they are descended from Jews who fled after the first temple had been destroyed. The fact two diaspora populations claim the same thing and didn't observe Oral Torah gives the claim merit.
    – Michael
    Commented Nov 20 at 8:21
  • Maybe, and maybe not. Many Jewish communities claim they were started by exiles from the destruction of the Second Temple, including Ashkenazi, Italian and Sephardic communities, which we know did have the Oral Torah sources.
    – Harel13
    Commented Nov 20 at 8:23
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    @Michael the teaching that they are descended from Kohenim who escaped after the churban (the First Temple, not the second) applies only to Tunisian Jews from the island of Djerba. The vast majority of Tunisian Jews are descended from later migrants, either from Arabic speaking countries or Spain via Livorgno, Italy
    – יהושע ק
    Commented Nov 20 at 9:38
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    I upvoted in general especially for this answer's digging for the original sources - יישר כחך! A catch that remains re: the original article stating that "they entirely ignored the festival of Purim" is still hard to fathom: 1) while yes, the halachic details of Purim are well defined by the time of מסכת מגילה in the Oral Law, the notion of a holiday and celebration in general is part of Tanach in מגילת אסתר so why would they ignore Purim but observe Chanuka which came later? 2) if there was aversion to alcohol then just do everything else for Purim except for the excessive drinking.
    – EraserX
    Commented Nov 20 at 13:44
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    The part of this that is being overlooked is that North Africa was hardly cut of from the world like central Ethiopia. It was in the heart of Mediterranean trade and even if they were without the Oral Law for some time, there would have been many centuries with lots of contact with other Jewish communities.
    – Mike
    Commented Nov 21 at 0:06

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