Off the Tunisian coast, the small island of Djerba is home to a tight-knit community of Kohanic Jews. Only about 1,000 remain, living among a Muslim population of about 100,000. For centuries, the two communities coexisted peacefully, but relations began to become strained in the mid-twentieth century. They reached a low in 2002, when terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda blew up a gas truck near the community’s synagogue, known as the Ghriba, or the Stranger.
A year later, Nomi Stone, just out of college, went to Djerba in the hope of getting to know the people who call the island home.
