papeete, tahiti | Bright morning sunlight illuminates the synagogue floor as François Yonah Poul sits alone in a dark corner wrapped in a tallit and tefillin.
Praying in the Quarter Fariipiti of the bustling port city of Papeete, the 48-year-old Poul is among those trying to keep the Jewish community alive on this exotic, 400-square-mile island in the South Pacific with no rabbi or cantor and thousands of miles from its nearest Jewish neighbors.
Tahiti’s community of some 200 Jews is among the farthest flung in the world.
Before the High Holy Days the community talked about hiring a rabbi from Israel to lead services, but the $5,000 fee, plus airfare and hotel, made the costs prohibitive for the small congregation. Instead, synagogue members Mordechai Amsellem and Messaoud Pinto guided the community in prayer.
The volunteer effort was typical for Tahitian Jews, who make do with what they can when it comes to preserving Judaism on this French Polynesian island archipelago of 120,000. More than half of Tahiti’s married Jews wed outside the faith, but many have remained members of the synagogue.
Usually only about 20 worshippers attend Friday night or Saturday morning services, but Poul says that nearly everyone attends services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The tri-color of France flies over Tahiti, one of the 14 Society Islands in the Pacific. The island was made famous by French artist Paul Gauguin’s paintings of beautiful Tahitian women and luxurious island scenery.
Like many things in the South Pacific, the history of the Jewish community is shrouded in native mystique. The first Jew probably arrived in 1769 with Capt. James Cook. According to Virtual Jewish History, Alexander Salmon, a Jew, moved to Tahiti, and later entered the Tahitian royal family when he married Arrioehau, a Polynesian princess.
With the arrival of Catholic priests, most Jews assimilated or converted to Catholicism. But in the 1960s, Algerian Jews established a functioning community, according to Martine Amouyal, formerly of Tahiti and now of Los Angeles.
Synagogue members say there is no anti-Semitism on the island. There are no police or guards at the front door. “Polynesians believe in God and understand that everyone has his or own religion,” says Joseph Sebbag, a former president of the community.
The synagogue, named Ahava v’Achva (“love and friendship”), was built in 1993 amid palm, pomegranate, date and mango trees. Two of the community’s Torahs were provided by the Egyptian Jewish expatriate community in Paris and a third by a Los Angeles community. The synagogue contains a mikvah and social hall.
Most Tahitian Jews say they are French, Sephardic and Orthodox and originate from North Africa. Like Poul, a doctor, many settled here after French military service.
The synagogue is governed by Orthodox tradition. Its so-called Committee of Ten organizes lifecycle events. The committee also orders kosher food, which is flown in from the United States, France and Australia, and meets often to settle disputes among congregants.
In the past 12 years, the synagogue has played host to six bar mitzvahs. Another was held at the Meridien Hotel here with a Reform rabbi from Los Angeles who brought his own Torah, according to Poul.
Like many Jews who lived in France but settled on French islands such as Guadeloupe and Martinique, Tahitian Jews wanted a French lifestyle without the noisy metropolises.
Sebbag’s wife, Isabelle, from Belgium, says that these islands are “a wonderful place to raise children. We have a good way of life.”
But, she adds, for the educated, cosmopolitan French, there is “no theater, no ballet, no culture, no music. Nothing.”
Though Poul is quick to point out that “Jews have been here for at least two centuries,” he says he doesn’t know if the Jewish community here can survive another 20 years. — Ben Frank