Tunisia's Jewish community has raised fears for its security with the interim government after Islamists held anti-Jewish protests outside the main synagogue on the Avenue de la Liberte in central Tunis last Friday.
The Interior Ministry on Tuesday condemned extremist demonstrations and incitement to violence in an apparent reference to the protests outside the synagogue.
The leader of the Muslim country's small centuries-old Jewish community, Roger Bismuth, said he had met Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi and informed him of the Islamist demonstration, Agence France Presse reported.
"About 40 religious people gathered Friday in front of the main synagogue in Tunis and started chanting ant-Jewish slogans and inappropriate words," he said. "I think this is something that might happen again," he said.
Pictures and videos taken by witenesses at the anti-Jewish demonstration showed Islamists, some dressed in black, carrying banners bearing verses from the Quran and shouting slogans hostile to the Jews. It happened on Friday a t the exit of the nearby Alfath mosque.
The demonstrators shouted anti-Semitic slogans and called for the murder of all Jews in the world, "Jews wait, the army of Mohammed is coming back!", "We'll redo the battle of Khaybar" recalling the killing in 628 of the Jews living in the oasis of Khaybar in the Arabian Pensinsula, now Saudi Arabia, and the traditional "Allah Ouakbar!".
The group of demonstrators, from Ettadhamen, a very poor quarter of Tunis, is said to be ”very dangerous.”.
Muslim Tunisia is home to about 1,600 Jews, most of whom live on the southern island of Djerba where its most important synagogue, reputed to be the oldest in Africa, is based and draws thousands of pilgrims every year.
It is one of the largest Jewish communities in the Arab world, after Morocco, but significantly down from a population of 100,000 at independence from France in 1956, after which the government promulgated anti-Jewish decrees.
In April 2002 a suicide bomber rammed the wall of the Djerba synagogue with a lorry laden with natural gas in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda that killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French visitors.
Tunisia's interim government is struggling to stabilisz the country since the fall of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a month ago after a groundswell of street protests, and fears new violence.
In a statement on the official TAP news agency, it condemned acts of extremists at places of worship.
"These people have no other motive than to attack the values of the republican regime based on the respect of freedom and belief, tolerance and peaceful co-existence ... and the guarantee of the exercise of civic rights," it said.
The ministry said it would "spare no effort to safeguard these values and opposes all those who want to incite violence or discord between the Tunisian people and disturb public security".
It extended indefinitely a state of emergency imposed on January 14 as Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia but ordered an end to a nationwide curfew.