For several centuries after the passing of the tzaddik Harav Ephraim Encaoua (Elnkaoua, or Elnekave), thousands of Jews from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and France gathered every Lag BaOmer at his kever in Tlemcen, an important
trading center located in northwest Algeria, once part of the Zayyanid Berber.
Harav Ephraim Encaoua (5114/1354–5202/1442), known in Arabic as Al-Nakawa (the pure), was not only a Rav but also a physician, philosopher and founder of the Jewish community of Tlemcen, which developed into a great Torah center and became known as Yerushalayim of the Maghreb (West). In fact, the Abuchatzeira dynasty had its origins in Tlemcen.
On Lag BaOmer through the years, thousands of Jews, as well as Arabs, would visit the gravesite of Harav Encaoua, who had become known as a miracle worker. They would make the pilgrimage to pray for the blessing of children, restored health, shidduchim and/or parnassah.
Born in Toledo, Spain, young Ephraim was taught until his bar mitzvah by his father, Harav Yisrael ben Yosef Encaoua, author
of Menoras Hama’or, who was also known as a tzaddik. Rav Yisrael sent his 13-year-old son to Gerona, Spain, to learn in the
famous yeshivah of the Ran,
Harav Nissim ben Reuven Gaon. During the fourteenth century, with the enforcement of the Spanish Inquisition, many
Jews chose to die al kiddush Hashem rather than convert to Christianity. Rav Ephraim witnessed his father’s cruel
murder by the Inquisition.
Rav Yisrael Encaoua and Rav Yehudah ben Asher, Hy”d, were murdered together in Toledo while holding a sefer Torah.
After his father’s murder, Rav Ephraim fled f rst to Malaga in southern Spain and then to Marrakech in Morocco.
It was in Marrakech that Rav Encaoua began establishing chadarim for children and yeshivos for adolescents. He taught Torah and mussar and transformed the Jewish community in Morocco, strengthening the observance of mitzvos and Torah study.
There are many legends surrounding Rav Encaoua’s establishment of the Jewish community of Tlemcen (today in Algeria), which at the time was a North African kingdom ruled by the Berber sultans of the Zayyanid dynasty. It is believed that Jews lived in the neighboring cities Honein and Agadir, but for many years after the destruction of Tlemcen no Jews were permitted to settle in Tlemcen until Rav Ephraim Encaoua’s arrival.
According to tradition, Rav Ephraim arrived late one Erev Shabbos at the entrance of Tlemcen.
Exhausted from traveling, and without water to quench his thirst, the Rav stretched out his arm and touched a rock in a nearby cave with the palm of his hand. Water gushed forth from the rock. To this day, the waters located in the grotto known as the Rabi’s Grotto are said to possess special properties, and a visit to the rockis part of the pilgrimage to his tomb.
According to legend, several inhabitants of Tlemcen had been killed by a wild lion which had ventured out of the forest to the south of the city. A fearsome panic gripped Tlemcen. When Rav Ephraim learned of this he wrapped himself in tallis
and tefi llin and entered the forest unarmed. When the raging lion leaped in front of him, he recited the passuk
(Tehillim 91:13) Al shachal vafesen tidroch, tirmos kefir v’sanin — Upon the lion and the viper you will tread; you
will trample the young lion and the serpent.
The lion immediately calmed down and approached the tzaddik, crouching at his feet. Suddenly a long snake slithered in front of him. Rav Ephraim, it is told, grabbed the serpent, climbed onto the back of the lion, and wrapped the snake around the lion’s head like a bridle; thus he entered the city and rode around Tlemcen. The inhabitants were astounded. Rav Ephraim said, “It is not the lion nor the serpent that kills, but sin that gives wild beasts the power to harm” (cf. Brachos 33a).
Rav Encaoua descended from the lion and released the serpent, which vanished from sight. From that time
on wild animals no longer entered Tlemcen. Both Jews and Muslims thereafter viewed the Rav as a holy man.
The Jewish Community in Tlemcen
Sultan Abu Tashfin granted Rav Encaoua the right to live in the city and then, as a result of the following
story, gave him permission to establish an entire Jewish community in Tlemcen.
The sultan’s only daughter was deathly ill, and no physician was able to cure her. The sultan was advised to
summon the Rabbi who had come to Tlemcen mounted on a lion, because it was known that he had cured many ill people in the city. According to tradition, Rav Encaoua cured her with a very simple remedy: He bade her eat an
apple while he prayed to Hashem to heal her. The sultan rejoiced that the life of his only daughter was saved and
promised the Rav much gold and silver as a reward. The Rav replied that the only reward he wanted was permission for
Jews to settle in the city and for him to build a synagogue there.
The Sultan permitted 500 families who were hiding from the Spanish Inquisition in the Balearic Islands to settle in
Tlemcen, and indeed a synagogue was built. Rav Ephraim then established a yeshivah in Tlemcen, which eventually became a great makom Torah. He led the Jewish community there until his petirah at the age of 88.
The synagogue that Harav Ephraim Encaoua established thereafter contained a ner tamid hanging above the chair
that the Rav had used; on it was engraved a passuk from Yirmiyahu (17:12): “Kisei kavod marom meirishon makom
Mikdasheinu — Like the Throne of Glory, exalted from the beginning, so is the place of our Sanctuary.”
Rav Ephraim Encaoua had two sons, Yisrael and Yehudah. Yehudah became the father-in-law of Harav Zemach Duran.
Among the writings of Rav Ephraim was Shaar Kvod Hashem, which responded to criticism of the Rambam’s
Moreh Nevuchim. The original manuscript of this work is found in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; also at Oxford is the
manuscript of the aforementioned Menoras Hama’or of his father, Rav Yisrael Encaoua.
It is believed that Rav Ephraim authored many sefarim on Halachah, mussar and Biblical exegesis, but they have unfortunately been lost.
Tlemcen Closed to Jews
When Algeria declared independence from France in 1962, almost 130,000 Jews fled Algeria and settled in France; 7,000 Jews relocated to Eretz Yisrael.
The Tlemcen Jews who moved to Paris under the auspices of Union des Amis de Tlemcen (Union of Friends
of Tlemcen) recreated the Jewish quarter of their native city with the construction of a synagogue on 13-15 Rue des Pétites Écuries in the Tenth Arondissement in Paris in 1972.
They also established a memorial for Rav Ephraim Encaoua there, where commemorative ceremonies on his yahrtzeit and on Lag BaOmer are celebrated.
His kever in Tlemcen was still visited on Lag BaOmer until recently. In 2005, a group of over 250 people came
to the kever for the hilula. The tomb was restored at the initiative of Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whose
family came from this area. The president suffered a stroke in 2013 and has not been seen in public since. Mystery has
shrouded the Algerian government, which now seems to be run by his prime minister. President Abdelaziz is probably
unaware that the Algerian government (according to the Algerian news site El Khabar) has now forbidden Jews
from visiting the country to celebrate the Lag BaOmer hilula of Rav Ephraim Encaoua; he certainly would not have
approved of this prohibition.
Pearl Herzog
May 25th 2016 17 Iyyar 5776 Inyan Magazine of HaModia