With each funeral that passes through Bab eljnaiez street (“the gate of funerals”), merchants and passers-by stand in front of shops out of respect for the dead.

Despite the gloomy name, Bab eljnaiez, a street which runs one kilometer and houses at least 100 shops, is also the lifeblood of the entire city where visitors come from all over the country in search of various agricultural goods specific to Beja, like Cecilia cheese, sweet donuts and dumplings as well as other local vegetables, fruits and meats of various kinds.

With each funeral that passes through Bab eljnaiez street (“the gate of funerals”), merchants and passers-by stand in front of shops out of respect for the dead.

Despite the gloomy name, Bab eljnaiez, a street which runs one kilometer and houses at least 100 shops, is also the lifeblood of the entire city where visitors come from all over the country in search of various agricultural goods specific to Beja, like Cecilia cheese, sweet donuts and dumplings as well as other local vegetables, fruits and meats of various kinds.

Economically and socially, Bab eljnaiez is the most important of the seven gates surrounding the old city of Beja. It accommodates the history of the entire city and provides a large number of jobs for vendors and seasonal workers.

Head of ‘Beja Beloved Association’ Hatem Qalei says the street was named Bab eljnaiez back in 935 AD when the oldest church in the city was turned into the Grand Mosque. Since then, city residents have been entering the Grand Mosque from any of the city’s gates to attend the funeral and leave through Bab eljnaiez.

As funerals pass through the street passersby are able to offer condolences or assistance to needy families of the deceased, or to ask from the street’s merchants and shoppers to pray for the dead, and to remind people of the value in charitable work before leaving this world. “All those who passed through in a casket at the end of their lives had crossed the same path hundreds of times to meet their daily needs,” he says.

Markets in the city of Beja are a network of narrow roads, where Bab eljnaiez is their confluence point. Clean stores, such as clothing, perfume, spices, bookshops and wool shops, are located near the Grand Mosque because they do not represent any inconvenience to the worshipers.

Business activities in the street host the memory of diverse civilizations that passed through Beja and left their print on the market. Shops of traditional dairy products are an extension of the shops of Italians who settled in the city and brought the industry of high quality local cheeses and a unique breed of sheep called Sicilian Sardi.

Italy Town in Beja downtown remains a witness to the Italian era in the city, the primary supplier of grains and agricultural products in Tunisia. In the last periods of the French colony and after Tunisia’s independence in 1956, most Italians left the country, but the Beja population maintained and passed on the cheese industry from one generation to the next. Today, this foodstuff is a food staple and cheese shops occupy a major part of the Bab eljnaiez market.

Andalusians and Turks also left their mark on the city. Dumpling shops, which spread in the ancient market in the month of Ramadan are of Andalusian origin, brought the industry from their country and mastered and diversified it once they settled in Beja. Now, dumplings have become a feature of the region.

The making of donuts was introduced to the city by a Turkish soldier who lived in Beja. During his stay in the city, he prepared donuts for a family that loved it. They learned how to make it and master it and have been passing it down to new generations for over 150 years.