Lehi's Family Was Not Alone

By George Potter with research by Gatis Senkān

In the Nephi Project film Discovering Lehi's Trail and Shazer, I discuss the idea that the Lord warned other righteous people living in Jerusalem to leave the city before the siege by the Babylonians. Jeremiah had a large following, so there must have been others the Lord needed to forewarn.

While researching the book Lehi in the Wilderness, I learned that according to the oral traditions of Jews now living in India, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, each group believes its ancestors left Jerusalem just prior to the invasion of Babylonia circa 586 B.C.

I recently received a letter from Gatis Senkān, the LDS District President from Latvia, and a member of the Nephi Project expedition to Salalah, Oman (the Land of Bountiful) in 2006. Gatis writes:

"Last Friday I returned from a trip to Tunisia. I was there with my family on school holidays.

 

"It was very interesting for me to find out that there was and still is a Jewish colony that came to this place at about 600 B.C., the same time when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. I found that out from a local guide while discussing the topic of religions in Tunisia. The guide did not have any more detailed information.

"I checked with Google and found the following. This is a quote from an article and a link of that article."

Tunisia is the home of the oldest continuous Jewish congregation in the world and the most vibrant Jewish community in an Arab country. After the fall of Jerusalem's first temple in 586 B.C., Jews sailed the Mediterranean until they reached the Island of Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia. They have lived there ever since.

http://www.theculturedtraveler.com/Archives/MAR2007/TunesianStyle.htm

Gatis concludes, "I think that we cannot exclude that this colony might have been somehow connected with the Mulekites."

I thank Gatis for sharing this information with us. Our Latvian brother not only reflects the spirit of exploration and cooperation we want to foster at the Nephi Project, he shows us once again that if any claim that the Book of Mormon is not in harmony with history, they simply don't know their history!