Mimouna in Morocco: Jews Who Trust Their Muslim Neighbors

New York – The vast majority of people in the Christian and Muslim world know little, or nothing at all, about the history of the Jewish communities in the Muslim world. The only thing most Jews know about this fourteen-hundred-year history, is that Jews in North Africa and the Middle East were not persecuted as much in Muslim countries as they were in European Christian countries.

It would be a major mistake to  judge from the Palestinian-Israeli political conflict in the 20th century that Jewish-Muslim relations have usually been poor. The opposite is true. Prior to the rise of secular political nationalism in the last half of the 19th century, and the rise of politicized religion within Judaism and Islam in the last half century; Jewish-Muslim relations were usually characterized by neighborliness and amity. Yes amity; as witnessed by the North African Jewish celebration of Mimouna (pronounced Meemouna) shows.

The North African Jewish festival of Mimouna, a 24-hour food centered celebration, begins right after the week of Passover ends. For many centuries Moroccan Jewish homes were emptied of leavened bread and flour during the week of Passover. At the end of the week of Passover, Jews could eat leavened bread and pastry again, but they had no ordinary flour at all in their homes to bake with.

Ashdod resident Shaul Ben-Simhon, who immigrated to Israel in 1948 at age 18, said that in Morocco the holiday brought Jews and Muslims together each year. “Our home was open to everyone, including Arabs,” he said. Ben-Simhon recalled the tradition of Arab neighbors bringing flour to his home, so his mother and grandmother could make baked goods.

Often this was the same flour that Jews had given to their Muslim neighbors a day prior to the start of Passover, so Jews could rid their homes of all leavened flour, prior to Passover. When, after the end of Passover, Muslims came to Jewish homes to return the flour, they were always invited to stay for a few hours and enjoy the soon to be baked goodies.

Thus, Jewish homes were filled with neighbors, friends and family exchanging traditional Arabic blessings of good luck and success; while awaiting the laden trays of delicious Mimouna baked goods.

The celebration often was repeated the next day with even  more pastry and joy. According to Elisheva Chetrit, a historian of Moroccan Jewry, in Morocco the yearly celebration began with the Jews eating  nuts, dates and dried fruit, just as Muslims did when braking the daily fast during the month of Ramadan. Then their Arabs neighbors would arrive with the flour needed to prepare bread and pastry and the celebration would begin.

In Israel unfortunately, for the first two decades of statehood, the festival was hardly observed at all. “In the early days of the state, we Moroccans were busy with absorption and working hard, often in construction. We didn’t have the energy or self-confidence to celebrate Mimouna,” said Shaul Ben-Simhon.

That changed in 1968, when Ben-Simhon, at age 38 and a high-ranking official at the Histadrut, Israel’s trade union alliance, organized a Mimouna celebration in Lod in a bid to help the integration of Moroccan immigrants into Israeli society.

Ben-Sinhon’s effort to raise the community’s morale attracted 300 participants. The next year, Ben-Simhon moved the celebration to Jerusalem, got then-mayor Teddy Kollek’s support, and managed to draw a crowd of 5,000. This grew into a major celebration in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park that today draws over 100, 000 people. This event inspired the revival of Mimouna all across Israel.

Now throughout the state of Israel, Moroccan Jews and Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds flock to smaller public and private celebrations. A special law even requires bosses to grant employees unpaid leave on the day of Mimouna if they want to carry on celebrations from the previous evening. Since the Torah states that a Jewish home must not contain any leavened bread during the week of Passover; many Jews “sold” their regular household flour to a non-Jewish friend or neighbor; who then “sold” it back after Passover.

Unfortunately, the Orthodox Rabbinical bureaucracy has arraigned for the formal “sale” of all the leavened flour in Jewish homes throughout the State of Israel to a few Arab Muslims or Christians, so the much more personal, private transfer to one’s Arab neighbors rarely takes place today in Israel. Perhaps, a restoration of this part of the Passover tradition would help bring Jews and Arabs in Israel closer together. Ben-Simhon believes that Mimouna promotes unity between families and neighbors. In Morocco, it was a day when people would visit each other to bury grudges.

There are several theories regarding how the celebration got the name Mimouna. I think it comes from the Arabic word Amina and the Turkish word Emina that both sound similar to the Hebrew word Emunah. Indeed,  Emin, Emina and Ahmina are names in Turkish and Arabic, meaning a faithful or trusted one.

Jews trusted their Muslim neighbors to guard the flour faithfully during the week of Passover from becoming impure, and their Muslim neighbors always did so.

Perhaps the revival of the Jewish-Muslim celebration of Mimouna in Israel, could stimulate Muslims and Jews in other parts of the world, to reach out to each other and share traditional pastries made from both leaven and unleavened flour. Passover starts on the evening of April 10, 2017 and ends after sundown on April 17 for all Jews in Israel and for Reform Jews worldwide, and on April 18 for Orthodox and Conservative Jews outside of Israel.

It would be wonderful if Jewish and Muslim groups or individuals invited each other to this “Celebration of Muslim-Jewish Amity”.

Jews and Christians in premodern Europe never shared food because so much of the Christian foods, even baked and fried pastry goods, were prepared with pork lard. In Muslim lands, Jews and Muslims knew that they could trust each others baked goods 51 weeks a year. During the week of Passover, that trust extended to the very flour itself. I pray this custom may help bring Jews and Muslims closer to the neighborliness and amity we shared together in past centuries.

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King Mohammed VI Decision to Integrate Holocaust in Text Books, Unfounded Media Hype

Rabat - Morocco’s relationship with its Jewish communities has been the subject of wide interest—both scholarly and journalistic—in recent years.

Rabat – Morocco’s relationship with its Jewish communities has been the subject of wide interest—both scholarly and journalistic—in recent years.
While the world generally views the Arab-Jewish relationship as conflictual and continuously tumultuous, a recent message by King Mohammed VI to a symposium on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, has opted for the contrary. The King said that, at least in the Moroccan context, peaceful coexistence between Jewish and Muslims is real and has been so for generations.
Drawing attention to a history of peaceful coexistence between different faiths in Morocco, the King reiterated Morocco’s desire to not only fight anti-semitism, but also to promote religious tolerance and open-mindedness in school.
The message was delivered by Head of Government Saad Eddine El Othmani at a roundtable on “The power of education in preventing racism and discrimination: the case of anti-Semitism.” The King underlined Morocco’s historical role as a champion of religious dialogue and peaceful cohabitation.
Antisemitism, the King said, “provides a breeding ground for violent extremism and growing insecurity.” He added, “Anti-Semitism is the antithesis of freedom of expression. It implies a denial of the other and is an admission of failure, inadequacy and an inability to coexist. It implies an anachronistic return to a mystified past.”
The King called participants at the UN roundtable to “promote education for peace” and invest in education and culture to win the battle against the proliferation of exclusive and racist ideologies. The legacy of exclusion and suspicion, he concluded, should not be passed on to future generations.

Holocaust in Moroccan school books?

Following the King’s message, a number of international media outlets have speculated about the implications of the King’s insistence on religious cohabitation and the teaching in Moroccan schools of an inclusive and comprehensive approach to history.
Journalists have raised the possibility that Morocco might include the Holocaust and other episodes of Jewish history in Moroccan history textbooks.
The King’s message, they argued, points to a willingness to integrate historical episodes that were previously sidelined or ignored by Moroccan textbooks.
But whether King Mohammed’s insistence on a collective and inclusive Jewish-Muslim history will indeed be taken into account in the country’s history textbooks is bound to remain media speculations.
The Moroccan Ministry of Education did not respond to Morocco World News repeated requests for comment. Fatima Ouahmi, head of the ministry’s communication department, told us that she is “not qualified to answer.”
Agence France Press (AFP) also reported earlier today they contacted the communication department of the Ministry of Education for comments. The ministry refrained from commenting, telling AFP to refer to the original message. The King has not ordered the government to include the Holocaust in Moroccan school books, AFP reported.
Rachid Aguadou, the director of the cabinet of the Ministry of Education was unreachable.
We’ve been here before
While King Mohammed VI’s much-reported message has taken on a new meaning in media circles, especially given the context of the King’s continued focus on youth-related matters, headlines about the complex history of Moroccan Jews have been around much longer.
In October 2017, Israeli outlet Haaretz reported a partnership between Morocco and the US Holocaust Museum to “educate about the Holocaust and counter intolerance.”
Prince Moulay Rachid endorsed the museum’s proposal on Morocco’s behalf. He was reported to have accepted the museum’s suggestion to work on a project “to bring the lessons of the past to address the lessons of the present and to make a better tomorrow.”
Haaretz added that museum director Sara Bloomfield invited Prince Moulay Rachid to attend another event in Washington, D.C., to honor his grandfather, King Mohammed V, “who refused to hand over Jewish Moroccans to the Vichy France occupier during the Nazi period.”
Moroccan Jews and Muslims: A complex history
For all the positive accounts about Morocco’s genuine concern for its Jewish population and government-backed efforts to integrate minorities in the public sphere through various cultural events or participation in international forums on socio-religious tolerance, the numbers and historical records tell a mixed tale.
In a 2016 book on Jewish-Muslim cohabitation in Morocco, the Moroccan historian Mohammed Kenbib retraces the trajectory of Moroccan Jews between 1858 and 1948 to the present, shedding enormous historical light on inter-community relations in Morocco.
The book pointed to Morocco’s dwindling Jewish populations since 1948, between the creation of the State of Israel and mounting fear among Jews around the world about their security and well-being in other parts of the world.
Raising questions about remnants of Morocco’s Jewry and the ties now binding Morocco with its Jewish communities—both living in Morocco and dispersed across the globe, Kenbib speaks of the Jewish presence in Morocco in terms of one of the North African kingdom’s greatest cultural and historical assets.
Kenbib’s book, however, is rueful and nostalgic about the gradual loss of Morocco’s Jewish heritage. Whereas in 1948 Morocco had over 265,000 Jews, the numbers today are just somewhere around 10,000, Kenbib’s various sources concurred.
Other sources say as few as 3,000 Jews live in Morocco today, indicating the general tendency towards emigration to places where they feel relatively more safe. The majority of Jews of Moroccan descent now live in France, Israel, the US, and Canada, while thousands others are disseminated around in the world.
Despite the massive emigration of Moroccan Jews, Morocco’s current tiny Jewish community still remains the highest in number among Jewish communities in the Arab world.
And, like King Mohammed VI’s message at the UN symposium, Kenbib’s book is filled with suggestions and historical examples of functional cohabitation between Muslims and Jewish Moroccans.

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Jewish-Moroccan Author: Holocaust is ‘New Religion’ to Justify Zionist Occupation of Palestine

A Moroccan Jewish anti-zionism activist spoke about the Zionist strategy amining to justify the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Rabat – Moroccan-French author and activist Jacob Cohen has strongly criticized the Zionist strategy aiming to influence people around the world to justify the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The author, who was born in Meknes in 1944, criticized Zionism at a lecture under the theme “the Holocaust … and the Zionist Agenda” held in Rabat on Friday, January 4.

Cohen referred to the Holocaust as a “new religion” invented by Zionists to influence the world to justify the occupation of Palestine.

He added that the Zionist lobby made the issue of the Holocaust so “existential” and have “prevented  historians from talking about the issue unless it is done in a way that satisfies the Zionist agenda.”

The agenda, according to Cohen, aims to victimize Jews, and to show that nobody suffered more than them.

The author added that Israeli governments have been presenting the Holocaust as a mean “to spread fear” since the 1970s to  turn a blind eye to its massacres against Palestinians

Cohen also criticized the Aladdin project  initiated by  the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) aimed at introducing Muslims to the realities of the Holocaust.

“Aladdin also set itself the task of highlighting the historical evidence concerning the role of Muslim rulers and citizens who helped the Jews during the Nazi reign of terror, said ProjetAladin.org.

Commenting on the project, Cohen said that the Aladin program shows that “zionists only talk about peace and the ideal of this dream, and even the right to a two-state solution without condemning the occupation.”

He also spoke about te “the evil genius of Zionist”  and the racist propaganda and deception, recalling the “arbitrary identification of the number of Jewish victims.”

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Israel to Seek Compensation for Lost Jewish Property in Morocco

Israel estimates that before migrating to Israel, Jewish immigrants owned $250 billion in real estate in Arab countries.

Rabat – Israel is expected to demand compensation from seven Arab countries for property Jews left behind when they immigrated to Israel.

Jews have reportedly left behind property with $250 billion when they were obliged to leave homes in Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Yemen for Israel after Israeli independence in 1948.

Israeli Minister for Social Equality Gila Gamliel maintains that the Jews from the seven Arab countries experienced injustice and were forced to flee their countries.

Speaking Saturday on Israeli television channel Hadashot News, Gamliel said, “The time has come to correct the historic injustice against the Jews from Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, and Iran – countries from which Jews were expelled.”

Gamliel added that she will coordinate efforts to obtain the compensation.

The minister estimated that Jews lost $250 billion in real estate when they mass-migrated between 1948 and 1960 to the newly-founded state, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Israel plans to request $35 billion from Tunisia and $15 billion from Libya but has not released the estimated amounts it will seek from other countries.

Israel released the $250 billion estimate in anticipation of the announcement of the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan for Israel and Palestine.

However, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman announced Sunday that the plan would only be revealed in “several months.”

Israel is expected to demand the compensation as a condition of a regional peace deal based on a 2010 Israeli law which states that any peace deal with Arab countries or Iran is contingent on individual Jews or Jewish communities receiving compensation for property they lost in 1948.

Israel has been conducting discrete valuations of Jewish property in the seven countries during the past 18 months.

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Imlil Murders: Muslim, Jewish, Christian Scholars Demonstrate Coexistence Between Religions

Several vigils in tribute of the murdered Scandinavian tourists took place over the weekend across Morocco. The gatherings which served as an opportunity to recall that Morocco is land of openness, hospitality and coexistence, regardless of beliefs or religions.

Rabat – In the vigil held in Marrakech, three representatives of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, came together and posed for a hand in hand picture.

The three representatives are the Jewish community president in Marrakech, an Imam of a mosque, and the representative of the Christian community in Marrakech.

The hand in hand picture has been widely shared on social media, symbolizing coexistence between the three religions.

Moroccans also organized vigils in front of Denmark and Norway embassies on Saturday in Rabat. Participants denounced the ‘heinous’ crime committed against the two innocent Scandinavian tourists and carried banners displaying messages of solidarity.

The banners read “No to terrorism,” and “We are all Danish and Norwegian.”

Moroccans from all walks of life denounced death of Maren Ueland and Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, who were found dead inside their tent in an isolated mountainous area, 10 kilometers from the village of Imlil in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.

Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ) arrested the four individuals involved in the murders.

DGSN spokesperson Boubker Sabik said in an interview with Moroccan television channel 2M on Sunday, that the individuals acted on their own without coordination with the terrorist group ISIS.

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Emigration Morocco Jews Jewish Community

Rabat -  Of the 14.7 million Jews in the world, 2,000 Jews live in Morocco and 8,500 in Iran.

abat –  Of the 14.7 million Jews in the world, 2,000 Jews live in Morocco and 8,500 in Iran.

The Jewish Agency unveiled statistics of the world’s Jewish population on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, literally the “head of the new year,” celebrated on September 9.

A total of 6.6 million Jews live in Israel, while 8.1 million live outside Israel.

According to Haaretz, the statistics were calculated by Sergio Della Pergola, an Israeli expert on Jewish demography.

The number of Jewish people allowed to immigrate back to Israel under the country’s Law of Return, which includes all children and grandchildren of Jews, is estimated at 23.5 million.

Of the 8.1 million Jews who live outside Israel, 27,000 live in Arab and Persian countries. Morocco and Iran have the most, with 2,000 Jews and 8,500 respectively. However, some sources, such as the CIA World Factbook, put Morocco’s population of Jews at 6,000 as recently as 2010. Tunisia has 1,000, while fewer than 500 Jews live in each of Yemen, Syria, and Egypt.

The US has 5.7 million of Jews, the most of any other country but Israel. The second largest Jewish population outside Israel is France with 453;000, followed by Canada with 391,000.

Britain has  290,000 Jews, Argentina 180,000, Russia 172,000, Australia 113,000, Brazil 93,000, and South Africa 69,000.

The Jewish Agency also announced that at least 100 Jews live in a total of 98 countries in the world.

In the second International Conference on Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue held on September 10-12 in Fez, King Mohammed VI spoke about interfaith issues in Morocco.

The King said that the choice of Fez to host the event is not a random choice as it “has always been a land of dialogue, peace, coexistence and spiritual fulfilment.”

The King also lauded Morocco’s hospitality, emphasizing that Morocco has a unique model in the region.

“Indeed, our history attests to a long-established tradition of coexistence on Moroccan soil—particularly between Muslims and Jews—and to openness to other religions,” said the monarch.

The World Jewish Congress reported in February 2018 that Morocco has the “largest remaining Jewish community in North Africa.”

Morocco has hosted Jewish communities since Roman days. After the Spanish Edict of Expulsion in 1492, some 20,000 Jews emigrated from Granada to Morocco. At their peak before Israel became a state in 1948, Jews in Morocco numbered over 200,000.

Between Israel’s independence and Morocco’s in 1956, most of Morocco’s Jews emigrated from Morocco to Israel, Canada, and France.

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Morocco’s Capital: A City of Peaceful Religious Coexistence

Rabat - The Kingdom of Morocco has always been a land of intercultural coexistence and tolerance. Rabat, its capital, hosts the places of worship of the three Abrahamic religions.

Rabat – The Kingdom of Morocco has always been a land of intercultural coexistence and tolerance. Rabat, its capital, hosts the places of worship of the three Abrahamic religions.

There, one finds mosques, churches and synagogues as rooted in time as the relation of fraternity and peaceful coexistence that binds Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Some of these places of worship date back to the colonization period in Morocco. During this period, Muslims, Jews, Christians and foreign colonists used to practice their religions each in their distinctive places of worship, located in different corners of the city.

Jewish synagogues were mainly located at El Malah neighborhood, whereas Christian churches were located near the French Institute at Joulan square. Mosques, on the other h    and, were already there, since Islam had always been the predominant religion in the kingdom.

Today, these places of worship in Rabat are but emblems of the spirit of peaceful cohabitation and acceptance that marked the relations among the adherents of the three religions. All practice their religions without any hostility towards the different other.

The photos below use religious iconography to demonstrate the peaceful co-existence between the three Abrahamic religions in Rabat. One way to do this is to see how the different symbols attributed to the three Abrahamic religions reflect the spirit of cohabitation when put together in different contexts.

The Christian Cross, the Jewish Star of David and the Muslim Crescent and Misbaha co-symbolize the spirit of fraternity that binds the three religions they represent.

Morocco’s flag wavers above the land where the three religions coexist. In the picture below, you can see the three symbols of each of the Abrahamic religions put together under the wavering Moroccan flags. The picture symbolizes Morocco’s readiness to defend, by all means, the relationship of fraternity that has for so long united Islam, Judaism and Christianity together on this land.

This picture symbolizes the religious coexistence that characterizes Rabat, through a synergy of the Suna Mosque, the Christian church and the hexagram, a generally recognized symbol of Judaism.

The picture below portrays an old Moroccan Jewish woman at the entrance of the Jewish synagogue located at Moulay Ismail Boulevard next to the El Malah neighborhood. Easter lived 70 years of coexistence and peace with Moroccan Jews living in El Malah neighborhood.

This is another picture reflecting the coexistence of the three Abrahamic religions in the capital. This picture features the internationally recognized symbol of peace along with the Muslim Misbaha, with the Christian church in the background.

The three symbols of the Abrahamic religions featured together in one picture: a symbol of coexistence.

This picture symbolizes the religious cohabitation that characterizes Rabat the capital, as even what is called “conservative Islam” accepts to live peacefully in a society where other religions are practiced.

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Emigration: Morocco Only Has a Few Thousand Jews Left

Rabat - A delegation made up of representatives of Muslims, Jews, and Christians from southwest France has been visiting Morocco since last Sunday in collaboration with France’s Union of Mosques (UMF).

Rabat – A delegation made up of representatives of Muslims, Jews, and Christians from southwest France has been visiting Morocco since last Sunday in collaboration with France’s Union of Mosques (UMF).

UMF, which facilitates interreligious dialogue in France, initiated this trip as part of a mission to represent French Islam, said Hauman Yaakoubi, Secretary-General of the Union.

Led by the president of the Regional Council of the Muslim Religion of Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur (PACA), Khalid Belkhadir, the delegation is expected to hold interviews with officials, and visit, until next Friday, a number of places of worship for the three monotheistic religions as well as sites in Morocco’s holy cities.

Morocco is home to many religious sites and some of the places the delegation will visit are Mosque Hassan II, the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the Museum of Judaism in Casablanca.

The delegation is also expected to visit the Mohammed V Mausoleum and the Mohammed VI Institute for the Training of Imams in Rabat.

In Fes, the delegation will visit the Al Quaraouiyine Mosque, the Slat Al Fassiyine Synagogue, Aben Danan Synagogue, and other historical sites in the city.

The delegation was received Tuesday in Rabat by the Minister for Islamic Affairs, Ahmed Toufiq. They attended talks that focused on the Moroccan model of management in the religious field.

Toufiq applauded the delegation’s initiative and its willingness to discover the Moroccan model that advocates the values of moderate Islam, stressing that “the world today needs people who believe in moderation to affirm the universality of religious discourse.”

Morocco has long since sought to promote the vision of “tolerant Islam“ and to prevent proliferation of extremists in mosques by training imams in “best practices” of moderate traditions.

A considerable number of imams and mourchidates (female religious guides) come to Morocco from Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, particularly France, to obtain theological training from Morocco’s religious scholars.

Morocco has also encouraged some of its eminent scholars to hold conferences in France and other parts of Europe, and has urged Sub-Saharan African mosques to preach the values of Islam.

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Jewish Moroccans Celebrate ‘Shared Moroccanness,’ Commitment to Morocco

Representatives of Morocco’s Jewish community have reaffirmed their “unflinching attachment to Moroccanness,” celebrating the country’s history of peaceful coexistence between Muslim and Jewish Moroccans.

Rabat – The public show of allegiance to a complex national and cultural heritage took place at a cultural event in Marrakech on Thursday.

Under the theme “Moroccan Judaism: Toward Shared Moroccanness,” panelists and participants convened to celebrate films and other cultural works that shed light on “beautiful historical stories of shared heritage and togetherness” between Morocco’s Muslim and Jewish communities.

Zhor Rehihil, a curator at the Moroccan Judaism Museum, the body that organized the event in Marrakech, said that Thursday’s meeting between artists and participants—mostly a young audience—was an opportunity to cultivate seeds of Moroccanness in young Moroccan Jews.

She said that the country’s history is full of “beautiful shared memories” that need to be taught to younger generations to ensure a harmonious and shared future.

According to the Rehihil, the museum has been engaged on the cultural front of the struggle to integrate minorities’ history in official Moroccan accounts. The objective is to instill in young Moroccans from the two communities the skills to appreciate their country’s complex and rich heritage.

Thursday’s event, she said, was a culmination “of all the efforts that the Moroccan Judaism Museum has been making for twenty years” to celebrate religious and cultural diversity in Morocco. The museum’s work has been “profound and unremitting,” she explained.

Referring to the number of successful cultural events and discussion panels that the museum has organized since 1997—both in France and in Morocco— Rehihil said that acknowledging diverse cultural heritages is necessary for a changing Moroccan society. What it all boils down to, she elaborated, is that “we, Jews and Muslim Moroccans, have worked together because we share the feeling of Moroccanness.”

In a 2013 documentary film, “Tinghir-Jerusalem,” Moroccan-Jewish director Kamal Hachkar explored the complexities of Moroccan Jewry. The film received wide critical acclaim for offering a reconciliatory reading of cultural complexity in a world where “binarisms and inward-looking attitudes are on the rise.”

The Moroccan Judaism Museum played a key role in the realization of the documentary, the museum’s curator said. Art works like “Tinghir-Jerusalem,” she explained, are part of a growing trend in Moroccan cultural circles. “It is part of the awareness-process of our shared cultural heritage.”

Maxime Karoutchi, a Moroccan-Jewish singer and actor, spoke of the “flame of Moroccanness” burning inside him. Karoutchi said he was 14 when he was first introduced to his Moroccan cultural heritage. Since then, he added, he has been “unwaveringly committed to the richness and complexity” of his Moroccan-Jewish heritage.

“Peaceful coexistence is a basic truth and nothing can isolate us from our Muslim neighbors,” Karoutchi said. But Karoutchi was not preaching a detached artistic attitude that offers a dreamy and simplified version of the complexities of daily life. His lifestyle and his public statements reflect his belief in an open and diversity-integrating Morocco.

In a 2015 interview that went viral, the singer celebrated the double heritage of his upbringing. However, he hammered in the interview: “I am first and foremost a Moroccan.”

The artist regretted, however, that nothing substantial has been done in terms of policies to formally integrate the Jewish heritage in Morocco’s official historical archives.

Perhaps alluding to the recently rumored royal instruction to teach Jewish history in Moroccan schools, the singer said that including Jewish-Muslim shared heritage in Moroccan school textbooks would be a significant step toward normalizing and spreading the lived reality of the two community’s peaceful cohabitation and common history.

Discussions during the event shed light on the often neglected “beautiful history” of Berber Jews, as the Maghreb’s Jewish communities are often called.

Also speaking at the Marrakech event, Kamal Hachkar, the acclaimed director of the “Tinghir-Jerusalem” documentary film, mentioned the critical importance of “building cultural bridges.” For him, celebrating diversity is only possible through cultural bridges and dialogues that point out memories and heritage that members of a society have in common.

Of his documentary, Hachkar said: “The film was not a historical account, but it intended to understand how it is that one survives attachment to one’s native land.” The film originally set out to “interrogate what, for my generation, has remained of our native culture.”

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Marrakech Taroudant Small Town History Charm מרקש טארודנט

Sitting approximately 80 kilometers east of Agadir, Taroudant, or the “little Marrakech,” is an imperial town stretching out along the Souss Valley.

Sitting approximately 80 kilometers east of Agadir, Taroudant, or the “little Marrakech,” is an imperial town stretching out along the Souss Valley.

The first thing a visitor will notice is the pentagon-shaped fortified wall that encircles the city. The Taroudant historical wall is the oldest wall in Morocco and the third most robust in the world, according to historian A. Hermas, after the Great Wall of China and the Kumbhalgarh Fort in India.

Though far older dynasties started building walls around the city, the Saadian dynasty, led by Mohammed Ash-Sheikh Saadi, built the current design of the wall and the city as a whole in the 16th century.

The Saadians built the defensive rampart for military purposes. It stands 8 to 10 meters high, 1.5 to 4 meters thick, and 8 kilometers long. More than 100 crenels, used to keep watch or shoot at enemies, top the wall.

The Saadians used Taroudant as a base to launch attacks against the Spanish and Portuguese armies, which occupied the regions around the coastal city of Agadir 80 kilometers away.

The five large unbreachable gates, called “bab” in Arabic, were made of hard materials to withstand attack. The five entrances are known as Bab Zorgan, Bab Targhount, Bab Ouled Bounouna, Bab Lkhmis, and Bab Selsla.

Bab Zorgan derives its name from the old mills or grinders that locals used to grind grains and sugar canes. Due to its proximity to the city’s bus and taxi station, a nearby gate, Bab Benyara, has been opened to facilitate traffic in out of the city.

Previously called “The Gate of Conquest,” Bab Targhount was the gate from which the Saadians started their attacks. It is considered the smallest with a 20 square meter yard. Locals say its name derives from a nearby stream.

The previous local communal council had decided to use the yard for an art gallery exhibition, but someone set it on fire. The gate’s frame survived however, remaining intact thanks to its solid materials.

The name Bab Ouled Bonouna refers to a number of Andalusian families that settled in Taroudant after they were expelled from Andalusia in the 16th century.

Bab Lkhmis opened onto a space where local townspeople, or Roudanis, and

people from the Souss region did their shopping every Khmiss day (Thursday).

It leads out towards the city graveyard that predates even the Saadians. The gate has a 78 square meter yard and a small mosque.

Bab Selsla is the main entrance through which the sultans and any formal convoys came. Just beside the gate are stairs that tourists use today to climb up to the terrace where they can see panoramic views of the.

Along with their military function, the wall and its gates served as control towers and checkpoints to monitor visitors, check salesmen, and collect taxes from caravans coming from nearby regions and wishing to do business in the city.

Taroudant’s kasbah, another historical site, used to be a military fort par excellence. It housed the sultan’s palace, a military base, a mosque, and a prison. The prison once housed insurgents and Portuguese captives.

In addition to the sultan’s palace in the kasbah, Taroudant boasts Dar El Baroud (the house of gunpowder), an immense late-19th-century palace built on the rubble of an earlier Saadian storehouse. As its name indicates, the Saadians used Dar El Baroud to store weapons. Unfortunately, the great edifice, which stretches out over several hectares, is not open to the public.

Today, large parts of the wall that were damaged have been repaired to preserve the city’s status as a tourist destination.

Approximately 15-20,000 tourists visit the city each year to enjoy the sun and see the craft-work that has survived time. Taroudant has a working leather and wool industry with tanneries and traditional shops scattered inside the old medina (city).

The communal council and civil society have worked hard since 2015 to help the city regain its former glory. The Ministry of Culture and the municipal council are working hand in hand to save a town that seems to have lost much of its past.

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