Morocco is a trove of Jewish history if you know where to go

With its mountains and desert, beach resorts and Berber villages, Morocco is a feast for travelers of all kinds, including those who want to explore the kingdom's deep Jewish roots.

 

The presence of Jews in Morocco stretches back more than 2,000 years. Before the founding of Israel in 1948, estimates put their number as high as about 275,000, which was considered the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, said Roy Mittelman, director of the Jewish studies program at The City College of New York.

A menorah at Lazama Synagogue in Marrakech

 

Today, after vast waves of departures over the years, only about 2,000 Jews remain in Casablanca and about 500 elsewhere in Morocco, but the Jewish presence is still alive in a variety of sights. The Museum of Moroccan Judaism in suburban Casablanca, for instance, is the only museum on Judaism in the Arab world. Jews of Moroccan descent, in Israel and around the globe, return to the North African kingdom often and some maintain second homes in familial regions. Jewish heritage tours to Morocco are abundant and easy to track down. Most cities have a mellah, which is an old Jewish quarter, along with Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. Mittelman, who has spent 40 years absorbing the history, culture and religious practices of Jews in Morocco, leads groups of students on tours of Jewish sights as part of an advanced seminar. He said there's plenty to read ahead of a visit.

Cooking pots adorned with menorahs at an outdoor stall in Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou in southern Morocco

He recommends Shlomo Dessen's "The Mellah Society: Jewish Community Life in Sherifian Morocco" for more on pre-colonial Morocco, based on the writings of 18th- and 19th-century Judeo-Moroccan sages. To learn more about the spiritual history of the Jewish quarter in Marrakech, he recommends the travelogue of Bulgarian Jewish writer Elias Canetti, "The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit." Mittelman has honed his travel itineraries over the years. Here are some of his favorites and other sights:

The last Moroccan Jewish day school, Neve Shalom, is in Casablanca, which is the economic and business center of the kingdom. Ask for Principal Jacky Sebbag. Watch the children playing outside in the yard, enjoy them singing Jewish songs and learn more about the school's Hebrew classes and Bible studies, Mittelman said.

Temple Beth-El in Casablanca

Visit the Tahiti Beach Club, once a local Jewish hangout. Among Mittelman's walking tours of Jewish residential areas in Casablanca are stops at the Beth El and Eim Habanim synagogues. There's also a newer synagogue, David Ha-Melech, in the tony, beachside Corniche quarter not far from the beach club. Casablanca has a traditional kosher bakery and kosher restaurants, as do other cities. The city is a good place to start for a grounding in Jewish heritage and history.

Just over 100 Jews remain in Marrakech, including a handful who live in the old Jewish quarter, Mittelman said, but the mellah is bustling.

Among the synagogues that remain is the tiny blue-and-white Lazama, along a narrow street. Ask a local how to find it. Visitors may enter for a small fee. There's an inviting riad-style courtyard with a fruit tree and a few chairs for weary travelers. The original synagogue dated to 1492 but it was later rebuilt. The synagogue's Torah scrolls were written on gazelle parchment, according to the synagogue's Muslim guide. Visitors can have a look at Lazama's mikveh, the traditional Jewish ritual bath down some winding stone steps.

Torah scrolls in the ark of Em Habonim Synagogue of Casablanca

The mellah isn't the only place for synagogues. Head to the city's newer section of Gueliz, with a heavy European influence, for shabbat services at Temple Beth El Synagogue. Any taxi driver should know how to get there. Two hours south of Marrakech is a little town called Anouim, where the mysterious rabbi and healer Wazana once lived. For another day trip out of Marrakech visit the Jewish heritage sites at Essaouira, once a thriving Jewish center and a former Portuguese fishing town. It was also a stop for 1960s and '70s rock stars who made pilgrimages to Marrakech. The town, dating to the 1700s, has a synagogue, cemetery and mellah, with plaques indicating buildings where ancient, long-gone synagogues once stood. A particular highlight for Mittelman is the Tomb of the Sainted Rabbi, Haim ben Diwan, just over an hour south of Marrakech. Jews still gather at the spot in the high Atlas Mountains in the village of Tagadirt n'Bour near Anrhaz for a traditional "hiloula" celebration of his life. Mittelman leads groups up a hill for a picnic near the tomb. "It's our little pilgrimage spot. You see mountains all around you and you hear wind going through the mountains. Sensually it's an incredible experience," he said.

The city had a large Jewish community in the 17th century and has a well-known Orthodox synagogue, Ibn Danan. Once crumbling, it was refurbished in the 1990s with help from the World Monuments Fund and American Express. King Mohammad VI has committed to reviving Jewish sites around Morocco.

The mellah here is a maze within walls. You WILL get lost and that's half the fun. It was the first mellah in Morocco, dating to around 1438.

Platters adorned with a menorah and Jewish stars in an outdoor stall near Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou

In addition to a Jewish cemetery, where a couple of eminent medieval rabbis are buried, there's a site in Fes that is considered sacred among women, the Tomb of Solika. With a last name that varies, Solika -- as one retelling goes -- was a Jewish woman of great beauty who was beheaded in 1834 for refusing to convert to Islam. Maimonides, one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars in the Middle Ages, lived in Fes from 1159 to 1165. His stone home, with weathered engraving marking the location, is worth a stop. Walk a few steps and you're bound to find somebody willing to guide you in Fes and elsewhere, but one who knows "Jewish Morocco" is harder to come by, Mittelman said. Do some research beforehand to find just the right drivers and guides if you're traveling independently.

If you favor this style of traveling, Mittelman said you should have no trouble in small towns and villages tracking Jewish influences and history.

"Find yourself the first 80-year-old and say, 'Do you remember Jews here?' Chances are they'll say, 'Yeah and here are their names and that crumbling house over there is where they used to live.'"

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This Seder night is different from all other Seder nights

For more than a decade, 29-year-old Atankot Stutau was one of the leaders of Jewish Community in Gondar, Ethiopia. Until recently he served as the community cantor and Hebrew teacher, and even baked Passover matzah for the Jews in the city.

  

 

But for Atankot, this Seder night is not like all other Seder nights, for this year he will celebrate the first night of Passover in Israel, with his family in Beit Shemesh.

Atankot Stutau preparing for Passover with his family in Beit Shemesh (Photo: Yariv Katz)

 

Stutau was born in a small village near Gondar. He lost his parents as a very young child and was adopted by his mother's sister.

"From a very young age I knew I was a Jew, and was raised as a Jew. My aunt and uncle made aliyah to Israel 11 years ago, and since then my 34-year-old brother and I have celebrated the Jewish holidays and struggled to make aliya to Israel, which is our country," said Stutau.

Aynaw Ahila, a student and former IDF soldier, met Stutau when visiting the Jewish community in Gondar.

"I visited Ethiopia four years ago," he said. "Atankot was the cantor of the community. He is an amazing young man. He knows Halacha (Jewish law) and teaches and educates children as well as adults in Gondar."

According to Stutau, the preparations for Passover in Gondar begin a month in advance.

"We bought the flour and then I took it to a local mill and for three weeks we baked a very large amount of matzah - enough for the entire community of almost 6,000 people."

Atankot Stutau with the matzot in Gondar, Ethiopia (Photo: Gal Zaira)

For Stutau, who is celebrating his first Seder night in Israel, the approaching holiday is the cause of great excitement.

"I will not have to celebrate Passover in the Diaspora," he saidd. "I truly hope that all those who are waiting will also immigrate to Israel, and I am happy that my 91-year-old grandfather, my brother and I will celebrate the holiday together with our family in Beit Shemesh."  

Alisa Bodner, a spokeswoman for the Struggle for Ethiopian Aliyah, joined Stutau in calling on the government to help the rest of the Jews in Ethiopia come to Israel.

"The first Passover for the new immigrants in Israel is celebrated with great joy mixed with sadness," she says. "The new immigrants, some of whom waited for more than a decade (to make aliyah), finally arrived in Israel. On the other hand, there are close to 8,000 community members still waiting so that they too can celebrate the next Passover holiday in Israel together with their families."

She added: "We demand that the government implement its 2015 decision and bring the rest of the Ethiopian Jews to Israel, so that the famous line we recite at Passover, 'Next Year in Jerusalem,' is not just a prayer but also a reality." 

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VIDEO: Israelis mindful of feeding the needy at Passover

Jews worldwide usher in the Passover holiday on Friday night, commemorating their exodus from Egypt and freedom from slavery. 

 

Families gather for the ceremonial Seder meal and read the Haggadah, which recounts the story of Moses and the 10 plagues brought by God upon Pharaoh.

 

In Israel, preparations are in full swing, with families taking great pains to clean every inch of their houses to ensure that not even a crumb of leavened bread, which is forbidden on Passover, remains.

 

Instead, Jews consume Matzah, a flat piece of hardened flour that serves as a reminder of the haste with which then-enslaved Jews ventured off into the desert for 40 years before receiving the Torah and being allowed to enter the Land of Israel.

One of the defining aspects of Passover is food; tremendous varieties; tremendous quantities and tremendous amounts of leftovers.

With newfound concerns about waste and needs of the poor, we took to the streets to find out what steps are being taking to ensure the less fortunate get their fair share.

Reproduced with permission of The Media Line

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One third of Americans do not believe six million Jews were murdered in Holocaust

One third of Americans believe only 2 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust and 66% of millennials have never heard of Auschwitz, according to a comprehensive national survey of Holocaust awareness and knowledge among adults in the United States, released by the Claims Conference, founded to deal with restitution for Holocaust survivors.

Over 45% asked, could not name any of the 40 ghettos or concentration camps present in Europe during the Second World War. That number increases among people born in the 80's and 90's of the 20th century.

Vice President Pence visits Auschwitz concentration camp (Photo: EPA)

The study reveals 68% of Americans believe there is anti-Semitism in the US and 37% say neo-Nazi's exist in large numbers. Seven out of ten say fewer people care about the Holocaust than in the past. A majority (58%) believe a similar event could take place again.

According to the study Americans are not educated enough about the Holocaust and reports agreements schools must do more.

However not all results were negative. Nine out of ten surveyed (93%) believe all students should learn about the Holocaust in school and eight out of ten say it is important to keep teaching about the Holocaust so it does not happen again.

Rail tracks to Auschwitz (Photo: Associated Press)

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Victims of Pittsburgh synagogue massacre honored in Capitol

Offering prayers and making speeches, Pennsylvania lawmakers came together in an unusual joint session Wednesday to commemorate the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue attack that killed 11 people last year.

 

The service was held a day after the Pittsburgh mayor signed new gun control measures that were introduced weeks after the attack. The legislation was immediately challenged in court by gun rights advocates who argued municipalities may not impose firearms regulations that go beyond what state law allows.

Penn. D. State Rep Dan Frankel

Attending Wednesday's event were members of the House and Senate along with members of the three congregations victimized in the Oct. 27 shooting at the Tree of Life. "A dark and despicable act inspired thousands to reach out and find ways to lift up their grieving and terrified neighbors," Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement earlier Wednesday.

Dor Hadash Rabbi Cheryl Klein

A truck driver named Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pennsylvania, has pleaded not guilty to charges that could bring the death penalty, though his lawyer said last month she hopes the case will be resolved without a trial.

Pennsylvania assembly joint session for Pittsburgh victims

Authorities say Bowers expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage, which also wounded seven people, and subsequently told investigators "all these Jews need to die." Investigators have said he posted online criticism of a Jewish charity that helps immigrants, saying it "likes to bring invaders that kill our people." Lawmakers have introduced identical resolutions that highlight the history of the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and remember the victims individually. They establish April 10 as Stronger Than Hate Day in Pennsylvania.

 

Penn. State Senate leader Jay Costa

"In the painful aftermath of the attack, the singular phrase that arose from the heartbroken city of Pittsburgh became 'Stronger Than Hate,'" the resolutions said. "The General Assembly thanks the first responders, rabbis, staff, lay leadership and hundreds of members of these synagogues who helped their family and friends." Attendees included Dor Hadash Rabbi Cheryl Klein and New Light Rabbi Jonathan Perlman, whose congregations were victimized in the attack.

Rabbi Cheryl Klein prays with lawmakers

Wolf, who also attended, said the shooting continues to haunt him and his wife, Frances Wolf. "But we continue to be inspired by the ways in which the people of Pittsburgh came and stood together in the face of hatred and violence," he said in the statement. "We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who chose love over hate."

Penn. House Minority Leader Frank Dermody

Officials said it appears that the only other time state lawmakers from both chambers came together in a joint session over a tragedy occurred two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. State Rep. Dan Frankel, whose district includes the site of the attack, said he wanted the Legislature to do more than his remarks on the House floor in early November, but it would not have been appropriate in the immediate aftermath to ask actively grieving people to come to Harrisburg. The Legislature was dormant through December, and the joint session was scheduled to accommodate other massacre-related events in Pittsburgh as well as the lawmakers' session schedule, Frankel said.

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Scottish 'Holocaust heroine' who saved Jewish girls lauded in book

A Scottish "Holocaust heroine" and quiet champion of educating girls helped save many Jews in Hungary before dying herself in a Nazi concentration camp, according to a new book.  Jane Haining, who cared for hundreds of Jewish girls at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest during World War Two, died at Auschwitz camp after the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944.

Jane Haining

Author Mary Miller said Haining was "an ordinary person who became extraordinary" through her love and courage. "She was an independent woman and kept an independent spirit throughout all the awful things that were later to happen," Miller told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Born into a humble farming family in Dumfries in 1897, Haining studied business and became "an early career girl". In 1932, she moved to Hungary to work as a matron at the school, which educated Christian and Jewish children together to foster mutual respect. "They were part of that whole movement to give girls a good education," Miller said. Pressure on the school grew rapidly as Jewish refugees poured into Budapest, fleeing persecution elsewhere in Europe.

Jews at the train station near Auschwitz (Photo: AFP)

As anti-semitism intensified, the Scottish Mission, which oversaw the school, organised courses in practical subjects to help Jews emigrate and get jobs abroad. Haining helped women secure work as domestic servants in Britain under the programme. Following the outbreak of war in 1939, Haining refused her employers' orders to return to Britain. "She said that if these girls needed me in good times, they need me much more in bad times," Miller said. By then, most of the school's 400 pupils were Jewish, and many of the boarders Haining cared for were orphans.

Auschwitz (Photo: AP)

In one letter, Haining wrote: "What a ghastly feeling it must be to know that no one wants you ... We have been enabled ... to provide an oasis in a troubled world." She described how one Jewish mother of twins, who approached her for help, broke down in her office in desperation. "(She) was at the stage when she was thinking of adding some poison to their food and ending it all," Haining wrote. The school attracted attention for speaking out repeatedly against anti-semitism, according to Miller's book "Jane Haining - A Life of Love and Courage".

Children in Auschwitz

From 1943, Miller said the Mission helped many people, including former pupils, to escape transportation to Nazi death camps, hiding them in cellars or getting them to safe houses. Haining was arrested by the Nazis in April 1944. A former pupil who saw her taken away said her last words to the sobbing children were: "Don't worry, I'll be back by lunch". She died in Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland two months later, aged 47. Haining was awarded a Hero of the Holocaust medal by the British government in 2010.

"She did not compromise, and in our own difficult times there is a challenge there for all ordinary people tempted to look away from evil and find reasons to say 'there is nothing we can do,'" Miller said.

"Jane Haining reminds us that there is always something we can do."

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Conversion rows and broken Western Wall promises: How Israel is alienating US Jewry

Two major disputes have hampered Israel’s relationship with the Jewish Diaspora and characterized the current Israeli parliament - the law of conversion and the egalitarian prayer  plaza at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.  

American Jews number a little less than Israeli Jews (roughly five million in the US and six million in Israel) and are the biggest and most prominent Jewish Diaspora; they give billions to the Jewish state, and work tirelessly to lobby for it in the US government.

Reform Jews praying together at the Western Wall

  

Still, the two communities are vastly different, especially in regards to religious practice — with the majority of American Jews practicing Reform, Conservative or non-denomination Judaism and only about 10 percent practicing Orthodox Judaism — Israel’s official version of Jewish practice overseen by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate.

Differences between the two communities became more and more evident in recent years, leading to a growing rift between the two — accentuated by political moves Israel has taken during the previous and the outgoing parliaments (known in Israel and the 19th and 20th Knessets).

It was the 19th Knesset that determined that any Orthodox rabbi in Israel will be allowed to perform conversions. This decision came to serve hundreds of thousands Israelis who struggle with being considered non-Jewish under Jewish law (Halacha), despite being eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.

A conversion ceremony in Israel (File Photo)

This large group of people, the majority of whom arrived in Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union, are not able to marry in Israel because of their status. So far, they have had undergo a slow grueling conversion process, due to the monopoly the Rabbinate has over the procedure. The new law was supposed to create competition in the conversions marketplace and speed up the process of becoming a Jew, but it only lasted only a while, as ultra-Orthodox lawmakers had it cancelled a few months after the 2015 elections for the 20th Knesset.

This cancellation did not stand up in court, and a March 2016 Supreme Court ruling determined that privately performed Orthodox conversions must be honored by the state. But Shas and United Torah Judaism, two Haredi parties that were part of the coalition, were not ready to back off, and demanded that the government push for a bill that bypassed the Supreme Court ruling.

The Haredi parties wished to seal up the crack that the law made in the Rabbinate’s authority, and claimed that the court ruling violated the deal they had made with the government to keep the status quo between state and religion. Therefore, they argued, the government had to restore the conversions system back to its former status of being under Rabbinate control.

A protest in Jerusalem over cancellation of both the egalitarian prayer area at the Western Wall and the new conversion law (Photo: Amitai Shabi)

A protest in Jerusalem against cancelling the egalitarian prayer area at the Western Wall and the change to the conversion law (Photo: Amit Shabi)

 

Meanwhile, a petition to the Supreme Court that demands the recognition of Conservative and Reform conversions remains unaddressed. It has now been stagnant for more than 13 years.

In June 2017, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill stating that only the Rabbinate has the authority to practice conversions and declare someone as Jewish — as the Haredi parties desired. However, the decision was soon shelved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who worried about the American Jewish community being outraged.

Fearing the crisis could destabilize his coalition, Netanyahu ordered that a new committee be established to examine the affair and tries to find a compromise. Former Likud minister Moshe Nissim headed the committee, which handed its conclusions to the government last May.

Nissim’s committee offered that formal conversions remain Orthodox, but operate outside the Rabbinate. They suggested a state authority, to include Reform and Conservative representatives, that would choose Rabbinical judges to perform conversions. The conclusions were vehemently rejected by Haredi parties and chief rabbis, and were set aside.

The second issue that loomed over Netanyahu’s coalition, deeming it unstable, was the debacle over the Western Wall egalitarian prayer area.

For over 30 years, the Women of the Wall, a multi-denominational feminist organization, struggled to hold egalitarian prayers in the Western Wall Plaza. In 2016, a historical compromise was finally reached between denominations: a new, pluralist plaza would be established at the Western Wall, in which all would be free to pray according to their costume — including joint prayer of men and women.

Women of the Wall praying at the Western Wall plaza (Photo: Daniel Sheetrit)

When the offer made its way to the government’s table, Shas and United Torah Judaism voted against it, but it was nonetheless approved. The Orthodox parties initially decided they would turn a blind eye when the decision was implemented despite their position, but when pressured by their public caved and demanded the decision be cancelled.

For a year and half, the issue remained stagnant. The new prayer plaza wasn’t built and all appeals to the High Court of Justice regarding the implementation of the compromise remain unaddressed until this day. And then in June 2017, Netanyahu surrendered to Haredi pressure and officially shelved the historic compromise.

  

The decision, which coincided with the legislation committee’s rule about the conversion law, was widely criticized by Jewish American organizations. There were even threats from these organizations to stop their support for Israel.

Netanyahu had to make statements belittling his own decision, calling it a mere formality, and promised the new plaza would be renovated and enlarged — but due to bureaucratic, legislative and political power struggles, the decision was never implemented either.

New research shows that American Jewish funding to Israeli state institutions is slowly drying up, as US Jews begin to transfer their attention to social, pluralistic and liberal NGOs in Israel and within their own communities. Whether this changes when (or if) the attitudes of the Israeli government change remains to be seen.

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