Two Thousand Years Of Jewish Life In Morocco

Download or read book Two Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Morocco written by Haïm Zafrani and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 2005 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The origins of the Jewish community of Morocco are buried in history, but they date back to ancient times, and perhaps to the biblical period. The first Jews in the country migrated there from Israel. Over the centuries, their numbers were increased by converts and then by Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal. After the Muslim conquest, Morocco's Jews, as "people of the book," had dhimmi status, which entailed many restrictions but allowed them to exercise their religion freely. In the mellahs (Jewish quarters) of Morocco's cities and towns, and in the mountainous rural areas, a distinct Jewish culture developed and thrived, unquestionably traditional and Orthodox, yet unique because of the many areas in which it assimilated elements of the local culture and lifestyle, making them its own as it did so. Most of Morocco's Jews settled in Israel after 1948, and many others went to other countries. Wherever they went, their rich cultural heritage went with them, as exemplified by the Maimuna festival, just after Passover, which is now a major occasion on the Israeli calender.

Download or read book Jews Under Moroccan Skies written by Raphaël Elmaleh and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jews under Moroccan Skies tells the story of Jewish life in Morocco, describing in realistic detail how Jews and Muslims interweaved their lives in peace for centuries. The authors give us the rich history of Berber Jews, the Moroccan tzadikim, and Jewish mysticism in the country. They also describe the cultural differences between the Judeo-Spanish communities of the North, the Francophone urban Jews, and the Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Berber traditions. "No chapter in the long history of the Jewish people has more power and more relevance to our contemporary world than Moroccan Jewry. And it is the least known, by far! This wonderful book will draw you into its mystery, captivating and capturing your imagination. If you don't want to be tempted to travel, don't read this book. You will never be satisfied until you see it with you own eyes accompanied by the unparalleled teacher and guide, Raphael David Elmaleh! People all over the world have been waiting for Raphy to put his words down on paper. This magnificent book is the result. It is a gem!" -- Peter A. Geffen, Founder and Executive Director KIVUNIM Founder, The Abraham Joshua Heschel School, New York

Download or read book Morocco written by Daniel J. Schroeter and published by London : Merrell ; New York : Jewish Museum. This book was released on 2000 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the conundrum of Jewish Moroccan identity, from the earliest times to the present day.

Download or read book Two Arabs, a Berber, and a Jew written by Lawrence Rosen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Drawn from Memory" is an important contribution to Moroccan studies, to the field of anthropology, and to academic approaches to biography. Rosen weaves the threads of his narrative together into a tapestry focused on the lives of four men: a raconteur, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and a cloth dealer, a Jew. Ordinary people have intellectual lives, Rosen tells us. They may never have written a book; they may never even have read one. But their lives are rich in ideas, constantly fashioned and revised, elaborated and rearranged. Rosen first encountered the four men he profiles in his book in the course of his academic research, and he then visited and revisited these men, and the towns in which they live, over several decades. He engaged them ina kind of continuous conversation. He spoke to members of their family, their neighbors, and the town people. Out of this wealth of material, he has constructed a narrative that takes the reader not only into four intensely observed individual lives but also, as it were, the history of Morocco s evolution across the span of many decades; he takes the reader not only into the outwardly lived lives of his subjects, but their innermost thoughts, their own perceptions of themselves and the evolving Moroccan world around them. At the same time, he manages to evoke the physical landscape, the towns in which these men live, marvelously well, so that the towns and their inhabitants come alive for the reader. Beautifully illustrated with archival and ethnographic photos, "Drawn from Memory" teaches us that that for Moroccans, and by extension Muslims in general, nothing in everyday social life is hard and fast, and the meaning and outcome of all interactions is the product of negotiation and relatedness."

Download or read book Women and Social Change in North Africa written by Doris H. Gray and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging analysis of grass-roots activism, migration, legal, political and religious changes as basis for social transformation.

Download or read book The Sultan's Communists written by Alma Rachel Heckman and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sultan's Communists uncovers the history of Jewish radical involvement in Morocco's national liberation project and examines how Moroccan Jews envisioned themselves participating as citizens in a newly-independent Morocco. Closely following the lives of five prominent Moroccan Jewish Communists (Léon René Sultan, Edmond Amran El Maleh, Abraham Serfaty, Simon Lévy, and Sion Assidon), Alma Rachel Heckman describes how Moroccan Communist Jews fit within the story of mass Jewish exodus from Morocco in the 1950s and '60s, and how they survived oppressive post-independence authoritarian rule under the Moroccan monarchy to ultimately become heroic emblems of state-sponsored Muslim-Jewish tolerance. The figures at the center of Heckman's narrative stood at the intersection of colonialism, Arab nationalism, and Zionism. Their stories unfolded in a country that, upon independence from France and Spain in 1956, allied itself with the United States (and, more quietly, Israel) during the Cold War, while attempting to claim a place for itself within the fraught politics of the post-independence Arab world. The Sultan's Communists contributes to the growing literature on Jews in the modern Middle East and provides a new history of twentieth-century Jewish Morocco.

Download or read book Saint Veneration Among the Jews in Morocco written by Issachar Ben-Ami and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among Moroccan Jews, saint worship is an important cultural characteristic, practiced throughout the population. Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco, the only book in English on this topic, contains essential information about Moroccan Jewry not available anywhere else. The Hebrew edition, published by Magnes Press in 1984, has become a standard classic in the study of the history, culture, and religious practices of Moroccan Jewry. In this new English language edition, based on ten years of fieldwork, Issachar Ben-Ami provides the basic historical and ethnographic information about saint veneration. He illuminates the intricate network that connects the saints and their faithful followers, while revealing the ideological fundamentals that sustain the interrelationship and ensure ritual continuity. Using material selected from more than 1,200 testimonies collected during the course of his research, Ben-Ami describes historical and legendary types of saints, customs and beliefs related to the saints or their sanctuaries, and the practices and ceremonies that take place during or outside the hillulah, the the festival that celebrates the anniversary of the death of a saint. Two chapters are dedicated to a comparison with the cult of saints among the Muslims in Morocco as well as to the relationship between Jews and Muslims in Morocco in what concerning saint veneration. In addition, Ben-Ami has included an exhaustive list of 656 saints-25 of whom are women-as well as documentation of the burial sites and legendary stories of the saints' lives as they have been told by their followers and worshippers in Israel. Also included are popular creative works such as legends, stories, dreams, and songs extolling the greatness and miraculous deeds of the saints. The picture that emerges from this study is that of a strong community of believing Jews who lived in the expectancy of the coming of the Messiah and welcomed miracles as part of their routine life. With the immigration of the Jews of Morocco to other countries, this fascinating world has disappeared, although it has found new ways of expression in Israel.