Aviad Moreno<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abstract
The article presents and analyzes the self-representing narrative strategies through which
westernized Jewish immigrants from Tangier (Morocco) de-westernize their personal pre
migration colonial history in the context of the ethnic conflict in Israel. By so doing, the article
challenges from a new perspective the general post-Zionist notion according to which ethnic
revivals among Moroccan Jews in Israel came about in opposition to the European-oriented
national narrative; A narrative that had distorted their authentic Mizra\u1e25i culture and
history, often in the form of de-Arabization. In an attempt to explain the motivations for de
westernization, the article further implies that not merely did the ethnic revival of Tangier\u2019s
natives not match the general post-Zionist notion, but moreover that it had often formed
shape in the course of contrasting it. Only through de-westernized self-representations, could
Tangier\u2019s natives contest the general representation of Moroccans as Mizra\u1e25im with the sense
of \u201ctheir own\u201d Moroccan ethnic history.
Since the founding of Israeli statehood, Moroccan Jews in Israel constituting a
major part of the broad population of Mizra\u1e25im,1 have been negatively
stereotyped by the hegemonic Ashkenazi-dominated core of Israeli society.2
The group has been ranked, both in terms of cultural discourse and resources
allocation, at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.3
The related academic literature as well as the general popular discourse
considerably altered throughout the history. Principally, until the late 1970s,
the predominant national school of thought perpetuated a \u201cmelting pot\u201d
harmony-oriented ethos, promoting the notion of \u201cthe negation of exile\u201d in
the course of attaining equality and unity among Jews in their new nation-state.
1 \u201cOrientals\u201d in Hebrew; It is a widespread term used by several scholars and in the local
popular language in Israel for describing the non-Ashkenazi social components; mostly Jews of
Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian origin. While the term \u2018Mizra\u1e25im\u2019 is
confusing and oversimplifies the cultural and historical variedness of the entire population, I
employ the term throughout the study in order to position my argument in the accurate
context of discussion.
2Yaron Tsur, \u201cCarnival Fears: Moroccan Immigrants and the Ethnic Problem in the Young
State of Israel\u201d, Journal of Israeli History 18 (1997): 73-103; Mikha\u00ebl Elbaz, \u201c \u2018Exile from Within\u2019:
Moroccan Jews and the Reinvention of Tradition in Israel\u201d, in Herm\u00e9neutique et Bricolage;
Territoires et Fronti\u00e8res de la Tradition dans le Juda\u00efsme, Actes du Colloque de Bucarest, 27-28
Octobre 2006, ed. M\u0103d\u0103lina V\u00e2rtejanu-Joubert (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008), 206-209.
3Moshe Lissak, The Mass Immigration in the Fifties: The Failure of the Melting Pot Policy, (Jerusalem:
Mosad Bialik, 1999); Shlomo Swirski, Israel: The Oriental Majority (London: Zed Books, 1989);
Elbaz, \u201cExile from Within\u201d, 209-214.
67
FOCUS
The notion was led by a concept of regenerization especially with regards to the
Mizrahi collective which were perceived as a backward element. Consequently,
socio-economic and socio-political inequalities between Ashkenazim and
Mizrahim in Israel were attributed to the exilic reminder of the latter.4
Beginning in the 1970s, the harmony-oriented national narrative was deemed
invalid in explaining the apparent ethnic-based discrimination in the young
State of Israel. The late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed a form of Mizra\u1e25i
counter-acculturation. This revival was comprised of several reinvented rituals
including \u201cmuzika mizra\u1e25it\u201d (Oriental music), \u201cBourekas\u201d films5 and carnival
style festivals, such as the national parks Mimouna.6 The shift also mostly
manifested itself in the political swing of 1977 that was described as an
accumulative reaction to the discrimination by the secular, Ashkenazi
dominated Labor Party elite. The creation of the political religious party Shas in
1984 marked the most influential link between the socio-political struggle and
the process of bringing the silenced Mizra\u1e25i voice to light.7
A parallel process of ethnic restoration took place among the community of
Jews of Tangier origin in Israel at the time. In 1979, Mabat, Hebrew initials for
\u201cMifgash Bnei Tangir\u201d- the Reunion of Tangier\u2019s Natives, the principal \u00e9migr\u00e9
association of Spanish-Moroccans in Israel, was founded predominately by the
Jews of Tangier. The declared purposes of the organization were fourfold: a) to
sustain contact between the natives of the former Spanish Zone, b) To
preserve, \u201cbefore it is too late\u201d, the cultural, religious and folkloric patrimony,
c) to collect cultural material, and d) to preserve the dialect of Hakitia (A
Judeo-Spanish dialect commonly spoken among the Jews of Northern
Morocco until the 19th century).8 At least 769 members from across dozens of
cities and towns in Israel had joined this organization by the year 1985.9
In the academic sphere, a new generation of scholars with a polemic post
Zionist (based on a broad postcolonial) orientation exposed the \u2018innate\u2019 ethnic
based inequality that had characterized the Zionist melting pot notion,
according to their own observation. Through their revisionist perspective, the
broad tendency was to depict the Mizra\u1e25im (simultaneously with Arab
Muslims), as the victims of the Eurocentric Zionist project. The population of
4Elbaz, \u201cExile from Within\u201d, 209; Yaron Tsur, \u201cThe Israeli Historiography and the Ethnic
Problem\u201d, in Making Israel, ed. Benny Morris (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press,
2007), 233-236.
5A genre of popular movies in Israel mostly during the 1970s and early 1980s. The genre
addressed the ethnic tension generally between Mizra\u1e25im and Ashkenazim
6A traditional North African Jewish celebration held the day after Passover.
7Elbaz, \u201cExile from Within,\u201d 214-215.
8 Mitchell M. Serels, A History of the Jews of Tangier in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New
York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1991), 177.
9Based on a telephone numbers\u2019 list of Mabat\u2019s members in Israel (the number of subscribed
members ought to be higher as the figure does not include spouses that had similar phone
numbers. The list is found at a private collection in Bat Yam (Israel) owned by Sidney Pimienta
and Gladys Pimienta (hereinafter referred to as PPC). I am grateful to them for allowing me
access to this valuable material, as well as to other materials in their private collection.
68
Aviad Moreno
Mizra\u1e25im was seen as pawns that played no autonomous or pro-active role in
the development of Zionism and were utilized by the Ashkenazi elite.10
Furthermore, in the light of the Zionist-Arab nationalist conflict,
understanding the Arab exilic reminders of the Mizrahim comprised a critical
double paradox in the mind eyes of the Ashkenazi-dominated harmony
oriented perception: first for its exilic reminders, but moreover, for the
structured denial of the right of this population to return to their countries of
origin embedded in their \u2018Arabness.\u2019
Central works are the ones of Ela Shohat and Yehouda Shenhav. The latter
argued in general that the Zionist hegemonic discourse invoked the de
Arabization (in a number of forms including Judaized Orientalization) of the
historical identity of the Mizra\u1e25im as part of their forced marginalized
incorporation into the Jewish state\u2019s national collective memory. In this
context, post-Zionist scholars often replaced the term Mizra\u1e25im by \u201cArab
Jews\u201d, which was aimed at reflecting their more authentic historical identities.11
The shared approach that was often used, mostly amongst westernized
middleclass Mizrahim, which correlated with the harmony-oriented Eurocentric
national narrative were therefore generally seen as imposed reconstructions
formed in the Israeli socio-cultural and socio-political landscape dominated by
the Ashkenazi elite.12
The establishment of the \u201cMizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition\u201d during the
1990s brought together a number of notable scholars and activists promoting a
process that may be referred to in general as the self-re-Orientalization of the
genuine Mizra\u1e25i identities in Israel. In the context of shifting bon-tons and
hegemonic discourses, manifestations of ethnic revival among the Mizra\u1e25im
were perceived as part of the ongoing struggle to express the authentic Mizra\u1e25i
voices that had been silenced and distorted by the Ashkenazi-dominated
European-oriented national bon-ton.13
While historians tend to refute or attest this post-Zionist notion vis-\u00e0-vis
historical evidence,14 I refute the general notion through a long-term historical
10 Tsur, \u201cThe Israeli Historiography and the Ethnic Problem\u201d, 159.
11 Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema: East\/West and the Politics of Representation (Austin, Tex.: University
of Texas Press, 1989); Yehouda Shenhav, The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism,
Religion, and Ethnicity (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006). As claimed by Shenhav,
the Orientalization of Mizra\u1e25im embedded within the process of their de-Arabizing
Judaization.
12 Elbaz, \u201cExile from Within,\u201d 206-212; Joel Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture,
Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
13 Beinin, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, 207-240; Elbaz, \u201cExile from Within,\u201d 214-220. Sami
Shalom-Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews (London and New York:
Routledge, 2010); Sami Shalom-Chetrit, The Mizrahi Struggle in Israel: Between Oppression and
Liberation, Identification and Alternative, 1948\u20132003, (Am-Oved, 2004) [Hebrew].
14 Several works traced the historical Arabic or Levantine affinities of Mizra\u1e25im while other
works emphasized on the other hand their pro-Zionist tendency. Compare, Nissim Kazzaz,
Jews in Iraq in the Twentieth Century (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1991) and Esther Meir
69
FOCUS
discussion concerning the interaction between pre-migration histories and their
following post-migration representations. Focusing on the case of Tangier, I
suggest that the ethnic voice of this group of Moroccan Jews was generated
throughout a process of the de-westernization of their westernized history. I
propose that the motivations for de-westernization in fact formed shape vis-\u00e0
vis the general stereotype and self-representation of the Mizra\u1e25im and in
particular Moroccans in Israel, with which they had disassociated. Through the
self-ethnicization of their Moroccan past, rather than emphasizing their
historical colonial past, the group formed their ethnic self-representing
Moroccan narrative in a harmony-oriented way.
My principal theoretical point-of-departure is that ethnic boundaries are
maintained through balanced processes of exclusion and incorporation during
the interface with other ethnic groups in space. The association of individual
\u201cactors\u201d with an ethnic group therefore depends on their ascription by others
and their simultaneous self-ascription in the sense that \u201cthey use ethnic
identities to categorize themselves and others for purposes of interaction.\u201d15
This study is based on six depth-interviews conducted among first-generation
migrants during the years 2009-2010. All the informants immigrated to Israel
beginning in the 1960s and became registered members of Mabat. My analytic
approach is inspired by the narratives\u2019 analysis approach, paying particular
attention to the motivations of self-representing storytelling and to the means
by which it is adjusted to the listener.16 In particular, I am influenced by the
impression that the narratives of first-generation migrants include \u201cready
made\u201d strategies that form new identities vis-\u00e0-vis the culture of the country of
destination.17 Over the course of self-representation and personal narration,
immigrants may often accentuate elements in their past while corresponding
with stereotypes regarding their country of origins, common among the
absorbing society.
In this context, I am myself as an Israeli outsider observer that represents the
absorbing society, turn the interviewer-interviewee dynamics into an arena of
ethnic identity formation. To base the informants\u2019 self-narratives within a
broader social framework, I cross-read them with earlier parallel expressions
published on the circulars of Mabat circulated during the 1980s and a main
publication published in 1990 marking the tenth anniversary of Mabat.
The focus of this study on westernized immigrants from one of the most
westernized communities of Morocco will be productive in supporting my
Glitzenstein, Between Baghdad and Ramat Gan: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi
Publishers, 2009) [Hebrew].
15 Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture
Difference (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969), 9-16.
16 Nilli Diengott, Narrative: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Raanana: The Open University of
Israel, 2010) [Hebrew], 95-100; For a broader discussion on narrative analysis see, Ulric
Neisser and Robyn Fivush, The Remembering Self : Construction and Accuracy in the Self-Narrative
(Cambridge: Cambridge Press, 1994).
17 Brigitte Boenisch-Brednich, \u201cMigration and Narration\u201d, Folklore. Electronic Journal of Folklore
20 (2002): 64-77.
70
Aviad Moreno
aims to trace the self-representations in ethnic-oriented narratives among first
generation migrants. The term \u201cwesternized\u201d refers to individuals that oriented
the center of their modernization aspirations and cultural affinities towards the
colonial cultural sphere of pre-migration Moroccan society, rather than the
Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Spanish or Zionist spheres,18 as shall be elaborated upon
in the following paragraphs.
Jews in the Extra-Ethnic Colonial Spheres of Tangier
In 1912, a Spanish Protectorate was declared over a belt along the Moroccan
northern coast (commonly referred to as Spanish-Morocco). The city of
Tangier, located at the northwestern point of the northern coast on the
strategic point of the Stairs of Gibraltar had been a center of interest for many
Western powers, resulting in its declaration as an International Administration
under the rule of a number of European powers. Tangier operated under this
extraordinary political status during the period between 1923 and until
Moroccan independence in 1956, with the exception of a phase between 1940
and 1945 during which Spain annexed the city to the bordering zone of
Spanish Morocco.19
Tangier\u2019s geopolitical history is manifested in several noticeable demographic
changes. Tangier turned into a center of European attraction beginning in the
mid-19th century. In 1912, some 80% of the European population in Morocco
resided in the city.20 The process of Europeanization reached its peak towards
the 1950s. In 1927, the foreign citizens in Tangier\u2019s International
Administration represented some 17% of the city\u2019s population. In 1952, no
less than a quarter of the entire population was registered as foreigners,
amongst which the vast majority were Europeans.21 Additionally, tourism
reached its peak during the year 1952 as 100,000 tourists (mostly westerners)
visited the city of Tangier, while its Muslim population did not exceed over
105,000 at the time.22 In the colonial context, the European population quickly
acquired an inflated sense of power and control over the center of economic
and cultural life.
Consequently, amongst the first indicators of modernization under colonial
rule was the adaptation of European languages by locals. Whereas French, and
to a smaller extent other European languages, gained great prestige as a lingua
franca, it seems that for the city of Tangier, and especially among Judeo-Spanish
18 Yaron Tsur, \u201cThe Brief Career of Prosper Cohen: A Sectorial Analysis of the North African
Jewish Leadership in the Early Years of Israeli Statehood\u201d, Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahiyim Jews:
Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXII (2007): 67-68.
19 Lotfi Sayahi, \u201cAqui Todo El Mundo Hablaba Espanol: History of the Spanish Language in
Tangier\u201d, The Journal of North African Studies 9 (2004): 37.
20 Serels, A History of the Jews of Tangier, 82.
21 Sayahi, \u201cAqui Todo El Mundo Hablaba Espanol,\u201d 37.
22 Serels, A History of the Jews of Tangier, 169.
71
FOCUS
speaking Jews, the modern standard Spanish language was most influential.23 A
local tour guide wrote in 1947, two years after the International Administration
had resumed: \u201c[\u2026] in fact, beside the Arab part of town, Tangier is a Spanish
city as for its language, its religion, its character and the widespread use of the
Spanish Peseta [\u2026].\u201d24 In addition, most of the foreigners were in fact
Spaniards. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) tripled the number of Spanish
speakers in the city as thousands of Republican expatriates arrived, where the
number of Spaniards in Tangier rose from 11,703 in 1935 to 18,618 in 1941.25
The common language spoken amongst the indigenous Jews of the region until
the 19th century was an ancient local Judeo-Spanish dialect called \u201cHakitia\u201d.
Dissimilar to the French Zone of Morocco, the encounter of local Judeo
Spanish Jews in the Spanish Protectorate Zone and Tangier with the Spanish
language was an unprecedented phenomenon in colonial history. For the first
time, the language of the colonizers paralleled with great similarity to the
language of the colonized indigenous population, giving a different meaning to
the term westernization. Jews in the region shared a common linguistic
background with the colonial elements, and their embracement of the colonial
language and its by-product of cultural assets was smoother than ever.
In fact, many viewed it as the revival of their own ancient ethnic idiom and
thus abandoned their previous way-of-speaking. In an article published in
1945, Benishu remarked that the \u201cdialect or great parts of it, is no more than a
mere memory, which continues to exist only among the older generation.\u201d The
Hakitic ethnic dialect was rapidly vanishing during the 1900s as it was
undergoing a rapid and vast process of re-Hispanization.26
Furthermore, in pre-colonial Morocco, the Arabic language was a critical
economic component and gained \u201cmarket value\u201d among many Judeo-Spanish
speaking Jews interacting with the extra-ethnic world. In the colonial context,
socio-economic mobilization correlated with trends of westernization. The
local middleclass began associating Hakitia and the extra-ethnic Arabic with
the older indigenous economic order, including the generation born
approximately around 1900s.27
Many of Tangier\u2019s middleclass Jewish youngsters developed different
modernization aspirations. Among the new generation born during the
colonial era, many acquired professions that included constant contact with the
colonial sphere. Statistics on emigration to Israel during the 1960s illustrate the
unique rates of expansion in the Northern region. The percentage of people
holding white collar and free professions among immigrants from the region
23 Sayahi, \u201cAqui Todo El Mundo Hablaba Espanol,\u201d 42.
24 Antonio J. Onieva, Gu\u00eda Tur\u00edstica De Marruecos : Plazas De Soberan\u00eda, Protectorado Espa\u00f1ol, T\u00e1nger
(Madrid: Artes Gr\u00e1ficas Arges, 1947), 317.
25 Sayahi, \u201cAqui Todo El Mundo Hablaba Espanol,\u201d 39.
26Yaakov Bentolila, \u201cThe Study of Moroccan Judeo-Spanish (Hakitia),\u201d El Presente: Studies in
Sephardic Culture 1 (2007): 160.
27 Ibid., 162; Alegr\u00eda Bendelac, Mosaics: A Jewish Girl Grows in Tangiers ([Jerusalem?] Center for
Programming, Department of Development and Services, W.Z.O, 1987?), 10.
72
Aviad Moreno
(28.6) was almost as double than the national Jewish Moroccan percentage
(17.6) and higher than in other central metropolises such as Casablanca or
Rabat. Similarly, the percentage of artisans, which represent traditional
occupations of the region, was relatively smaller overall.28
Another indication arises from the spatial perspective. Within this specific
context of modernization, many Jews started to select their place of residence
in the city according to the colonial-based socio-economic preferences and not
necessarily according to ethnic-based trends. According to telephone directory
of Tangier in 1959 Jews scattered around 170 streets out of the 434 streets
listed in the directory. Along these streets, they obviously had constant
contacts with their non-Jewish counterparts, who were in general Europeans
or westernized locals.29
An open letter published in the first communal bulletin ten years earlier
protested against the degeneration in the field of communal education,
denouncing the habits of local Jews to attend the extra-communal European
schools during the Shabbat.30 While the writer may mirror a common view
among many local Jews, the subtext of this letter reflects and stems from a
historical reality. For other Jews, those pupils who used to attend the non
Jewish schools, as well as their parents who sent them, it had became a
common extra-communal and extra-ethnic way of life that often clashed with
the ethnic one.
Jewish children from the local middleclass attended in great numbers the
prestigious non-Jewish schools located in the city, while the local Jewish
educational institutions deteriorated.31 The webpage \u201cTangerinos,\u201d a virtual
community of Tangier natives around the world, illustrates in retrospect the
extent of the phenomenon. 274 out of 435 Jewish subscribers (learned by
sorting the local Jewish names from the list) that mentioned their school,
mentioned non-Jewish schools, mostly the \u201cLyc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7ais\u201d schooling system
(in its variety of names and levels of study: R\u00e9gnault, Perrier, Saint Aulaire,
Berchet, Ibn Batouta).32
Some 546 Europeans that stated their schools mentioned the same Lyc\u00e9e
Fran\u00e7ais Schools. An additional number of 250 Muslims attended the same
French educational institutions. While the figures do not provide accurate
information, they indeed replicate the notion about crucial parts of the pre
migration typical daily life of many of the future migrants. For some
28 Simha Aharoni, Aliyat Yehudei Maroko: ta\u1e25kir klali le-yovel ha-ashor, (Yerushalayim: ha-So\u1e25nut
ha-Yehudit,1973), 36, 113.
29 Telefonica de Tanger S.R., \u201cAnuario Telefonico- Tanger,\u201d 1959. (The calculation indicates
only the numbers of local inhabitants who had telephone services and is based on typical
Jewish names).
30 Comunidad Israelita de Tanger, Boletin Oficial (Tanger: Editions Internationales, 1949),13.
31 Tangier budget for the first half of 1955- American Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC),
AR Geneva: Morocco-budget-finance 1947-1954, file C56.301, The AJDC Archives,
Jerusalem, Israel; Comunidad Israelita de Tanger, Boletin Oficial (Tanger: Editions
Internationales, 1952), 15.
32 http:\/\/tangers.free.fr\/email\/annuaire\/annu_a.php, accessed on 1 May 2010.
73
FOCUS
youngsters at school age that would later became the core of migrants\u2019 society
in 1980s Israel, school, where they had spend much of their daily life, was a
field for constant inter-ethnic encounters.
In the context of colonization, extra-ethnic networks exposed growing number
of Jews to Christian habits. Amongst local Jews, the Christmas holiday was
marked in some way, mainly through their participation in parties at their work
places or schools, which correlated with an emerging European-oriented
culture of leisure. Alegria, a young girl from Tangier who attended the French
Lyceum, reflects the tension between the ethnic and extra-ethnic sphere, in her
memoir. Despite her father\u2019s objection, her mother used to buy her a small
present at Christmas time and hand it to her at a special ceremony. She did so
since she did not want her daughters to feel deprived in front of their non
Jewish classmates.33
An indication to the level of exposure to this extra-ethnic European culture is
clearly defined in a recording of Mabat\u2019s organized trip to Tangier in 1987.
Sitting in a caf\u00e9 at the heart of their former hometown, the former residents
spontaneously recalled and sang along joyfully a Spanish Christmas song,
which was stopped only because the rabbi had been noticed by them.34
For many youngsters of the westernized middle class, extra-ethnic activities
played a key role in shaping their identity despite standing in contrast to their
immediate domestic-communal sphere. Alegria\u2019s words are again instructive:
\u201cAs we grew up and became more independent of family life, going
out with friends of all circles, having dinner at their homes, meeting
them for drinks or meals at one of the cafes or restaurants in town,
we gradually gave in to the temptation of sharing a ham omelet or
going to the beach on one of the nine days of Av\u2026we usually kept
quiet about our transgressions as we did not want to upset our
parents.\u201d35
Thus, the transformation between the Hakitia and the modern Spanish
language (as well as other European languages and in particular the French
language) only symbolized the broader transformation from an ethnic-oriented
way of life (i.e. Jewish life) towards an extra-ethnic westernized routine in the
colonial spheres of Tangier. The transformation had a versatile quality and
varied in its impact from one individual to the next. Many of the westernized
Jews still experienced ethnic life, but it had become only one element of their
complex modern identity and life style. Such manifestations are embedded in
the informants\u2019 personal memories and are highlighted at certain points
throughout their narratives.
33 Alegr\u00eda Bendelac, Mosaics: A Jewish Girl Grows in Tangiers, 43.
34 \u201cTodos llevan al ni\u00f1o\u201d, \u201cLa virgen lavaba\u201d, recordings of Mabat\u2019s organized trip, File: Y
05696-f, The National Library of Israel- Sound Archive, Jerusalem.
35 Bendelac, Mosaics: A Jewish Girl Grows in Tangiers, 43.
74
Aviad Moreno
The Judaization of Morocco
In its opening pages, Mabat\u2019s main publication, circulated in 1990, stated that
Jews had been natural inhabitants of Morocco much earlier than Arabs had. A
map of the Jewish communities of the Magreb preceding 750 BC, the date of
Arab conquest, was attached to support this notion. The following essay, titled
\u201cWhere did we come from?\u201d further reinforced the tendency to Judaize the
history of Morocco using the legend of Jewish settlement in the city of Tangier
and its surroundings during the biblical period.36
In response to my question regarding his memories from Jewish holidays in
Tangier, Carlos37 declared in an explaining intonation, \u201cLook, Tangier was a
city of Jews! During Yom Kippur all the cinemas and cafes were shut down!\u201d
Such reference to his history astonished me as several moments earlier when I
had invoked a discussion on his school years he had mentioned his contact
with non-Jewish friends at the Lyc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7ais on daily basis. In this context, he
even had mentioned that the private lessons of Hebrew at home were the only
practices really attaching him to his Jewish identity, stating \u201cI have never been
religious, never went to the synagogue and even did not know how to
daven.\u201d38
The irony in Carlos\u2019s words ought to be read in an accurate context. Questions
regarding Jewish aspects in Tangier repeatedly invoked a tendency to narrate a
collective story with an idealized sense of shared past. For instance, in response
to a similar question about her way of celebrating the Jewish holidays as an
adolescent in Tangier, Ruth replied: \u201cI remember my grandmother giving
charity to the needy on Purim.\u201d This memory was accompanied by an
elucidation, where \u201cThis was our unique costume in Morocco; we the Jews of
Tangier knew how to give\u2026\u201d39
At first glance, it seems that the belief regarding the broad tendency of
Moroccan Jews to adjust and merge their pre-migration Mizra\u1e25i history into
the national ethos in order to assimilate seems to appear vividly in the self
described narratives of Tangier\u2019s Jews in Israel. Yet, in this case, in contrast to
the general post-Zionist notion it seems that harmony-oriented ethnic self
representations are specifically designed with aims of silencing the modern
colonial elements in one\u2019s biography and personal memory, rather than any
historical Arab-oriented Mizra\u1e25i element.
Many visual elements in Mabat\u2019s publication may serve as an example. Next to
the map of pre-Islamic Maghreb, the editors attached a portrait of the English
36 Mabat Revista 1989-1990 (Vol.1, 8-9, 40), PPC, Bat Yam Israel.
37 Unless a reference to a published source appears, all first names have been changed to
pseudo-names for the sake of protecting the privacy of the informants.
38 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
39 An interview held on 18 November 2009.
75
FOCUS
port of Tangier during the 17th century.40 In a number of images portraying the
atmosphere of Jewish education in the region, a photograph of AIU Tangier
School in 1950 appeared next to a portrait of Jewish philanthropist, Sir
Montifiore, who had donated to the modern efficient schooling system in the
city during 19th century.41 In the \u201cvisitor\u2019s notes\u201d proceeding Mabat\u2019s trip to
Tangier during the late 1980s, the attached photograph showed of a Jewish
women mourning at the Tetuan\u2019s (a city neighboring Tangier) Sephardic Jewish
cemetery at the end of the first decade of the 20th century.42
In this context, despite clear personal memories from the colonial spheres of
Tangier, many tended to manifest the non-Arabic origins of their history in
Spanish Morocco through unambiguous ethnic-oriented collective memories
that often preceded their lifetime or referred to the period of their earlier
childhood. The sense of Jewish collective history was often granted with a
sense of personal history.
According to Monique, her mother initiated the first private Jewish school in
Tangier. \u201cI have a picture\u201d, she explains.43 In response to my question about
her memories of Jewish immigrants in Tangier, she stated:
\u201cWell, the community absorbed, out of its own choice, Jewish
refugees from Europe during World War Two. All families in the city
used to donate charity each week and during the holidays. We
children used to fight over the privilege to give the needy his coin. In
Morocco we learned how to give!\u201d
Subsequent to this question, I further asked if people used to remit from
abroad for that matter. She replied:
\u201cYes, the heads of the community used to write to wealthy people
like
Rothschild [the 19th century well-known Jewish philanthropist]
\u2026but most of the time poor people from Morocco used to write to
Tangier\u2026.they had heard that Tangier is an \u2018el Dordo\u2019\u2026they came.
This used to be an example for community management for the
mankind [para toda la gente]!\u201d44
It seems that the tendency to focus on earlier elements in the history of
Tangier contributed much to the ability of these individuals to refer to their
pre-migration history in collective terms of idealized-nostalgic ethnic past
rather than through their complex personal memories.
40 Mabat Revista 1989-1990 (Vol.1, 6), PPC, Bat Yam Israel.
41 Ibid., 28.
42 Ibid., 99; See other example: Ibid., 6, 21-23,25 27, 34, 37.
43 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
44 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
76
Aviad Moreno
The Value of Self-Representing Narratives
\u201cThere is no such a thing as an \u2018edah (ethnicity, in the Jewish and
mainly Israeli context) without mores and I\u2019d like [Israeli] people to
realize that!\u2026 You cannot tell one, \u2018you have nothing\u2019\u2026 it reminds
me of what one lady [referring to Golda Meir] once said, \u2018You used
to live in caves\u2019.\u2019 I have it recorded on tape and I will never ever erase
it!\u2026This is why I find it important to collect all this material\u2026\u201d45
In these words of resentment, Alberto, a Tangier\u2019s native who had acquired
engineer training in Morocco and France and who had referred to his
experience in the colonial sphere of Tangier, explained the reason for his
intensive preoccupation in the commemoration of Spanish-Moroccan ethnic
heritage in Israel.
Deliberately voiced in front of an Israeli interviewer conducting research
destined to be published, the ethnicization trend ought to be reassessed in the
context of self-representation in front of existing stereotypes. For instance, in
continuation to the nostalgic recollection of Jewish habits in Tangier, Monique
referred to wedding ceremonies in the following words:
\u201cWeddings were not like here [Israel]\u2026that was something; there was
a hiba [decorum]! The henna46 that we had in Tangier was respectful,
wonderful\u2026 the first time I went to a wedding ceremony here in
Israel, I said to myself \u2018What is this? A circus?\u2019 The bride had not
arrived yet and people were already seated around the table eating like
pigs\u2026our matrimonies took place in the synagogue. There was a
choir and the bride used to be carried to the synagogue with a great
deal of respect [\u2026].\u201d47
Ruth\u2019s idealized image of internal Jewish immigration to Tangier reflects
another message she had intended to voice:
\u201c [\u2026] many Ashkenazim came to Tangier during World War Two.
We only knew they were Jews, that\u2019s all. In Morocco I was not
familiar with the term \u2018Ashkenazim.\u2019[\u2026] Here on the other hand, you
should know, I have seen harsh racism. For example my sister had to
marry a guy of Russian origin and his parents, upon hearing that she
was Sephardic, could not accept it \u2026eventually he had left my sister
and married a \u2018goya\u2019\u2026it is shocking! I have seen that in the land of
Israel\u2026incredible.\u201d48
45 An interview held on 14 June 2009.
46 A traditional celebration among Afro-Asian cultures usually preceding the wedding
ceremony.
47 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
48 An interview held on 18 November 2009.
77
FOCUS
In response to my question regarding his celebration of Jewish holidays, Carlos
who had stated earlier that he had been detached from religious ethnic life,
replied:
\u201cWell, I used to celebrate them like everybody else. Listen! That was
the most beautiful way to be Jewish. It was a simple and intelligent
form of Judaism. Everybody observed the holidays, many went to the
synagogue but still went the cinema right after, or take the car to go
on a trip on Shabbat. I always say it used to be the most correct form
of Judaism.\u201d 49
His intonation, and the subtext of his words, illustrate that he had
reconstructed the image of Tangier with aims of contrasting the binary
approach towards Jewish religion common in Israeli orthodox-oriented
religious concepts. The traditionalization of his past had a self-representing
message – being conformist while staying attached to tradition symbolizes in
his eyes his Moroccan identity in the forefront of the present image of Israeli
Judaism.
In correlation, Clarice admitted in the context of discussion, that in Tangier
she used to feel more French than Jewish and had felt alienated while attending
a synagogue.50And yet, a question regarding her way of celebrating holidays
later on evoked the following nostalgic representation, \u201cDuring Purim we had
special little cakes, one for each member of the family [to hand us mishloa\u1e25
manot], today [in Israel] we really have nothing!\u2026Purim here will not be like it
was there\u2026in Tangier everybody felt our holidays very strongly.\u201d51
It seems that ethnic-oriented representations of their past, especially among
westernized migrants, enfolded much more into them than mere references to
their past. The self-representing quality of the narratives presented here aimed
at self-acculturation into the Israeli national narrative from an upper-hand
standpoint, rather than at challenging it altogether. Monique\u2019s criticism about
the tacky Israeli wedding mores was followed by the point that her exilic past
ought to play a greater role in the foundation of Israeli renewing Jewish
civilization.
\u201cYou know sometimes I think \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 was there, not here. Here
we have lost all proportion\u2026this is hurting me. I say Judaism is
disappearing. All the beautiful things that were beautiful in our Torah
[literally, the first five books of the bible, meaning the religious
tradition], are vanishing. This is the reason that I tell you that I have
plenty of disappointment\u2026we are losing the beauty, what has unified
us as Jews for generations. You should know that we are becoming
49 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
50 An interview held on 14 June 2009.
51 Ibid.
78
Aviad Moreno
worse than the gentiles. We must change and never forget our
past\u2026\u201d52
Her choice to offer a collective moral lesson by referencing to the Moroccan
past, especially by employing a first person plural tense (We), illustrates the
value of her self-representation and gives meaning to its overstated Jewish
orientation. Other immigrants expressed this idea differently:
\u201cThe Israeli society expects you to assimilate, be like everybody. It is
impossible after so many years. After 2000 years we had been there,
and besides, I am sorry, but it is an asset, not something we should
renounce, or be ashamed of\u2026the Israelis have a lot to learn from us
[Tangier\u2019s natives] about being a prosperous Jewish society.\u201d53
Through the emphasis on the collective ethnic elements in her Moroccan past,
Ruth classified it as a valuable asset that the Israeli society foolishly overlooks.
Mabat\u2019s publication directly articulated this notion, where one of the few
paragraphs in the Hebrew language in Mabat\u2019s publication are the opening
lines:
\u201cThe state of Israel has yet to crystallize a culture that can be
identified as her own. Hence, this is the reason for the significance of
our activity [in Mabat], which is to try to implant among the nation
the notion that they ought to take into account our heritage, our
history, our culture, our habits, our melodies, our piyutim, our songs
etc. many first signs are testifying that it is possible, and that our level
of efforts will be a critical factor, of our ability to contribute to the
Israeli culture\u2026\u201d54
The fact that these opening words appear in Hebrew (and do not repeat
themselves in a Spanish translation) invokes the notion that the Mabat co
ethnic organization established at the midst of ethnic tension in Israel, was
intended to facilitate the assimilation of Tangier\u2019s immigrants into the nation
state\u2019s sense of cohesiveness through the ethnicization of their shared history.
The idea that Israel needs the Jewish elements in Moroccan past in order to
establish itself culturally is traced several times throughout Mabat\u2019s publication.
For instance, the publication states, \u201cWe cannot pretend that everything works
well for our Israel.\u201d In addition, the essay concludes by stating, \u201cIsrael needs
its [Diasporas\u2019] assistance and its aliyah.\u201d55 The same idea was repeated five
years earlier in a circulation that dealt with the raison d\u2019\u00eatre of Mabat
organization.56
52 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
53 An interview held on 18 November 2009.
54 Mabat Revista, 3.
55 Ibid., 100, 104.
56 A letter circulated among Mabat\u2019s members, 19 September 1985, PPC, Bat Yam Israel.
79
FOCUS
The ethnic-oriented publication focuses on success stories among the
community in Israel. Such are the artists David Sousana or Jacob Salama (later
converted to Yavin) described as \u201cThe boy from the juderia (the Jewish
quarter)\u201d that had turned into a thriving industrialist (Mabat 1990, 85-86). The
climax is expressed in an interview with the member of the Knesset Daniel Levy
who had succeeded mostly in the mission to bring pride to the community in
Israel. A facsimile containing a number of newspaper items visually confirms
this notion.
In this context, the manifestation of pure stable Zionism may appear. In
Monique\u2019s reference to the refugee episode in Tangier she chose to contrast
Tangier\u2019s Jews with the Ashkenazi refugees fleeing to the city. According to
Monique, after the war, most of the Ashkenazi guests in Tangier chose to go to
Argentina or Canada, whereas Tangier\u2019s Jews came to Israel with love and
passion. \u201cThey came out of the fact that we all used to read each year in the
Haggadah: \u2018Next year in Jerusalem,\u2019 Jerusalem was our dream,\u201d she concludes.57
This statement obviously does not correlate with her own complex choice to
immigrate to Israel during the 1970s after few years in Spain and France, nor
does it explain the broader history of a community that did not begin to vanish
until the 1960s,58 where many of its residents chose western destinations. It
simply serves as a rhetoric tool of self-representation in certain context of
narration oriented towards the harmonic narrative.
Accentuated Sephardicness and the Mizra\u1e25i Revival
The revival of the Sephardic ethnic component should be understood within
the context of similar self-representing narratives that are made to incorporate
the narrators into the harmony-oriented discourse. In an attempt to contrast
the emerging image of Moroccans, \u201ctheir own\u201d contextualized Moroccan
habits were brought to life.
The celebration of the annual ritual of the Mimouna, one of the symbols of
Mizra\u1e25i cultural revival in Israel, led to an internal reaction among many of
Tangier\u2019s Jews across the country. The main initiator of Mabat, Dr. Avital,
testified overtly in Mabat\u2019s main publication that her initiative to found the
\u00e9migr\u00e9 organization took shape vis-\u00e0-vis the costumes of celebrating mass
Mimouna by the mob of Mizrahim. The \u201cdissatisfaction\u201d with the emerging
stereotype of Moroccans, as well as its counter self-representation, invoked the
initiative among Mabat\u2019s initiators.59 A more constructive example is the
declaration on Mabat\u2019s circular from 1988, depicting its raison d\u2019\u00eatre:
57 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
58 During 1972 some 4,000 Jews still documented as Tangiers\u2019s residents (See, Aharoni, 55,
102).
59 Mabat Revista, 105; A similar testimony is found in a letter distributed among Mabat\u2019s
members on 25 May 1988, PPC, Bat Yam, Israel.
80
Aviad Moreno
\u201cWe certainly have the obligation to increase the awareness of the
Israeli public to the fact that not all Jews of Moroccan origins are of a
Maghrebi [North African] culture\u2026\u201d60
The celebration of the ritual in pre-migration Morocco had little significance
for the majority of local Jews, and even more so among the westernized sector.
In post-migration Israel, such symbols played a new role of in shaping
migrants\u2019 collective identity and became imperative tools in the self
representation of their absolute history. David\u2019s reference to the costumes
strongly enforces this idea. David told me about the first time he initiated a
Mimouna celebration in Israel during the 1980s:
\u201cThe costume was pretty common in Israel and my friends asked me,
\u2018Well you\u2019re Moroccan why don\u2019t you celebrate it\u2019? I reply: that is a
Mimona?, I will show you what the real Mimona is\u2026. I told them it
is not what you see here, the hopping monkeys in the parks\u2026our
Mimona is much more profound.\u201d61
In this context, the Hakitic pronunciation of the word \u201cMimona,\u201d rather than
Mimouna, was a linguistic nuance that gained new meaning per se in Israel. An
attempt to refer to the costume with the common non-Hakitic pronunciation
\u201cMimona,\u201d usually resulted in a decisive correction.
As mentioned above, the modern Spanish mother tongue of Tangier\u2019s natives
was the result of a vast process of linguistic transformation between the ethnic
dialect of the Hakitia, and the extra-ethnic colonial Spanish beginning in the
1800s. The Hakitia, that had been defined by philologists as a \u201cdead\u201d dialect
during the mid-1900s, was later revived. For example, Mabat mentioned the
preservation of Hakitia as one of the four main fundamental goals of the
organization.62 Mabat\u2019s members were encouraged to recollect Hakitic
expressions that they had presumably grasped in Morocco. For example, as
part of a traditional recipe contest organized by Mabat, participants were asked
to narrate anecdotes referring to the dish and to recall the occasions in which
the dish was eaten, all while encouraged to use Hakitic terminology rather than
the anticipated authentic Spanish phrasing. 63
Quite surprisingly, the section dedicated to Hakitia on Mabat\u2019s publication
began with a statement in the Hebrew language. The chair of the Sephardic
association Sefarad stressed that despite the geographic distance, the Jews of
Spanish Morocco have a lot in common with the Judeo-Spanish communities
of the Mediterranean Basin.64
Other forums that enabled self-representation with an academic aura were also
substantially employing the word Hakitia. For example, the \u201cGaon Center for
60 Ibid.,5.
61 An interview held on 13 February 2010.
62 See footnote 9.
63 A letter circulated during 1990 [day and month are not stated], PPC, Bat Yam, Israel.
64 Mabat Revista, 67.
81
FOCUS
the Culture of Ladino\u201d organized folkloric events with Spanish-Moroccan
orientations, which were titled \u201cHakitia Evenings.\u201d The word Hakitia further
symbolized non-academic events organized by the migrants themselves aiming
at the ethnicization of their shared memory. Such was the 2008 \u201cJourn\u00e9e
Hakitia,\u201d French for \u201cHakitia day,\u201d organized in Ashdod by Soly Anidjar who
was born and raised in Casablanca but originated in the town of Larache next
to Tangier.65
Particularly remarkable in this context is the fact that some of the participants
in this Hispanic-oriented discourse as a result of internal migration had spent
most of their lifetime in the Arabic- oriented regions of Morocco, which had
become even much more so after Morocco declared independence in 1956.
They saw an advantage in cultivating their Tangerine or Spanish-Moroccan
heritage, which back in Morocco was strictly confined to their domestic or
narrowed Jewish communal milieu.
This self-representation perhaps motivated many to rethink the harsh
denouncing of the dialect and other costumes by their parents and themselves
in colonial Morocco. They began to grasp Hakitia, which became a semantic
emblem, as their own cultural asset.66 The process took place across the
Spanish-Moroccan (mainly Jews originated in Tangier, Tetuan and Larache)
\u00e9migr\u00e9 communities in the world,67 and ought to be analyzed within different
frameworks of discussion that also take into account the new mentality of
networking in the process of ethnic-oriented self-representation.
Yet it seems that the overstated reference to Hakitic origins had exceptional
meaning in the Israeli context. Monique, for example emphasized her non
Arabic origins. She referred to the words used by the official from the Ministry
of Absorption in Israel, who offered her an apartment:
\u201cHe gave me [an apartment] amongst all the Moroccans that spoke
Arabic\u2026 I went to protest. I said, \u2018Why do you give me [an
apartment] there?\u2019 The official replied, [aberrantly imitating an Israeli
accent] \u2018We gave you with your people, you are a Moroccan? No?!\u201d
\u2026I said, \u201cListen, I don\u2019t know Arabic, neither did my forefathers
65 http:\/\/dafina.net\/forums\/read.php?50,234289, accessed on 11\/11\/10.
66 Bentolila, \u201cThe Study of Moroccan Judeo-Spanish (Hakitia)\u201d, 162.
67 Several works concerning the dialect were composed by first-generation migrants following
their migration. See for instance: Alegria Bendelac., Los Nuestros: Sejina, Letuarios, Jaquetia Y
Fraja: Un Retrato De Los Sefaradies Del Norte De Marruecos a Traves De Sus Recuerdos Y De Su
Lengua (1860-1984) (New York P. Lang, 1987); Amram Benarrosch, Palabras De All\u00e0 : Un
Sabor De Haketia: En Memoria De Rachel (Rehovot: Impr. Ya\u2019il, 2004); Gladys Benaim Bunan, Tu
Boca En Los Cielos: El Judeo-Espa\u00f1ol De Los Nuestros – La Haket\u00eda De Menash\u00e9 Y Alfonso (Beverly
Hills: Laredo Publishing, 2007); Esther Cohen Aflalo, Lo Que Yo S\u00e9\u200e (Madrid: E. Cohen Aflalo,
2000); Isaac Benharroch B., Diccionario De Haquet\u00eda: Gu\u00eda Escencial Del Dialecto De Los Jud\u00edos Del
Norte De Marruecos (Caracas: Ediciones Asociaci\u00f3n Israelita de Venezuela: Centro de Estudios
Sefard\u00edes de Caracas, 2004). Additionally, Prof. Yaakov Bentolila, a first-generation immigrant
from Tetuan in Israel, dedicated most of his academic career to the study of the dialect. Other
Israeli scholars of Spanish-Moroccan origins who focus in their research on the dialect of
Hakitia are Nina Pinto-Abecassis and Isaac Guerson.
82
Aviad Moreno
\u2026.we never spoke Arabic in Tangier. Our language was completely
different, Hakitia\u2026\u201d68
Hakitia was only an emblem in the process of the group\u2019s ethnic revival, which
included other manifestation supported by academic fields such as linguistics,
folklore, musicology and historiography.69 Ruth\u2019s reference to my question
regarding her associations with non-Jewish Spaniards in Tangier is another
instructive example to the ethnicization of colonial history within the self
representing ethnic narratives. I asked: \u201cHow did they [your Spanish friends]
relate to the fact that you were Jewish?\u201d Her answer was: \u201cWith no special
significance\u2026we were just like them, nothing different. Now that I\u2019m here [in
Israel] I have been studying a lot about the Anusim [Conversos] and the
Expulsion from Spain\u2026I now think that they were the decedents of
Anusim\u2026.\u201d70 Ruth, who had been very involved at the non-Jewish social milieu
of Tangier decided to depict her natural bond with Modern European
Spaniards through a narrative that gave ethnic meaning to her extra-ethnic
affiliations, implying that it was an outcome of post-migration retrospectives.
Alberto narrated angrily how he had received a letter from the merkaz klitah
(absorption center for new immigrants) in which he was informed that he
would have to leave regardless of the fact he had no other place to go to at the
time. \u201cThat was on the day of Tishah be-Av!,\u201d71 he said, \u201cI was outraged, I was
expelled from Spain on the day of Tishah be-Av [referring to the 1492 incidents]
and now on the same historical date, I am being expelled again in the Land of
Israel?!\u201d
I should be clear that it is not my intention to question the historical
authenticity of such cultural differences between the Judeo-Spanish and Judeo
Arabic populations of Morocco. In fact, such an attempt would be historically
misleading. The Hakitic term \u201cforasteros\u201d referring to Arabic-speaking Jews in
Morocco (literally meaning strangers), should reflect the notion of a well-fixed
pre-migration self-perception as Sephardic.72 Yet, it seems that by emphasizing
68 An interview held on 30 September 2009.
69 Reflected clearly in Mabat\u2019s publication and circulars. See for example, Mabat Revista, 43-72,
89-95, see also the musicological field work conducted among Mabat\u2019s members, Weich
Shahak Susana, Judeo-Spanish Moroccan Songs for the Life Cycle [Sound Recording] (Jerusalem:
Jewish Music Research Centre, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989). See also the publication
proceeding Mabat\u2019s exhibition, Jewish Communities in Spanish Morocco (Tel Aviv Beth Hatefutsoth,
The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1983), 1-44.
70 An interview held on 18 November 2009.
71 A annual mourning day in the Jewish calendar.
72 Susan Gilson-Miller, \u201cKippur on the Amazon: Jewish Emigration from Northern Morocco
in the Late Nineteenth Century \u201c in Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the
Modern Era, by Harvey E. Goldberg (Bloomington Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1996), 192. Simon Levy, \u201cJos\u00e9 Benoliel et Abraham I. Laredo: \u00e9rudits Tang\u00e9rois,\u201d in Tanger
Espace Imaginaire (Rabat et Tetouan: Universit\u00e9 Mohammed V, Rabat et l\u2019Ecole superieure roi
Fahd de traduction de Tanger, Universit\u00e9 Abdelmalek Es-Saadi, Tetouan, 1992), 77-79.
.
83
FOCUS
the Hispanic ethnic origins these historical differences gained new self
representing meanings. Perhaps it was aimed at clarifying to the Israeli listener
in a relatively harmony-oriented way that their European-oriented Moroccan
ness does not overlap with the \u201cartificial\u201d Europeanization of other Mizra\u1e25i
francophone Jews, but rather is supported by their own \u201cauthentic\u201d ethnic
heredity. In this context, is not surprising that the circulars and publication of
Mabat used the Spanish language exclusively rather than the prestigious French
language, common among many of the immigrants, graduates of the French
schooling system and the former citizens of a Cosmopolitan city as Tangier.
Concluding Discussion
Clearly, the ethnic voice of Tangier\u2019s natives in Israel should further pound the
\u201cdead horse\u201d representing the utopic phantasm depicting a melting pot society
in Israel. It may also support the common notion regarding the uneven power
relations between various groups of Mizra\u1e25im and the Ashkenazi-dominated
power elite in Israel including its manifestations in the ethnic-based
\u201ctraditional\u201d uprising.
Yet, as it appears clearly throughout the research, amongst such voices of
ethnic revivals, many contribute to the growing criticism about the overbearing
and generalizing post-Zionist approach towards their justification; An
approach that often reduced ethnic voices of Moroccans to the level of a broad
socio-cultural struggle between the European-oriented Ashkenazi-dominated
national power elite and the marginalized non-European components of Israeli
society.
Whenever there arose an opportunity to discuss their ethnic past, many of
Tangier\u2019s natives in Israel tended to narrate their narrative in collective terms,
aimed at shaping their ethnic self-representation in the context of the ethnic
tension in Israel. By so doing, many westernized Tangier\u2019s natives were in fact
de- and re-constructed major parts of their authentic complex memory from
Colonial Morocco. Nevertheless, the process of de-westernization did not
correspond with the trend of the \u201cofficial\u201d self-re-Orientalization process that
have taken shape in Israel since the 1970s, and has been overemphasized in the
public and academic discourse, but in fact quite the contrary.
Natives Jews of Tangier attempted to exclude themselves from this typecast of
Mizra\u1e25i ethnic revival. Only through the means of ethnic-based self
reconstructed representation, the Jews of Tangier in Israel could truly revitalize
their unique self-representation. Merely via ethnic-oriented narratives, they
could contest the general depiction and self-representation of Moroccans in
Israel with an aura of \u201ctheir own\u201d collective ethnic Moroccan identity. The
process of their Sephardic revival, including the linguistic recovery of the
Hakitia, therefore ought to be read in this context of new identities formation,
which was more oriented towards harmonic cohesiveness in the multiethnic
social context in Israel.
84
Aviad Moreno
The focus on the westernized elements amongst Tangier\u2019s natives is only a
reminder to the numerous particular histories within the large group
agglomerated under the term \u2018Mizra\u1e25im.\u201973 In closing, I have no intention to
dismiss any manifestations of Arab affinities among the population of Jews
originated in Arab countries, nor do I undermine the fact that many amongst
them employed narrative strategies of re-Arabization in the context of their
ethnic identification. I rather suggest employing extra sensitivity to such
elements that accurately reflects their long-terms history as more complex,
variable and uniquely contextual. In this context, further attention to patterns
of social gathering among immigrants in the new country of destination should
be part of the analysis.
Subsequently, post-migration self-representations of the past should not be
(dis)regarded by historians only in terms of historical erroneousness or
authenticity. Only through long-run spectacles, Moroccans alongside with
other groups of immigrants agglomerated under the term \u2018Mizra\u1e25im\u2019 shall truly
appear as active historical agents in the history of Israel, rather than pawns in a
generalized story of unequal power-relations between two civilizations.
Aviad Moreno is a PhD student in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies,
at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Beer-Sheva, Israel). The author is
currently writing a dissertation about the role of migration networks in the
emigration process of Spanish Moroccan Jews to Israel, Europe and Latin
America during the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to quote this article:
Aviad Moreno, De-westernizing Morocco: pre-migration colonial history and the ethnic-oriented
self-representation of Tangier\u2019s natives in Israel, in \u201cQuest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish
History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC\u201d, n. 4 November 2012
url: www.quest-cdecjournal.it\/focus.php?id=313
73 The cases of the immigrants\u2019 communities from the neighboring Spanish-Moroccan cities
would be the first to resemble the examined case.
85<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Aviad Moreno AbstractThe article presents and analyzes the self-representing narrative strategies through whichwesternized Jewish immigrants from Tangier (Morocco) de-westernize their personal premigration colonial history in the context of the ethnic conflict in Israel. By so doing, the articlechallenges from a new perspective the general post-Zionist notion according to which ethnicrevivals among Moroccan Jews in Israel… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2141,"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions\/2141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogia.com.ar\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}