"We Have Our Own History." Voices from the Jewish Museum of Casablanca

CHAPTER EIGHT

“WE HAVE OUR OWN HISTORY”

VOICES FROM THE JEWISH MUSEUM

OF CASABLANCA

SOPHIE WAGENHOFER

Jewish historiography and the Museum of Casablanca

The age-long presence of Jewish communities in North Africa, the peaceful coexistence of Jews and Muslims, and the multifaceted symbiosis of Jews with Moroccan culture and history are the three main narratives presented in the Jewish Museum of Casablanca. The clear focus on the conflict-free inclusion of Jews in Moroccan society and the marginalisation of issues that might challenge this image, such as the mass emigration or anti-Semitism, have not met with universal approval. Critics consider the exhibition as ignorant of controversial topics and as an idealisation of the past.1 Though visitor reactions are not first and foremost critical, they still reflect astonishment that central topics of Jewish historiography such as the Holocaust or anti-Semitism are not thematized. The representations in the Casablanca Jewish Museum differ from other Jewish museums worldwide by generating a story that reads like a counter narrative to established narratives produced in Israel, the US and Europe. It is, however, not only Western tourists, Jews and non-Jews alike, who are puzzled by what they see in the museum. Also Moroccan Muslims reveal a certain astonishment as the exhibition contradicts Arab nationalist images of the Jew as the other. Against this background I want to discuss the position and function of the Jewish Museum of Casablanca. This museum of history and ethnography, as defined by the founding committee, is the first and so far the only Jewish museum in a predominantly Arab-Muslim country.2 The

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Museum should not only be seen in the context of identity politics in Morocco for it also relates to a globalised Jewish historiography. Modern Jewish historiography, in the sense of an independent academic discipline, developed at the beginning of the nineteenth century in central Europe and was mainly influenced by European Enlightenment, Jewish Emancipation, and German historicism and nationalism. With the emergence of the Zionist movement and particularly after the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 Jewish history was written as national history: it was described as teleological process from a temporary, transitional and dangerous diaspora to the Jewish homeland.3 Since the early 1960s the Holocaust has been the central motif in Jewish identity and historiography. To maintain the image of a unified Jewish nation, experiences, memories and historiography from Arab-Jewish communities were only acknowledged insofar as they fitted into the Zionist discourse. Thus, for example, the emphasis was placed on the hardships of Jewish existence in Arab countries, which found an end only through the foundation of the State of Israel as the Jewish homeland.4 It is only recently that different voices have begun to challenge established historiography and discourses on Jewish identity. These voices come mainly from activists and intellectuals of Arab-Jewish background but also from historians who question the Zionist conception of history and tend to speak about a variety of Jewish histories and cultures.5 Based on extensive fieldwork and participant observation between 2006 and 2011, I will analyse the extent to which the exhibition and the supporting program confirm, reproduce or challenge dominant discourses on Moroccan identity, images of the Arab-Jewish relationship and the central narratives in Jewish historiography. In so doing, I start from the assumption that exhibitions in history museums do not describe the past or reflect some kind of historical truth. Instead, exhibitions are a means to construct the past, and they mirror concerns, convictions and objectives of the present. Thus they are influenced by and at the same time can also influence contemporary discourses. As museologist Henrietta Lidchi puts it: “Museum collections do not simply ‘happen’”. Rather are “practices of collecting and exhibiting [...] powerful activities”.6 The specific choice and presentation of objects depends to a large degree on the objectives and the political agenda of those responsible for a respective museum. Thus, we shall take a closer look at a key player in the Jewish Museum, the late Simon Levy, who held the post of museum director until his death in December 2011. His political attitude coined the exhibition and the profile of the museum. While the assignment of responsibility remained unclear for a time right after Levy’s death, it was Jacques Toledano who

The Jewish Museum of Casablanca

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eventually assumed the post of director. However, one year after Levy’s death, it is still too early to estimate to what extent the exhibition and the museum’s policy will change under the new director. Of course, one has to bear in mind that freedom of action also depends on the financial means of a given institution as well as the political context; directors and curators are often limited by governmental directives and guidelines, be it in the form of censorship or a clear educational mandate. Moreover, like other success-oriented institutions, museums try to cater to the needs and interests of their visitors, which are regularly evaluated. The existence of the Jewish Museum in Casablanca, however, does not depend on sales figures, as it is mainly financed by donations from the Jewish community in Casablanca. State-control, instead, plays a role in Morocco, even for privately run institutions. In the case of the Jewish Museum, the state became actively involved as it is responsible for financing and staffing the post of the curator, and has declared the Foundation for Moroccan-Jewish Patrimony an “institution of public benefit”. This can be read as an acknowledgment of the initiative. It can also be understood as a means of keeping an eye on the activities of the museum. This twofold reading of the relationship between the state and the museum reflects a certain ambiguity frequently encountered when it comes to topics related to Jewish culture and history in Morocco. On the one hand the state represented by the king and other officials fosters images of a pluralistic and tolerant society – by referring to the age-long and conflict-free coexistence of Muslims and Jews in Morocco. On the other hand in the context of the Middle East conflict references to Jews and Jewish history in Morocco remain very sensitive. The Moroccan anthropologist Aomar Boum, for example, describes in his article the difficulties for a Muslim Moroccan researcher dealing with Jewish history and culture in Morocco as follows: “[…] scholars can be labelled (and stigmatized) as pro-Zionist just for conducting research on the Jews of the Arab world, and this labelling can have serious professional and personal consequences.”7 Still, I do not consider the museum’s focus on the positive aspects of Muslim-Jewish relationship as a mere attempt to avoid confrontation with the authorities or as whitewashing of the past and present. The exhibition reflects a political agenda that transports a clear message to Moroccan Muslims, the tiny Jewish community in Morocco as well as to global Jewry.

The Jewish Museum of Casablanca opened its doors to the public at the end of 1997. It was founded and is financed by the Jewish community of Casablanca in order to safeguard the vanishing Moroccan-Jewish culture. Even though the official founding committee consisted of four

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community members, it was the late Simon Levy who most influenced and shaped the museum’s profile and the exhibition’s thematic.8 Professor Emeritus of Spanish Literature and Language, Levy was first and foremost known for his political commitment, which even earned him a jail sentence in the 1960s. Born in 1934 in Fez, Levy joined the communist party (later renamed the Party for Progress and Socialism, PPS) in 1954 and committed himself to the Moroccan independence movement. He worked as a political journalist and editor and served as advisor to the Municipal Council of Casablanca. Levy was a well-known figure in Morocco, very outspoken against all forms of racism and fundamentalism and a self declared anti-Zionist fighting for the existence of Arab-Jewish communities and their culture. His radically articulated standpoint did not meet only with approval. He faced criticism not just from religious Muslim groups but also from parts of the Jewish community who did not share his extremely critical attitude towards Israel.

In the late 1980s, together with other members of the Jewish community in Casablanca, Levy got involved with safeguarding the Moroccan-Jewish patrimony, including the conservation of books and artefacts as well as the restoration of synagogues and cemeteries. This involvement has to be seen in the context of an increasing awareness of Jewish history and culture in Morocco, which received impulses from Jewish and Muslim intellectuals, scholars, artists and politicians in Morocco and abroad.9 With the establishment of the Foundation for Moroccan Jewish Patrimony in 1994 and the Jewish Museum, Levy and his fellows pursued two main goals. Firstly, they wanted to prevent objects and places from being sold out or thrown away. Secondly, the objective was to inform – especially but not exclusively – the Muslim majority about Jewish culture and history in order to fight against prejudices and aggression towards the Jewish minority.10 Thus, Levy and other community members began to collect and buy religious as well as everyday objects. They also received collections of religious books or ritual objects from abandoned synagogues, such as the book collections from the genizah of Rabat.

The Foundation for Moroccan-Jewish Patrimony, the official stakeholder of the museum, did not commission the construction of a new building for the projected museum. Instead, a former orphanage for Moroccan-Jewish children was placed at the foundation’s disposal. Inaugurated in 1948, the orphanage was closed in 1965 as it fell into disuse due to the mass emigration of Moroccan-Jews; approximately 250,000 Jews left Morocco in the second half of the twentieth century. Later, the villa in the prosperous suburb of Oasis was used as a rabbinical


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school until 1991. Finally, in 1995 its owner Cecilia Bengio handed over the estate to the Jewish community for its future museum. The Moroccan-Jewish architect Aimée Kakon was commissioned to adapt the building to its new function. For his reconstruction of the building and its garden, Kakon received much attention and was nominated for the Agha Khan Award for architecture. In 1997, the small team of the museum moved into their offices located in a small villa next to the museum building. In addition to director Simon Levy, two Moroccan Muslim women began to work at the museum: Rabia Rahim, secretary of the Foundation for Moroccan-Jewish Patrimony and Zhor Rehihil, anthropologist from the Ministry of Culture who joined the team as a curator.

The exhibition and its visitors

The exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Casablanca differs from the narratives dominant in most of the Jewish museums in Europe or the United Stated. Often these are places of differentiation and separation, as they present the Jewish community as distinct from the non-Jewish population. Jewishness is typically defined, framed, and explained mostly by its specific characteristics, whereas shared traditions with the non-Jewish majority or the daily life routine of secular Jews are not in the centre.11 The emphasis on cultural coherence as represented in the Casablanca Jewish Museum is something atypical and therefore surprising, especially as the exhibition is about Jews and Arabs or Muslims. Moreover, Jewish museums in Europe or the US often highlight various forms of anti-Semitism and ostracism of Jews. In the Jewish Museum in Casablanca these issues are absent from the exhibition.

Instead, Levy’s main aim was to represent Jewish culture as an integral part of Moroccan culture, a message that is directed at different groups. First of all, it is directed at the Muslim majority in Morocco, who often considers Jews to be somehow different, rather associated with Europe, the US or Israel.12 Secondly, it is meant to comfort the vanishing Jewish community, to confirm their deep-rootedness in Morocco and thus, their decision to stay in an Arab country instead of migrating to Israel, Europe or North America. Finally, the exhibition is a signal to visitors from the West, mainly Europe, America and Israel, to embrace the concept of an Arab-Jewish identity, a highly-contested and conflict-ridden notion in the context of the Middle East conflict.

The exhibition’s narrative effect is not only achieved by means of objects from everyday life and work or but also through artefacts referring to religious practices. In both these areas, the marocanité of Moroccan

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Jewish culture is emphasised. Consequently, many of the objects displayed are strange to visitors from an Ashkenazi background. The caftans, for example, the traditional Moroccan dress worn by Muslim and Jewish women alike, look unfamiliar and “exotic”, as do the jewels or furniture presented. Even some of the items used in a religious context are unknown to many of the Jewish visitors, such as for example a sword that is utilised to protect newborn babies against bad spirits in the first days of their lives.

A whole room is dedicated to the field of craft. Here we find working tools from different professions that are considered typically Jewish in the Moroccan context. Among these professions are gold- and silversmiths but also wood turners and tailors. Black and white photographs showing Jewish and Muslim craftsmen in the first half of the twentieth century in the suq and the reconstruction of a goldsmith’s shop from Fez present the topic of working life. On one hand, the focus on Jewish craftsmen is intended to demonstrate the contribution of Jews to what is considered Moroccan culture. On the other hand, the reconstructed shop and the surrounding images situate Moroccan Jews in the context of the Medina, a place that tourists often consider as the expression of Oriental and Moroccan – thus Arab-Muslim – culture.13

According to observations during my field research the number of visitors to the Jewish Museum is not high; on some days the number does not exceed a dozen, on other days groups of twenty to thirty people come to see the exhibition. Unfortunately, firm statistics on the exact number are not available from the museum. Reasons for this low frequentation can be attributed to the remote location of the museum and the fact that visits to museums are neither part of school curricula nor do they belong among the favoured recreational activities of Moroccans.14 Nevertheless, the museum has become a fixed point on the itinerary of cultural tourists.15 In order to target local visitors, the museum offers an extensive and varied supporting program, with special exhibitions, cultural evenings or political panel discussions. In addition, Levy constantly tried to cooperate with schools and universities to raise the interest of younger Moroccans for Jewish history and to fight against prejudices that often result from media coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.16

Many guests leave a note or comment in the museum’s guestbook. The tenor of these entries is predominantly positive and reflects curiosity rather than criticism. Most of the Moroccan guests admit that before their visit to the Jewish Museum they had been ignorant of Jewish history and culture in their country. Even though since the 1990s Jews play an increasing role in the context of a discourse on Moroccan identity that fosters the image of an ethnic and cultural diversity, Jewish history is still ignored in the school


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curricula.17 Due to the mass emigration of Moroccan Jews, contacts with Jews, be it at work, school or in the neighbourhood, became the exception for Moroccan Muslims. Thus, knowledge of Jews and Jewish culture cannot be generated through face-to-face contacts and personal experience. Instead, most knowledge of Jews in general derives from media reports on Israel. Therefore – and here I agree according to my own observations with Abdelilah Bouasria as well as with Simon Levy – attempts of state officials to promote a clear distinction between the own Jews on the one side, and the state of Israel on the other, are not successful. Another observation is that especially in face-to-face encounters with Western researchers, journalists and even tourists Muslim Moroccans tend to stress this distinction. However, this is merely a statement deriving from the manifest level of the consciousness, whereas many practices and statement in everyday-life clearly refer to anti-Jewish sentiments on the latent level of the consciousness.

However, those Moroccans who decide to visit the museum approve of this initiative: “Thanks to the museum for revealing one part of our own identity” (visitor from Morocco, May 2005). Another comment refers to the “wonderful work” that helps the “recovery of ourselves and our history” (visitor from Morocco, May 2005). Also the image of a conflict-free coexistence of Jews and Muslims is met with approval: “I am happy to live in a tolerant country, and this Jewish Museum serves as a good example” (visitor from Casablanca, March 2005). As stated before, the idea of tolerance and pluralism plays a central role in the official image the authorities tend to propagate. This image is addressed to the outside world, but also used as an argument against radical religious groups in Morocco. Thus, Moroccan visitors to the Jewish Museum can positively relate the exhibition to this discourse on diversity and tolerance. However, one has to bear in mind that it is a very tiny minority of Moroccan Muslims who come to see the Jewish Museum or deal with Jewish culture and history in contexts outside the museum as, for example, in academic research or art. The images of the Jew as “the other” are still persistent in Morocco, nourished by the violence in the Middle East and an Arab nationalist discourse that – similar to the Zionist discourse – presents Arabs and Jews as two opposed categories. A survey conducted by a group of anthropologists, sociologists and historians shows that the majority of Moroccans feel closer to a Muslim Afghan than to a Moroccan Jew. Also mixed marriages between a Moroccan Muslim man and a Moroccan Jewish woman18 are considered by a vast majority as inappropriate.19

The reactions of Western tourists20 reveal a certain astonishment. Their comments read as follows: “We learnt a great deal about Jews in

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Morocco” (visitor from South Africa, 2005). “This museum provided a lesson much needed (esp. in America) and hard to get in a classroom” (visitor from the US, March 2006). “Your collection is inspiring and tells an unknown story to us American Jews. Thank you, Thank you!” (visitor from the US, December 2005). “Many thanks for this enriching and educational experience. We learned a lot and were challenged as Jews by what we saw” (couple from New York, August 2005). “There is probably a great deal an Ashkenazi can discover about the Sephardic world” (visitor from France, March 2005). “We thoroughly enjoyed our Moroccan Jewish experience! We learned about our Safardi cousins!” (couple from the US, July 2004).

All these comments suggest that the history and culture of Jews from Arab or Muslim countries is rather unknown and marginalised in Europe and the US, where the majority of Jews are considered Ashkenazi. This becomes even clearer through the following note from a woman from the US: “It’s simply astonishing to see how far reaching Jewish culture is. It’s heartening” (March 2006). Even though her reaction to the exhibition is positive, it shows that Jewish Arab culture is seen as “far”, as peripheral, as something “other”, whereas “Western” Jewry is considered normative Judaism, as central, as the “own”. With the Jewish Museum and its exhibition, Simon Levy tried to fetch Moroccan Jewry away from the margins, both the margins of Moroccan society but also the margins of global Jewish historiography. In so doing, he challenged established images and narratives that are not only dominating in Israel but also in Europe and America.

Arab Jews or Jewish Arabs – A conflicting identity “Arab” and “Jewish” are two categories that are widely considered as entirely antithetic since the foundation of the state of Israel and the emergence of the Middle East conflict. This antithetic imagination is nourished from Arab-nationalist ideologies as well as Zionist ideology. Already the denomination of Jews coming from Arab or Muslim countries is complex and ambivalent. Often the differentiation is made between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, referring broadly speaking to Jews from the West, thus Europe and the US, and Oriental Jews, from Islamic and Arab societies. The umbrella term Sephardim for Jews from Arab or Muslim countries is, however, imprecise as it actually comprises only communities originating from the Iberian Peninsula. After the expulsion in 1492 some communities settled in Germany, France or Eastern Europe and do not belong to what is widely considered as the Orient. Moreover, not all


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Jewish communities in Arab or Muslim countries follow the Sephardic rite but have their own indigenous religious practices instead. Oriental Jews is another denomination in use. Unlike Sephardim it is rather referring to a geographic entity than to a specific rite. However, the term Oriental was criticised especially by leftwing Jews as being a racist category fostering the dichotomy between Western and Oriental, thus between modern and backward. In Israel the term mizrahim is currently used for Jews originating from the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. The later is sometimes also referred to as Maghrebi Jews, literally meaning “Western Jews”. Especially Jews from Arab or Muslim countries themselves often reject the overall term Mizrahi as it evokes the image of a monolithic and homogenous group. Instead many prefer to identify themselves by their country of origin. More and more Jews from Arab countries fall back to the term “Arab Jew” that was and still is often considered an impossible and paradoxical identity. Still, many activists and intellectuals of Arab-Jewish origin consider it the most appropriate term as it refers to a shared culture and language rather than considering Jews as a specific ethnic group among Muslim Arabs.21 The term Arab Jew became an expression of the struggle for the recognition of an Arab-Jewish identity in Israel and more generally speaking the West. It is a “political category to challenge the discursive structure of the Zionist lexicon,” states the Israeli scholar Yehuda Shenhav who himself uses the expression “Arab Jew”, not without pointing at the inconsistency and incoherence of that term.22

It was especially the Zionist narrative that fostered the antithetic notion of Arab and Jewish. “Arab” represented, and still represents, the enemy, “the other” and thus Arab-Jewish identity was and is widely considered impossible.23 Many Jews who migrated from Arab countries to Israel faced serious problems concerning their cultural identity. “Our Arab culture was taboo,” recalls the Iraqi-Israeli-American cultural scientist Ella Shohat. “Yet, even if we tried, we could not easily escape the mark of otherness (…) My parents didn’t dare put the Arabic name they gave me, Habiba, on the Israeli birth certificate”24. Henriette Dahan-Kalev described her experiences in similar words:

All that is Mizrahi is retarded, degenerated, and primitive, and therefore I had to choose the Ashkenazi alternative – I had to Ashkenazi-size myself (become “white”). For me this meant establishing a modern, progressive, clean identity, and destroying the identity that my parents gave me. This meant rejecting

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everything: their past, their language, their values, their loves, their hates, their pains, and their joys.25

This process of “de-Arabization” not only affected Jews who migrated to Israel; many North African Jews went to France or Canada, where they felt a similar pressure to neglect their cultural and linguistic origins. The image of Arab Jews as being primitive, backward and uncultivated was widespread among Ashkenazi Jews.26 In the context of the Middle East Conflict, the problem of recognizing Arab-Jewish identity and culture is not confined to Israeli society but to the West in general. “In the U.S., where the Arab-versus-Jew discourse exists, it has been virtually impossible for me to insist on the hyphen, that I am an Arab-Jew”.27

It is this powerful discourse contributing to the pre-structuration of expectations of those who come to visit the Jewish Museum of Casablanca. Thus it is not surprising that for the majority of visitors to the Jewish Museum it seems difficult to imagine Arab-Jewish as synthesis rather than as antithesis. Still, the museum’s director Simon Levy represented Arab-Jewish as an entity and highlighted the Arabness and marocanité of Jews in Morocco. Crucial to his respective representational strategy is language as an important signifier of cultural belonging. For the majority of Moroccan Jews Arab, or more specifically the Moroccan dialect, was and partly still is the language of everyday life as well as of religious practice.28 Among the objects referring to linguistic sameness we find historical and scientific texts, religious books and also examples of the use of Arabic in daily life. Moroccan Jews speak the Moroccan dialect with some particularities. Known as Judeo-Arab or Judeo-Moroccan Jews call their language l-arabiyya dyalna, Moroccan for “our Arabic”, in contrast to l-arabiyya dl-mslimīn, the Arabic of the Muslims. The script of Judeo-Arab is Hebrew its speech Arabic. In the exhibition a history book entitled Historiah dl-yahūd dl-marok bl-arabiyya min-tarjmana min l-faranzīn (History of the Jews of Morocco in Arabic, translated from French) is displayed, that was translated in 1953 and printed in Casablanca. The fact that it had been translated from French to Judeo-Arabic indicates a preference among – at least – some Jews to read Moroccan dialect rather than French. The museum’s archive and library includes also religious texts in Judeo-Arabic, among them prayer books and Passover Haggadot.

Beside Arab-Jewish identity visitors to the Jewish Museum are confronted with another phenomenon, that of so-called Berber Jews. Even though the origins of Berber Jews are not yet fully clarified, researchers tend to the theory that some Berber tribes converted to Judaism in pre-


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Islamic times.29 In the aftermath of the Arab expansion in North Africa the majority of Jews were Arabized, however, Jewish communities in the rural areas of the Atlas Mountains and in the south adhered to Berber language and culture. The history and culture of Berber Jews are not so much in the foreground of the exhibition. References are made in the context of jewellery and in the frame of restoration projects of synagogues in the Atlas Mountains that are represented in the museum. Displaying the culture and history of Berber Jews serves as a means to prove that Jews belonged to the different parts of Moroccan society, to the Berber dominated rural areas as well as to the predominately Arabized urban spaces. However, Berber (or Imazighen as the preferred self-referential term) be they Muslim or Jewish played only a marginal role in the identity discourse of the young nation state. After Morocco’s independence in 1956 the determining parameters of the new established nation were Arabic as language and Islam as religion of the state, which is also anchored in the constitution. A number of Jewish leftists who decided against an affiliation with the colonial power France or the Zionist movement got involved in the struggle for independence and the following nation-building process.

For Simon Levy this was a central issue that he regularly elaborated in his tours and also in a brochure accompanying the exhibition. The hook to talk about the “political awakening” of Moroccan Jewry was a placard from the early 1930s entitled “Appel pour la population Israélite au Maroc” displayed in the exhibition. The placard is an appeal to Moroccan Jewry to use Arabic instead of French as their every-day language. “It is not only the official language”, the author Aziz Cohen argued, “but it is also the language of our fathers.” Levy clarified that this appeal was not “an isolated cry” but rather part of a larger debate on the socio-political identity of Moroccan Jewry. And again in this political context the Arabic language was a significant marker to underline belonging to the Moroccan nation. However the Berber Jews of the rural mountain areas, their language and culture did not play a role in these debates. Thus, in order to demonstrate their belonging to the Moroccan nation it seems obvious to refer to the Arabness of the Jews rather than to their affiliation with the language and culture of the Imazighen. Only in the new constitution of July 2011 is Amazigh, the Berber language, officially acknowledged as the second language of Morocco. In the course of this reform the influence of the Jewish (in the Arabic original: ‘ibriyyah) culture in Morocco was also recognized in the preamble of the constitution.30

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Moroccan Jewry, World War II and the Holocaust

It was in the aftermath of the Eichmann trial in 1961 that the Holocaust became the central moment in Israeli and even Jewish identity. Consequently, Jews around the globe – regardless of their origin or place of residence – are forced to position themselves according to the Holocaust. Moreover, non-Jews in Europe, the US and beyond also relate to the genocide of European Jews.31 The universal dimension and significance ascribed to the Holocaust became very clear at the latest with the implementation of an International Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 by the United Nation General Assembly.

Morocco is no exception: as the first political leader of an Arab country, the Moroccan King Mohammed VI publicly acknowledged the Holocaust as “one of the most tragic chapters of modern history” and affirmed the importance of Holocaust education. Moreover, at various occasions the king has also referred to Morocco’s own position during that time; he has stressed the protective attitude of his grandfather Mohammed V towards his Jewish subjects and fostered the image of a sovereign who opposed the Nazi regime. Members of the Jewish community such as Serge Berdugo or André Azoulay also campaign for an active commemoration of the Holocaust in Morocco. In the last decade a number of Morocco NGOs began to deal with the Holocaust in the frame of broader debates on human rights, racism and anti-Semitism. Thus, even though Morocco was not primarily affected by the atrocities of the Nazi regime, the period of World War Two and also the Holocaust found their way into political and also historiographical debates in Morocco. 32

As the art historian Jutta Held states: “The decisive question for every Jewish Museum is the manner in which to present the genocide of the Jews. In any case it is the determining factor in the conception of history and the exhibition”.33 This also applies to museums in those countries that were not directly affected and involved in the Holocaust. However in the Jewish Museum the decision was made not to highlight the situation in Morocco during World War Two or the effects of the Holocaust on North African Jewry. This decision cannot be explained by the simple fact that the war and the Holocaust are European stories; there are various possibilities to connect Moroccan or more specifically Moroccan-Jewish history to World War Two and the Holocaust. The Jewish community in Morocco was aware of the anti-Semitic policy and the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Information came via European newspapers and radio


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broadcasts available in Morocco, later also via European refugees arriving in Morocco on their flight to the Americas and reporting on their experiences.34 Consequently the Moroccan Jews themselves felt threatened by the fascist movement, which was not confined to Nazi Germany. The pro-German Vichy regime, for example, formed a very concrete threat. In October 1940 and August 1941, two anti-Jewish laws were implemented under the command of the Vichy regime. These laws applied to all Moroccan Jews by faith as well as those who were defined as being Jewish by the racist standards of the Nazi Judenpolitik. The restrictions imposed primarily affected employment opportunities; the number of Jews working in certain professions was limited, while others became completely off-limits to Jews. For example, the decree of 1941 forced Jews to move back to the traditional Jewish quarters, the so-called mellah. According to historian Michael Laskier, it is difficult to assess the impact of the laws and the degree of their implementation, though he does not doubt that the laws were at least partially applied.35 Moreover, the presence of German troops in Libya and Tunisia beginning in January 1941 also stoked fears among the Jews in Morocco.

Even though it was Mohammed V, sultan from 1927 until 1953 and king from 1957 to 1961, who signed the anti-Jewish laws issued by the Vichy regime, he is up to this day remembered as the one who rescued his Jewish subjects from the fate, which befell their European co-religionists.36 The picture of Mohammed V that is part of the reconstruction of the goldsmith’s shop displayed in the exhibition could have been used as a hook to discuss the important role Mohammed V played and still plays for the Moroccan Jews. The exhibition shows another object that relates to the period of World War II as well as to the Holocaust. It is the Megillat Hitler, a scroll written after the model of the biblical book of Esther. Written in 1943, it tells the fictional story of Hitler’s defeat by the Ally troops. The text was read in several Jewish communities in Morocco as well as in Tunisia on the occasion of the annual celebration of the landing of American and British troops in North Africa in November 1942.37 Even though the landing of the Allies did not result in the improvement of the situation for the Jews, this event is up to this day widely remembered as the salvation of the Jews. Still, in the museum the decision was made not to emphasize World War Two and the Holocaust. Thus, the Megillat Hitler is displayed together with religious items and hence taken out of its historical context. Further explanations for the genesis of the text and its reception are not given. The same is true for the late sultan and his role under the Vichy regime as protector of his Jewish subjects, which is not further elaborated on in the exhibition.

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However, a more explicit connection between the history of Moroccan Jews with World War Two and the Holocaust could have served as a means to position Moroccan Jewry within a more general Jewish historiography. Such an approach we find applied, for example, by the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries or in Yad Vashem. The latter stresses the importance of acknowledging the fate of North-African Jews in the context of Holocaust education: “We feel that this is an important topic, as only recently has it been officially acknowledged that the Jews of North Africa faced the looming prospect of systematic mass murder and the final solution – yet unlike the Jews of Europe, they had the fortune to be saved as the tide of the war turned in favour of the Allied armies.”38

Against the background of this global discourse, in which Moroccan actors actively participate, it could be expected that the Jewish Museum stronger includes the Holocaust and World War Two in the exhibition narrative. This would also cater to the interest of many visitors, as European, American and Israeli guests to the museum frequently ask about the situation of the Moroccan Jews under Vichy, the effects of World War Two and the racial politics of the Nazi regime. However, Simon Levy’s position towards the question of why the Holocaust is not one of the central issues in the exhibition was always very explicit. He simply stated that this was not the central and identity-sustaining incident in Moroccan-Jewish history. Instead, he insisted on “we have our own history”. In an interview with an American researcher Levy said: “To take the Holocaust as the centre of human history is false, it is not the centre even of Jewish history!”39 With this attitude Levy clearly affronted a majority of Jews in Israel but also beyond who take the Holocaust as the key element in Jewish identity. His conviction is opposed to the idea of a history that is shared by the entire Jewish people. Levy frequently criticised the political instrumentalization of the Holocaust in Israel and the ignorance towards Arab-Jewish experiences. Instead of including Arab-Jewish history in the dominant historiographical discourse and to “subordinate Arab Jews to a ‘universal’ Jewish experience”,40 he made the decision not to emphasize the Holocaust and issues of racial persecution in Morocco at all – even thought he and his family themselves suffered under the racist laws implemented by the Vichy government.41


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Ostracism and the mass-emigration of Moroccan Jews

Anti-Semitism and the return to the Jewish homeland are central motifs in the Zionist conception of Jewish and Israeli history, based on the experiences and the collective memory of European Jewry. Different attempts were made to integrate the history of Jews coming from Arab or predominately Muslim societies into this narrative. In 1975 the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries was established in Israel in order “to integrate the memory of the Arab Jews into the Israeli-Zionist historical memory”.42 Among other things, the suffering of Jews under Muslim domination, their inequality and bad economic situation were stressed. On the one hand this image connects to the narrative of the suffering and suppressed Oriental Jew that emerged in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century – following the Damascus Affair of 1840 – when Jewish philanthropic organisations became involved in the “emancipation” and succour of mainly Arab Jews.43 On the other hand it relates to contemporary views of the Arab as the enemy of the Jewish people. A number of academics in Israel and abroad took over this view, which Mark Cohen described as the “neo-lachrymose conception of Arab-Jewish history”.44 For example, researchers such as Bat Ye’or or Ruth Attias Tolédano stress examples of ostracism, anti-Semitism and violence in their historical writing on Jews in Arab countries.45 This focus stands in sharp contrast to the glorification of the so-called Golden Age – referring to medieval Andalusia – often used as a metaphor for the peaceful and fruitful coexistence of Jews and Muslims under Islamic rule. In this conception it is the Zionist movement and the foundation of the State of Israel that are made responsible for the destruction of this harmonious relationship. The latter image is becoming more and more popular in Arab countries as a way of countering Western preconceptions of an inherent intolerance of Arab and Muslim societies. This applies especially to Morocco, whose government and king – as mentioned above – systematically try to foster the image of a pluralistic, open and diverse country.

For visitors coming from the West this representation of Jewish-Muslim relations as conflict-free togetherness is less evident than for Moroccans who are familiar with the official narrative. Though criticism is not explicitly expressed in the guestbook, the majority of visitors ask for further information on anti-Semitism and the mass emigration. Many visitors from Europe, the US and Israel call the positive image of Muslim-Jewish coexistence into question as their own discursive background is coined by debates on the Middle East conflict and an increasing anti-

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Semitism in the Arab and Muslim World.46 One guest expressed this sentiment in an explicit way, saying: “A lovely visit, but I find it very strange that the curator was not Jewish and could not answer our question more correctly and completely about why the Jews left Morocco” (comment without name or place of origin, October 2006). This statement establishes a direct connection between the religious affiliation of the curator, who is Muslim, and her answer on the question of why the Jews left Morocco. It suggests that this visitor expected a different answer from a Moroccan Jew, in fact a less positive one.

However, it was first and foremost Simon Levy, the only Jew working in the Casablanca Museum, who turned the focus towards the mutual exchange between the two confessional groups rather than to ostracism and mass emigration. In the second half of the 20th century about 250,000 Jews left Morocco. Thus, it is rather astonishing that this topic is not explicitly highlighted in the exhibition as it is the central turning point for the Moroccan Jewish community and also for the relations between Muslims and Jews in Morocco. The issue of emigration is marginalised not only in the narration represented by the Jewish Museum but also in Moroccan historiography, because it tarnishes the image of the tolerant society. Jews left for very different reasons, be they economic, political, or personal; a considerable number left out of a fear of discrimination and an uncertain future caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict and increasing Arabization of Moroccan society. A critical investigation of these reasons risks challenging the image of a perfect coexistence. This would be in the interests of neither those, be they Muslim and Jew, who tend to shift the responsibility exclusively to Zionist organisations, nor the Jews, who do not want to jeopardize the fairly stable relations between the two groups by accusing their Muslim fellow-citizens of being, at least partly, responsible for the departure of the Jews.47

By marginalising the issue of emigration Levy pursued two objectives. First, the avoidance of this topic served as a means of self-reassurance for the Moroccan Jews; by keeping up the narrative that the relationship has never been problematic the Jewish community is comforting itself in the face of the Muslim majority. Second, Levy wanted to challenge the Zionist narrative of a common victimization of all Jews everywhere and at all times. This applies also to the director’s attitude towards the issue of anti-Semitism. Of course, Levy was not ignorant of the existence of prejudices, anti-Semitism and also violence against Moroccan Jews in the past and present. More than once Levy himself became the target of threats and defamation. The museum and its exhibition were his answer and his attempt to go against ignorance, incomprehension and hostilities. In his


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view it was rather appropriate to stress moments of coexistence and cultural cohesion, instead of addressing explicitly hostile attitudes.48

The Jewish Museum as a voice of political activism

In this essay I argue that the Jewish Museum in Casablanca has a clear political agenda that relates to three different discourses: firstly, that on identity in Moroccan society, secondly the discourse of Moroccan historiography, and thirdly that of global Jewish identity. Thus, the museum cannot be considered as the folklorist collection of an idealistic lone fighter, hosting an apolitical nostalgic exhibition. In the Moroccan context this museum serves as a means of positioning the vanishing Jewish community in the predominantly Arab-Muslim society. It is a way of marking the Jews’ place within the history of the country as well as in the present. An institution where Jewish culture is actively performed and where Jews and non-Jews have the opportunity of entering into a dialogue with each other proves the continuity of the Jewish community and invests it with a certain meaning. Critical and sensitive topics are left aside to avoid irritation or demage to the fragile relationship between Muslim and Jew, and to comfort the Jews themselves, as their situation in Morocco is not easy. Thus, the museum and its exhibition are a means to fight against the marginalisation of Jews, against prejudices and anti-Semitism and to legitimise the existence of the Jewish community in Morocco. The message addressed to non-Moroccan Jews is no less political. With its presentation of the good relations between Muslims and Jews and the legitimate place of Jews in Moroccan society the exhibition directly challenges the Zionist conception of Jewish history. The exhibition reads like a counter narrative to the widespread assumption that Ashkenazi Jews are the “regular” and “real” Jews. Simon Levy did not blend the history of Moroccan Jews into a national historiography dominated by a Zionist discourse and he refused to adopt a Eurocentric reading of Jewish history as a sequence of pogroms and atrocities.

Having these different discursive frames in mind it becomes clear that the reception and understanding of the exhibition is highly contextual and depends on the expectations and background of the heterogeneous audience. The museum’s message only develops in a dialogic process between directors or curators, the objects and the audience. Interestingly, the reactions on the Jewish Museum in Casablanca, be they from visitors, researchers or journalists, never draw on Levy’s critique of the hegemonic Zionist conception of history. Responses to the museum rather highlight again and again the unique feature of this Jewish museum, the only one in

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an Arab country, and reproduce the image of the richness of Moroccan-Jewish culture and the peaceful coexistence between Jews and Muslims.49

Though Simon Levy was not speaking for all Arab Jews and not even for all Moroccans, his point is shared by others and ties in with the attitude of other left-wing Jews of Arab origin. In 1971 the fist organisation struggling for the rights of mizrahi Jews and for the recognition of their cultural specifics was founded in Jerusalem, the Black Panthers. Others followed such as the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition founded in 1996. Besides the promotion of mizrahi culture and equality, this organisation also seeks dialogue between Palestinian Arabs and Arab Jews. More and more artists and academics are publicly and critically dealing with their own Arab-Jewish identity, such as Ella Shohat or Sami Shalom Chetrit, both Israelis of Arab-Jewish origin currently residing in the US.50 Chetrit, who was born in Morocco and migrated at the age of three, visited the Casablanca Museum in 2010 to present his film Az’i Ayima (in Moroccan Arabic: “Come, mother”), a documentary about the Moroccan village of his mother and her migration and that of other women from this region to Israel. This meeting was in itself a manifestation of Arab-Jewish identity, as the common language of Chetrit as an Anglophone Israeli and Levy as Francophone Moroccan was Arabic, or more precisely the Moroccan dialect. Moreover this encounter seems to be one of the rare occasions in which activists from the West gather with Jewish activists still living in Arab or Muslim countries. Jewish communities almost completely disappeared from Arab and Muslim societies and most Jews of Arab origin live in Israel, Europe and North America at present. Consequently, this is the place of mizrahi activism. The cultural, social and political situation of mizrahim is discussed within an Israeli, European or American context. Jews who actually live in Arab and Muslim countries – this applies mainly to Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, but also to Yemen – seem to be subaltern in this discourse.

Building up contacts between activists here and there is hampered by the political situation, which limits personal encounters and the possibility to travel freely between the different countries. Moreover, the concerns and objectives of mizrahi Jews in the West, and Jews still based in Arab or Muslim societies, are not the same. Finally, Jewish activism in Arab or Muslim countries is rare as the political circumstances do not always allow for it. Encounters and exchange do instead exist in the academic field, where Jewish and non-Jewish scholars from Arab countries and the West come together to discuss the history and culture of Arab Jews. However, these meetings do not develop into political activism. In addition, Morocco


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is particularly active in fostering a dialogue between the three monotheistic religions. With André Azoulay, Moroccan Jew and politician, as the central figure, Morocco promotes itself as mediator between the cultures. However, also within this very political program, the interests of the Arab Jews and a concrete improvement of their situation are not in the foreground. Therefore, the Jewish Museum of Casablanca and the activities of its former director Simon Levy have to be seen as one of the rare impulses for a critical revision of Jewish historiography and thus also of Arab-Jewish identity coming from an Arab country. 1 Aomar Boum, “The Plastic Eye: The Politics of Jewish Representations in Moroccan Museums”, Ethnos, 75 (2010): 49-77; Maria Daïf, “Patrimoine: Un musée très discret”, Telquel, N° 119, 2004. 2 There are other initiatives in Morocco dealing with Jewish culture and history, such as the very small privately run museum at the Jewish cemetery in Fez. Also the Sheik Omar Museum in Akka and the Museum of Bert Flint in Marrakesh refer to Moroccan Jewry. Still, the museum in Casablanca is the only officially acknowledged museum dedicated to Jewish history and ethnography in Morocco. 3 See: Yehouda Shenhav, The Arab Jews. A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 136-183; Michael Meyer, “The Emergence of Jewish Historiography: Motives and Motifs”, History and Theory. Studies in the Philosophy of History, 27 (1988): 160-175; Michaek Brenner, Propheten der Vergangenheit. Jüdische Geschichtsschreibung im 19. und 20 Jahrhundert (München: C.H.Beck, 2006), 280-294. 4 Shenhav, The Arab Jews, 140-146. 5 See for example: David Biale, Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York: Schocken, 2002). 6 Henrietta Lidchi, “The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures,” in: Representation Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 185. 7 Boum, “The Plastic Eye”, 51. See also Samir Ben-Layashi and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, “Myth, History, and Realpolitick: Morocco and Its Jewish Community”, The Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 9 (2010): 89-106.

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8 The other founding members are Jacques Toledano, Boris Toledano and Serge Berdugo, who is the head of the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco. For the objectives of the Foundation and its museum see Simon Levy, “Dix ans après sa naissance, la Fondation du Patrimoine Culturel Judéo Marocain dresse un premier bilan”, in Hommage à Niamat Allah El Khatib Boujibar, ed. The International Council of Museums (Casablanca: Edition EDDIF, 2007), 219-228. 9 Robert Assaraf, Une certaine histoire moderne des juifs au Maroc 1860-1999 (Paris: Gawsewitch, 2005); Arlette Berdugo, Juives et juifs dans le Maroc contemporain: images d’un devenir (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 2002). 10 Interview of the Author with Simon Levy, Casablanca, 29 March 2007. See also Levy’s article “Le judaïsme marocain est une affaire sérieuse, à traiter de façon responsable”, Libération, 22 August 2003. 11 Janne Laursen, “The Danish Jewish Museum: a new museum asserts its character”, in Scandinavian museums and cultural diversity, eds. Katherine Goodnow and Haci Akman (London: Berghahn Books, 2008), 42-53. 12 Levy describes in his text, that Levy stated that Jews are often considered “a kind of European to whom one replies in French even if they spoke in Arabic first”, quoted from Essais d’histoire et de civilisation judéo-marocaines (Rabat: Centre Tarik Ibn Zyad, 2001), 9. 13 Claudio Minca Rachele Borghi, “Morocco: Re-stanging the colonial for the mass”, in Cultures of Mass Tourism, eds. Mike Crang and Pau Obrador Pons (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 21-52. 14 Hassan Cherradi, “Dimensions implicates du musée au Maroc”, in Hommage à Niamat Allah El Khatib Boujibar, ed. The International Council of Museums (Casablanca: Edition EDDIF, 2007), 201-218. 15 Jewish heritage tourism is a blossoming branch of cultural tourism in Morocco and is gaining more and more economic as well as political importance. Since the late 1970s Morocco is a frequent destination for Jewish tourists, a development that has its roots in the tradition of pilgrimages to the graves of saints (hillulot) that are part and parcel of Jewish and also Muslim religious practice in North Africa. For Jewish tourists from Europe, the US and Israel, Morocco is a convenient destination: first it is considered as one of the safest Arab countries and, moreover, there is a wide range of travel agencies serving this destination, especially for Jewish tourists. See. Oren Kosansky, “Tourism, Charity, and Profit: The Movement of Money in Moroccan Jewish Pilgrimage”, Cultural Anthropology, 17 (2002): 359-400.


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16 Simon Levy was constantly fighting for the introduction of Jewish history in the Moroccan school curricula. He even proposed material on the Moroccan Jews for the use in Moroccan history classes to the Minister of Education. See the vast media broadcast on this topic and Levy’s struggle in many Moroccan newspapers, e.g.: L’Economiste, 17 October 2006; L’Expression, 18 October 2006; Al-Massae, 19. October 2006; Bayan Al-Yaoume, 21 October 2006; Aujourd’hui le Maroc, 27 October 2006; Al Bayane, 31 October 2006; Al Moustaqil, 2 November 2006; Nichan, 11 November 2006. 17 Abdellah Benhassi, “The Image of Jews and the Holocaust in Moroccan Schoolbooks”, unpublished conference paper, International Symposium European Muslims' Perceptions of the Holocaust, Paris, 2 June 2010. 18 According to the Islamic law – and then to the Moroccan law – a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim man. 19 Mohammed El Ayadi et al., L’islam au quotidien. Enquête sur les valeurs et les pratiques religiseuses au Maroc (Casablanca: Edition Prologues 2006), 130-132. 20 The exception is Jews of Moroccan origin residing in Europe, America or Israel. They come to Morocco in search of their own cultural and familial roots and respond to the exhibition with nostalgia. See: Wagenhofer, Sophie, Ausstellen, Verorten, Partizipieren. Das Jüdische Museum im marokkanischen Casablanca (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, forthcoming). For similar observations on the Jewish cemetery in Fes: Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “Revenir pour écrire: le livre d’or, un nouvel espace de communication dans le pèlerinage des Juifs au Maroc”, Diasporas, 8 (2006): 153-161. 21 Ella Shohat, “Dislocated Identities. Reflections of an Arab Jews”, Performance Journal, 5 (1992): 8. 22 Shenhav, The Arab Jew, 10. In the following I mainly adhere to the term Arab Jew. When referring to activist groups in Israel who use the self-designation Arab Jew, I adopt this term. I tried to avoid the term Ashkenazi as it suggests a homogeneity among Jews from or in Europe, Israel and the US that does not reflect the diverse reality. However, in some cases and in the interest of simplicity I do use the designation Ashkenazi to refer to Jews of Central or East European origin. 23 Ella Shohat, “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims”, Social Text, 19 (1988): 1-35; Id., “The Invention of the Mizrahim”, Journal of Palestine Studies, 29 (1999): 5-20.

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24 Ella Shohat, “Dislocations, Arab Jews and Multicultural Feminism”, MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, 5 (2005): 50. 25 Henriette Dahan-Kalev, “You are so pretty – you don’t look Moroccan”, Israel Studies, 6 (2001): 1-14. 26 Shenhav, The Arab Jew. 27 Shohat, “Dislocations”. 28 In the North of Morocco, were many Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula settled, Hakitia – a form of Spanish – is the lingua franca of the Jewish community. In the rural regions Berber languages were spoken by the local Jews. From the 1860s onwards, the non-religious education of Moroccan Jews was widely in the hand of the French-based Alliance Israélite Universelle, French more and more replaced Judeo-Arab and Judeo-Berber as colloquial language. See: Haїm Zafrani, Littératures dialectales et populaires juives en occident musulman (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1980); Levy, Essais d’histoire. 29 Moishe Shokeid, “Jewish existence in a Berber environment”, in Jews among Muslims: communities in the precolonial Middle East, eds. Shlomo Deshen and Walter Zenner (New York: New York University Press), 109-120; André Goldenberg, Les juifs du Maroc (Paris: Editions du Scribe, 1992). 30 The text of the Moroccan constitution in Arabic and French is available at: http://www.maroc.ma [accessed 6 April 2013]. 31 Katrin Pieper, Die Musealisierung des Holocaust. Das Jüdische Museum Berlin und das U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. (Köln: Böhlau, 2006); Daniel Lev and Natan Sznaider, Einnerung im globalen Zeitalter: der Holocaust (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2001). 32 For current debates in Morocco on the period of Vichy and the situation of the Moroccan Jews in the 1940s: Sophie Wagenhofer, Sophie, “Contested Narratives”. On the activism of NGOs: Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, “Morocco’s Berbers and Israel”, The Middle East Quarterly, 18 (2011): 79-85. 33 Jutta Held, “Introduction”, in Jüdische Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert und die Konzeption der Museen, by Jutta Held et al. (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2004), 13. 34 Hannah Yablonka, “Oriental Jewry and the Holocaust. A Tri-Generational Perspective”, Israel Studies, 14 (2009): 94-123. 35 Michael Laskier, “Between Vichy Antisemitism and German Harassment: The Jews of North Africa during the early 1940s”, Modern Judaism, 11 (1991): 343-396. 36 Wagenhofer, “Contested Narratives”.


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37 Michal Saraf, The Hitler Scroll of North Africa: Moroccan and Tunisian Jewish Literature on the Fall of the Nazis (Lod: Mekon Habern le-Mehqere Sifrut, 1988). 38 Quoted from the E-Newsletter for Holocaust Educators from Yad Vashem, ed. Sheryl Ochayon, 24 (2011), available at: http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/newsletter/25/index.asp [accessed 6 April 2013] 39 I participated as translator in the interview conducted in April 2009. 40 Shohat, “The Invention of the Mizrahim,” 6. 41 Wagenhofer, Ausstellen, verorten, partizipieren. 42 Shenhav, The Arab Jew, 136. The World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries functioned until 1999. For further details see: Ibid., 136-183. 43 Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publiscation Society, 1991). 44 Mark Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 9-16. 45 Ruth olédano Attias, “L’antisémitisme au Maroc du début du XXe siècle. Une mémoire ignorée,” in L’exclusion des Juifs des pays arabes, ed. Shmuel Trigano (Paris: In Press, 2003), 61-74; Bat Ye’or, “The Dhimmi Factor in the Exodus of Jews from Arab Countries,” in The Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands, ed. Malka Hillel Shulevitz (London: Continuum, 1990), 33-51. 46 Raphael El-Maleh, a Moroccan tour guide specialised in Jewish heritage tourism, confirmed these observations in an interview in March 2010. 47 Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “Double Trauma and Manifold Narratives: Jews’ and Muslims’ Representations of the Departure of Moroccan Jews in the 1950s and 1960s”, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 9 (2010): 107-125. 48 This point he emphasized in various interviews and informal talks we had between 2006 and 2011. 49 Wagenhofer, Ausstellen, verorten, partizipieren. 50 Tikva Honig-Parnass, The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011). References

Assaraf Robert, Une certaine histoire moderne des juifs au Maroc 1860-1999 (Paris: Gawsewitch, 2005).

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Ben-Layashi Samir and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, “Myth, History, and Realpolitick: Morocco and Its Jewish Community,” The Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 9 (2010): 89-106. Berdugo Arlette, Juives et juifs dans le Maroc contemporain: images d’un devenir (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 2002). Biale David, Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York: Schocken, 2002). Borghi Rachele and Claudio Minca, “Morocco: Restaging Colonialism for the Mass”, in Cultures of Mass Tourism, eds. Pau Obrador Pons, Mike Crang, and Penny Travlou (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 21-52. Bouasria Abdelilah, “The second coming of Morocco’s ‘Commander of the Faithful’: Mohammed VI and Morocco religious policy”, in Contemporary Morocco: State, Politics and Society under Mohammed VI, eds. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman and Daniel Zisenwine (New York, Routledge 2013), 37-56. Boum Aomar, “The Plastic Eye: The Politics of Jewish Representations in Moroccan Museums”, Ethnos, 75 (2010): 49-77. Brenner Michael, Propheten der Vergangenheit. Jüdische Geschichtsschreibung im 19 und 20 Jahrhundert (München: C.H.Beck, 2006). Id., and David Myers, Jüdische Geschichtsschreibung heute. Themen, Positionen, Kontroversen (München: C.H.Beck, 2003). Cherradi Hassan, “Dimensions implicates du musée au Maroc”, in Hommage à Niamat Allah El Khatib Boujibar, ed. by the International Council of Museums (Casablanca: Edition EDDIF, 2007), 201-218. Clifford James, Routes. Travels and Translation in the late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). Cohen Mark, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Dahan-Kalev Henriette, “You are so pretty - you don’t look Moroccan,” Israel Studies, 6 (2001): 1-14. Daïf Maria, “Patrimoine: Un musée très discret”, Telquel, N° 119, 2004. Doering Zahava and Andrew Pekarik, Assessments of Informal Education in Holocaust Museums (Washington: Smithsonian Institute, 1996). El Ayadi Mohammed et al., L’islam au quotidien. Enquête sur les valeurs et les pratiques religieuses au Maroc (Paris: Prologue, 2006). Held Jutta, “Introduction”, in Jüdische Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert und die Konzeption der Museen, by Jutta Held et al. (Göttingen : V&R unipress, 2004), 9-18. Hochberg Gil, Jews, Arabs, and the Limits of Separatist Imagination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). Honig-Parnass Tivka, The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011). Kosansky Oren, “Tourism, Charity, and Profit: The Movement of Money in Moroccan Jewish Pilgrimage”, Cultural Anthropology, 17 (2002): 359-400. Laskier Michael, “Between Vichy Antisemitism and German Harassment: The Jews of North Africa during the early 1940s”, Modern Judaism, 11 (1991): 343-396.


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Laursen Janne, “The Danish Jewish Museum: A New Museum Asserts its Character”, in Scandinavian Museums and Cultural Diversity, eds. Katherine J. Goodnow and Haci Akman (Oxford: Berghahn Books), 42-53. Levy Daniel and Natan Sznaider, Einnerung im globalen Zeitalter: der Holocaust (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2001). Levy Simon, “Dix ans après sa naissance, la Fondation du Patrimoine Culturel Judéo Marocain dresse un premier bilan”, in Hommage à Niamat Allah El Khatib Boujibar, ed. The International Council of Museums (Casablanca: Edition EDDIF, 2007), 219-228. Id., Essais d’histoire et de civilisation judéo-marocaines (Rabat: Centre Tarik Ibn Zyad, 2001). Lidchi Henrietta, “The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures”, in Representation Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 153-208. Littman David, “Jews under Muslim Rule in the Late Nineteenth Century”, Wiener Library Bulletin, 28 (1975): 65-76. Macdonald Sharon, “Museen erforschen. Für eine Museumswissenschaft in der Erweiterung”, in Museumsanalyse. Methoden und Konturen eines neuen Forschungsfeldes, ed. Joachim Baur (Bielefeld: transkript, 2010), 153-208. Maddy-Weitzman Bruce, “Morocco’s Berbers and Israel”, The Middle East Quarterly, 18 (2011): 79-85. Meyer Michael, “The Emergence of Jewish Historiography: Motives and Motifs”, History and Theory. Studies in the Philosophy of History, 27 (1988): 160-175. Pieper Katrin, Die Musealisierung des Holocaust. Das Jüdische Museum Berlin und das U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. (Köln: Böhlau, 2006). Saraf Michal, The Hitler Scroll of North Africa: Moroccan and Tunisian Jewish Literature on the Fall of the Nazis, (Lod: Mekon Habern le-Mehqere Sifrut, 1988). Segev Tom, The seventh million: the Israelis and the Holocaust (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993). Shenhav Yehouda, The Arab Jews. A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006). Shohat Ella, “Dislocations, Arab Jews and Multicultural Feminism”, MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, 5 (2005): 50-56. Id., “The Invention of the Mizrahim”, Journal of Palestine Studies, 29 (1999): 5-20. Id., “Dislocated Identities. Reflections of an Arab Jews”, Performance Journal, 5 (1992): 8. Id., “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims”, Social Text, 19 (1988): 1-35. Shokeid Moshe, “Jewish existence in a Berber environment”, in Jews among Muslims: communities in the precolonial Middle East, eds. Shlomo Deshen and Walter Zenner (New York: New York University Press), 109-120. Stillman Norman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publiscation Society, 1991).

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Id., The language and culture of the Jews of Sefrou, Morocco. An ethnolinguistic study (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1988). Tolédano Attias, Ruth, “L’antisémitisme au Maroc du début du XXe siècle. Une mémoire ignorée”, in L’exclusion des Juifs des pays arabes,, ed. Shmuel Trigano (Paris: In Press, 2003), 61-74. Trevisan Semi Emanuela, “Double Trauma and Manifold Narratives: Jews’ and Muslims’ Representations of the Departure of Moroccan Jews in the 1950s and 1960s”, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 9 (2010): 107-125. Id., “Revenir pour écrire: le livre d’or, un nouvel espace de communication dans le pèlerinage des Juifs au Maroc”, Diasporas, 8 (2006): 153-161. Wagenhofer Sophie, Ausstellen, Verorten, Partizipieren. Das Jüdische Museum im marokkanischen Casablanca (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, forthcoming). Id., “Contested Narratives: Contemporary Debates on Mohammed V and the Moroccan Jews under the Vichy Regime,” Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, 4 (2012), available at: http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=318 [accessed 6 April 2013]. Yablonka Hannah, “Oriental Jewry and the Holocaust. A Tri-Generational Perspective”, Israel Studies, 14 (2009): 94-123. Ye’or Bat, “The Dhimmi Factor in the Exodus of Jews from Arab Countries”, in The Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands, eds. Malka Hillel Shulevitz (London: Continuum, 1990), 33-51. Zafrani Haїm, Littératures dialectales et populaires juives en occident musulman (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1980).

"We Have Our Own History." Voices from the Jewish Museum of Casablanca

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