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On Belonging and Other Dreams. The Ambiguous Positions of the Jews in “Spanish Morocco”

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Abstract

This paper presents an ethnographic study of autobiographical narratives about Jewish life during the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco (1912–1956). Based on eighteen interviews conducted between 2013 and 2016, this work examines the peculiar process Sephardic Jews underwent as a consequence of the Spanish colonial presence in the north of Morocco. Spanish-Moroccan Jews developed their identity affiliations and allegiances under the influence of different institutions: the Spanish colonial agencies, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish community and the Moroccan authorities. These institutions presented different and often contradictory roles for Moroccan Jews. This work shows the tensions and conflicts experienced by the participants when navigating these different cultural and political spheres. The paper examines the participants' narratives about the ambiguous "re-Hispanicization" of Sephardic Jews during the colonial period. It studies the participants' memories about their identification with Spain and the adoption of Spanish habits and customs during the Protectorate period, which transformed Jewish life and redefined the limits between the different ethno-religious groups. This paper shows the impact of the social, historical and political conditions of the Protectorate on the participants' memories about colonial Morocco.

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  1. The idea that Jews had a tail was very common in Spain even as late as the mid-nineteenth century. This is just one more proof, albeit an extravagant one, of the disturbing confusion and ignorance that existed—and, in a way, continues to exist—about Jews in Spain. An illustration of the cultural presence of the outlandish belief that Jews have a tail is the play La Gaviota (“The Seagull”) by Fernán Caballero. There is a dialogue discussing a character’s possible Jewish origins. One of the characters states that if this person was really Jewish, they would have seen his tail. In this scene, Caballero points out that there were priests who discredited this idea (that Jews had tails), although many believed it. The assumption was that those who discredited such ideas were motivated by a “constitutional spirit” following “liberal tendencies” (see Caro Baroja 1986).

  2. The interview as a discursive genre close to day-to-day conversation is further developed in Arfuch 1995.

  3. The same happened in the French colonial vocabulary, which replaced juif with israèlite, since juif seemed to have negative connotations. The word israèlite sounded “nicer” and was thought to facilitate Jewish assimilation to French culture, despite the fact that both Jews and non-Jews kept using the word juif and anti-Semites never used the term israèlite.

  4. Cabila is a word of Arabic origin that refers to the Arab and Berber tribes of the north of Africa. It denoted a unified and independent political and social unit limited to a certain area. The cabila was the basic unit of the political and administrative organization of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco. Each cabila was ruled by a caid (a governor or judge), although some of them refused to accept the colonial structure and were administered by a Spanish military inspector.

  5. Tortitas are a very popular cracker in Spanish-Moroccan Jewish homes.

  6. Fichuelas consist of a very thin dough that is fried and given the shape of a sort of spiral, spinning the different layers of the dough while frying it.

  7. Here, I am referring to the mass departure from Morocco that started in the 1950s. There had been waves of Moroccan emigration before, but the flow of Jews leaving the country intensified after the establishment of the State of Israel (1948) and Moroccan independence (1956).

  8. Tanjaui: nickname given to the Jews from Tangier.

  9. The Tangier Protocol is formally known as the Convention regarding the Organization of the Statute of the Tangier Zone. Through this protocol Tangier became an international zone. The agreement was signed between France, Spain and the United Kingdom.

  10. Yom Kippur: the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

  11. Tangier was declared an international zone in 1923, although it was under Spanish control between 1940 and 1945. Spanish influence was prevalent, and thus it still makes sense to include those Jews in the category “Spanish-Moroccan.”

  12. The “Ensanche,” literally the “Expansion,” was a system of urban growth applied to the new cities of Sherifian Morocco. This system had already been used in Spanish towns since the second half of the nineteenth century. These “expansions” were primarily residential areas and initially did not include industrial or working-class neighborhoods. Therefore, the proletarian population was not included in the plan and began to be displaced to the periphery. By the beginning of the twentieth century, with the rapid growth of the Spanish colony, it became necessary to expand the limits of the different cities of northern Morocco. For example, in Tetouan, construction began in Luneta Street, which itself originated in the expansion of the old Jewish quarter in 1889. The Local Services Committee (“Junta de Servicios Locales”) had warned against building in “Moorish neighborhoods” in order to avoid altering the structure of the buildings, streets and neighborhoods. This is consistent with the colonial strategy of not rousing the local population’s animosity (Bravo-Nieto 2000).

  13. National Catholicism was the ideology of Francisco Franco’s fascist regime. This system defined Catholicism as the national religion of Spain and gave enormous power to the Church, which had control over all aspects of both public and private life.

  14. As early as 1923, through the Treaty of Lausanne, Primo de Rivera had revoked the protégé status of Sephardi Jews and granted them nationality. A Royal Decree was issued in which the word “Sephardi” is not mentioned. Instead, it refers to “individuals that belong to families of Spanish origin.” Therefore, the Jews’ relation with Spain was redefined through this rhetoric of a shared past. However, this was not a simple process. Suffice it to say that, by the end of the 1920s, the Consul General in Tetouan insisted that nationality be granted only to individuals who had served in the military (Mateo Dieste 2015).

  15. Granada: song written in 1932 by Agustín Lara about the city of Granada, Spain.

  16. For a study about cases of intermarriage in the Spanish Protectorate, see Mateo-Dieste 2013.

  17. She is speaking about the “mantilla,” a type of shawl worn by Spanish women on special occasions, particularly religious ones.

  18. Falange (Phalanx): fascist and national-syndicalist political party that eventually, when merged with the Traditionalists in 1937, became the only legal political party in Spain.

  19. Goyim: Hebrew for non-Jews. It is the word used in biblical Hebrew for non-Israelite nations.

  20. Istiqlal: party and movement in favor of Morocco’s independence. After 1956 they were in the opposition against the king.

  21. Jews in Muslim lands were considered dhimmi, “protected,” so they were tolerated and not forced to convert to Islam. The dhimmi status involved certain restrictions; for example, Jews were obliged to pay special taxes, forbidden to build houses or synagogues higher than mosques, and not permitted to own noble animals like horses, to name but a few. Under the dhimma Jews were treated differently by the Muslim administration, both because of the restrictions (where to live, how to dress, which laws applied to them) and the rights (relative autonomy of the rabbinical courts, permission not to convert) that were granted to them. The arrival of colonialism ended the dhimmi status, promoting European models of government that persisted into the postcolonial period.

  22. Istiqlal: Political party for the independence of Morocco. After 1956 they were in the opposition, against the king.

  23. For an explanation of the degradation of Mimouna in contemporary Israel and the consequences of its appropriation by the Israeli establishment, see Levy 2018.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been conducted thanks to all the participants, in Israel and Argentina, who trusted me with their life stories throughout the years. Also, a special thanks to Silvina Shammah-Gesser for her helpful comments and suggestions that greatly contributed to the final result of this article.

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Appendix 1. Information about the Interviewees

All interviewees’ names have been changed to protect their anonymity except for those who explicitly requested to be mentioned by their real names.

Appendix 1. Information about the Interviewees

Alicia: born in Melilla and grew up in Tetouan. She arrived in Argentina in 1961 with her husband and children. The interview was conducted in her home in Buenos Aires.

David: born in 1942 in Tetouan, where he grew up and lived until 1963, when he emigrated to Israel with his parents. He is an engineer. The interview was conducted in his home in Ashkelon. He is Flora's husband.

Elise: cultural activist and promoter of Haketia. Born in Tetouan in 1948, she arrived in Israel when she was only two months old. She lived in Jerusalem in a family and an environment in which Haketia was preserved. She moved to the United States as an adult and currently lives in New York. The interview was conducted in her Tel Aviv home.

Esther: office worker. Born and raised in Tangier, arrived in Israel in 1955, at the age of fourteen, where she has lived since then. The interview was conducted at the home of her friend Nina in Tel Aviv.

Felicidad: born and raised in Larache. She and her family then moved to Alcazarquivir. After getting married, she moved to Marrakesh. She arrived in Israel in 1964 with her husband and children. She is Miriam's sister.

Flora: born in 1948 in Tetouan, where she grew up. She emigrated to Israel in 1962, at age fourteen. Never went to university, although has great curiosity for intellectual questions. The interview was conducted in her house in Ashkelon.

Jacques: Born and raised in Tangier. He left Morocco at the age of twenty, in 1956. He has always lived in Buenos Aires, where he worked for a company. The interview was conducted in his home.

Karina: Born and raised in Tetouan. Arrived in Argentina in 1965, at age twenty-one. She is a painter and an interior designer. The interview was conducted in her apartment in Buenos Aires.

Leah: born and raised in Tetouan. She and her husband Yosef left Morocco in 1965 for Venezuela. They moved to Israel in 1990 with their children. The interview was conducted in their Jerusalem home.

Mario: born and raised in Tetouan. Emigrated to Argentina in 1957, at age twenty-one. He is a trader. The interview was conducted in a café in Buenos Aires.

Miriam: born and raised in Larache. She and her family then moved to Alcazarquivir. She studied in Casablanca. She arrived in Israel in 1968 at the age of eighteen. She studied Philosophy.

Mois Benarroch: Poet and writer. Born in 1959 in Tetouan, Morocco. Emigrated to Israel at age thirteen. Lives in Jerusalem. The interview was conducted on two different days in his apartment in Jerusalem.

Nina: born in Alcazarquivir. She arrived in Israel when she was seventeen, and lived in the development town on Kiriat Shmona. She lives in Tel Aviv. The interview was conducted in her apartment, where we met with her cousins Felicidad and Miriam and her friend Esther. I spent the whole day with them, recording approximately six hours.

Raphael: born in Paris in the 1950s, he grew up in postcolonial Casablanca. His family had been in Tangier for generations, and he frequently visited the city. He is a writer and art critic. He lives between Paris and Jerusalem. The interview was conducted in his Jerusalem home.

Samuel: born and raised in Tangier. He arrived in Israel in 1972, with his wife, his parents and his five children. In Tangier he had a high-ranking position in a bank and in Israel he worked as a bank clerk. The interview was conducted in his apartment in Jerusalem.

Simi: Flora's sister. Born and raised in Tetouan, where she lived until 1962, when she arrived in Israel at age eighteen. The interview was conducted in Flora's house.

Sol: born in Tetouan in 1948. Her parents were from Ceuta. She grew up between Ceuta and Tetouan. She studied in Madrid and emigrated to Israel in 1973 with her husband and one of her children. The interview was conducted in the house of her friend Flora.

Yosef: Born and raised in Tetouan. He met Leah when he was eighteen years old. He has worked in trade.

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Cohen, A. On Belonging and Other Dreams. The Ambiguous Positions of the Jews in “Spanish Morocco”. Cont Jewry 40, 547–578 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-021-09355-5

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