Peace and its discontents
This is a story from a time before the Internet: 1987. A young man is sitting in the waiting room of a train station in a small village outside of Milan. He has taken the wrong train (remember, no internet or smartphones) and now is waiting to return. He’s reading an Israeli novel. He wears a necklace with a Magen David.
A man of the same age enters the room and seats close to him. Darker skin: must be North African. He looks at the book that the other is reading. Then he looks at the necklace. Then, again, at the book’s cover. And then he says, in Arabic accented Italian: “Bella collana… [Nice necklace]”.
The Jew looks around the room. I’m in trouble, he thinks. This Arabic guy most likely hates the Jews. And in this small room, there’s only him and me. It does not look good. These feelings did not go unnoticed. The Arab man smiles reassuringly. and says “Attah Yehudi?” Are you Jewish?. The Italian nods, relieved. And the North African smiles “Moi aussi, habibi”. Me too, my friend.
And then a long conversation follows, in a very Jewish and Mediterranean mixture of languages: Hebrew, Italian, English, Spanish/Ladino, a bit of French and lots of gestures.
After more than 30 years I still remember that conversation and for a good reason: Yosef, that man, and I were both born on the same day. Oct 21, 1968. But how different our lives have been.
Yossef’s family came from the Atlas region of Morocco; which means he could speak two more languages: Berber, and Judeo-Berber. As a young child, he had seen pogrom and devastations, followed by peace, which was never completely peace. His mother had survived the pogrom, but her mind never recovered. Yosef grew up in a Catholic orphanage and had only one goal in life: to move to Israel. He had saved money for that purpose, and now it had become possible. A direct fly was obviously out of the question. Retorsions on a Jewish family in Morocco were not unusual. Yosef had moved to Italy, and there he started the procedure for his aliya. When we met, he had just had a meeting at the Jewish Agency, and he also took the wrong train.
As you know, I am a staunch supporter of the cause of the Mizrahim, the multitudes of Jews from Arab lands that are still waiting for reparations — Middle Eastern refugees, whose tragedies are never mentioned. The media have eyes only for the Palestinians that are considerably less in numbers.
But numbers are numbers. It’s different, and it’s intense when numbers become human beings, with their vicissitudes of adversities, courage, resilience and bravery. I often wonder what has happened to Yosef, my twin from Morocco. We met before the Internet. Then we lost track.
I know more of Mar Haim, the older man born in Casablanca who lived in the Beit Avot, the nursing home, in Jerusalem where I used to volunteer. Mar Haim, Mr Haiim, made aliya in the 40s, literally walking by foot from Casablanca to Jerusalem. He had managed to escape God knows how many armed forces who were hunting for Jews. Mar Haim had been one of the first Morocco Jews to be employed by the Egged bus company, which was then an Ashkenazi stronghold. Mar Haim had been a bus driver all his life and, betakh!, he knew the city well. He could even drive through Mea Shearim during Sukkot, avoiding all the huts that the hareidim built at that time of the year.
I know a bit more about Anna, a friend of Sara’s and mine, whose maternal grandfather was a military officer in Morocco. Despite being hostile to Israel, the Army of Morocco did not close its doors to the Jews. Anna showed up one year on Yom Kippur, together with her Mum at the small synagogue is Sara’s hometown. They had been living in Italy for years, but only after a certain time, had they found the courage to knock on the door of a synagogue. Because growing up as Jew in Morocco, even if you have a military officer in the family, means growing up always with some fear. Which never leaves you, unless you move to Israel.
Morocco has a long and fascinating Jewish history. The numbers are impressive: in the 1940s there were 250.000 Jews in Morocco. Now there are less than 5000. Today almost half a million of Israeli citizens are of Morocco origin; tens of thousands live in France, Canada or South America.
In the past two centuries, the European travellers who visited Morocco noticed how numerous the Jewish population was, either in big cities such as Fez or Casablanca or in the Atlas Mountains. They marvelled at their diversity: there were Jewish merchants and bankers, Jewish peddlers, Jewish musicians, Jewish blacksmiths; and of course, the French travellers noticed that all the most attractive women in Morocco, were Jewish.
It’s a story of ups and downs, waves of pogroms and intolerance when fanaticism prevails and longer and quieter periods when relations with the majority are more relaxed.
The current moment is one of those. The now small Jewish community has excellent relations with the current King, Muhammed VI. Every year community leaders of the Morocco Jewish Diaspora across the world are invited for the Throne Celebration. In 2014, Rabbi Moryoussef of Canada offered the King a handwritten blessing on parchment.
The establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco is part of this picture. It should not surprise anyone, since antisemitism is currently very low in Morocco, and it should be welcome for obvious reasons: because peace is good, even if it is reached under the auspices of Donald Trump, although negotiations started well before.
Yet, some people don’t like this peace.
For example, the small number of Israeli Mafiosi that are currently living as ex-pats in Morocco; the local media sometimes report about them, and remarkably without any antisemitic undertone. They benefit from the absence of extradition between the two countries; thankfully, this is coming to an end.
Besides the criminals, someone else isn’t happy. On social media the organisations of the so-called “pro-Israel pro-peace” camp, such as Yachad, complain in this way:
All of a sudden, they care about Western Sahara. And still, they do not care for Mizrachi Jews. And they continue:
When I bumped into this comment on Twitter, I felt speechless. I thought that a “pro-Israel pro-peace” organisation celebrates peace, especially on Chanukah. Call me naive, but this is the time of the year for hope and optimism. This is the time of the year when we look at the lights of the candles that grow night after night. There are reasons to look at the growth of the number of Arab states that want to live in peace with the Jewish State as it was a miracle. Just think of how hostile relations were like back in the 70s or the 80s, when I met Yosef in that waiting room of the train station in the middle of nowhere a few miles from Milan.
Aren’t we Jews supposed to look at the bright side? Have we not survived because of our ability to make the most with what we have? According to Yachad, the “pro-peace pro-Israel” organisation, there is nothing to celebrate. What do these people want for Western Sahara? It is true, that that region is currently under Moroccan occupation, although until now they did not care about it: they believe that the only occupation that exists in the Middle East, is the occupation of Palestine. But don’t they know that by establishing diplomatic relations, it becomes easier to pressure and to influence through the non-violent means of the economy? These “peace- supporters” would probably prefer the absence of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco.
So that when Yosef, or Mar Haim, or Anna, want to visit their families and see the places where their ancestors lived for generations, they have to travel with the fear, somewhere in the back of their mind that they may not be allowed to return to Israel. I cannot see how the Palestinians are supposed to benefit from this.
It saddens me that almost all the members of Yachad (and of the so-called “peace camp”) are of Ashkenazi background, and middle class, in other words: they are privileged if compared to Sephardi and working class, as the majority of Moroccan Jews living in Israel currently are. They show a callous indifference to sufferings endured by Morocco Jews and Mizrachi in general. To Jews less fortunate than themselves.
On Chanukah, we celebrate the defeat of those assimilated, Hellenised Jews who desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem by placing idols and sacrificing to them. These idolaters were defeated by that portion of Jewish people who kept the monotheistic faith.
What is an idol? How is an idol different from God? An idol is made by human hands, says Isaiah. An idol is the projection of human fantasies. And the idolaters know that they live in a lie, that their gods are not real divinities, but rather “produced by human hands”.
Those Jews who react negatively, or with hostility, to peace between the Jewish State and (another) Arab State, make me think of idolatry. They are like the assimilated Jews of centuries ago, who bowed to idols, knowing that they were a product of human hands, and a projection of human fantasies. They seem to worship an idol that they call peace, while completely disparaging real peace between real human beings. Not perfect. But better than conflict.
As a Rabbi, I can only wish they studied a bit more and to increase their knowledge of the principles of our faith. I bless the friendly relations between Arabs and Jews. I am happy for Anna, for mar Haim, for Yosef and their families. I wish them, and hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews, and all the Jews in the world, a happy and peaceful Chanukah, the festival of miracles, including the miracle of peace.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה
Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue, 12 December 2020