From the nostalgia of the Promised Land to the nostalgia of the exile land of the Moroccan Israelites ; De la nostalgie de la terre promise à la nostalgie de la terre d'exil chez les Israëlins originaires du Maroc

Abstract

From the nostalgia of the Promised Land to the nostalgia of the exile land of the Moroccan Israelites The disappearance of the Jews in Morocco, noticed after the fact, gave rise to a great deal of questioning: were the motives behind this phenomenon mystical or Zionist in nature? Or were they the result of persecution? In the Morocco of the 1980's, the mellah showed the only remnants of the civilization, the testament of a bygone existence. Both recent and distant past in the memories of those living alongside the Jews. In pre-Protectorate Morocco, the Judeo-Arabic coexistence gave way to socio-economic organization that can ultimately be called interdependence. Economically speaking, the Jewish existence was seen as necessary for the Muslim society. It was the result of a coexistence, varying according to the era in question and the reigning symbiosis and hostility. Trades a Muslim could not or did not wish to take on were left to the Jews, from import-export trade to peddling. This division of work, perceived as both discrimination and allocation, is representative of the ambiguity of the Judeo-Arabic relation. This ambiguity disturbs the work of researchers in the field. If Jews were merely tolerated, subject to their discriminatory status, so be it, but their presence was still generally seen as necessary by the Muslim. By the same token, the Jews' political substatus in Muslim society represented a permanent strength against assimilation, and the preservation of an ancestral link with the homeland. The mellah, symbolizing exclusion, also allowed the Jewish community to be a homogenous social, political, economical and cultural group, a micro-society whose religious identity was constant and rigorous growth, through a series of rituals and practices. Tradition kept identity alive: the Jewish identity, alive in a single prayer to return to Holy Land. The fragile Judeo-Arabic equilibrium, little-known by those who dreamt of colonizing North Africa (beginning in the 19th century), was upset by the French ...