Going to Africa for Lunch
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2008
1
9
Trip End
Aug 25, 2008
Tangier,
Morocco
Sunday, August 24, 2008
It surprised me how much apprehension many members of the group had about going to Morocco. After all, among Muslim countries Morocco has some of the friendliest relations with Jews and some of the least hostile relationships with Israel, which is home to the largest Morocco Jewish community in the world. People were worried about crime, about dressing immodestly, about gypsies, and about standing out as Jews. It also reminded me that many of these Russian Jewish immigrants have not had extensive travel opportunities outside of a birthright Israel tour, a free 10-day trip to Israel from young Jews age 18-26, who haven't been to Israel before
On the Ferry
. The thought of a busy, crowded African country, and a Muslim one at that, made many of them nervous.Our tour guide, Muhammad, took us on a brief bus tour around town with a quick "drive by" of the functioning synagogue in Tangier's French quarter. Our tour leader hadn't made arrangement for us to get into the synagogue in advance, and the bus driver was adamant that there was no place for us to stop. So we flashed our cameras as we drove by. But Muhammad got the point that as long as we were in a country that had a Jewish population ranging from 10,000-30,000 depending on whom you ask and a city with an official Jewish community, we wanted to see something, anything...Jewish. We got our wish.
We pulled up next to a run down building of the city's Jewish old folks home. That's right, we decided that if we couldn't get into a synagogue, at least we would meet the community's elderly. A gentleman, who seemed to be staff, greeted us at the door and welcomed us in, while an older woman sat by the front door, clearly a resident. Above her hung pictures of King Muhammad VI, Rebbe Schneerson, the now passed Lubavitcher rebbe, and an picture that was probably Baba Sali, the praying father of Morrocan Jewry. Because our trip was so quick, we never got to talk about how different Moroccan Judaism was from anything we had seen on the trip, complete with local saints and pilgrimages
Gibraltar
. The wall in the old folks' home, then, was a pastiche of images that defined Moroccan Jewry better than any lecture could have done. It is a Judaism deeply interested in local holy figures, a community that has very strong relations with the central government, and one that, like many smaller communities around the world, has strong connections to Chabad Lubavitch Judaism. At that moment, another person who clearly worked at the home came out screaming at Muhammad in Arabic, at which point Muhammad turned to me: "David, the head of the Jewish community is on the phone, and he wants to speak to you. He is not happy." How did I get dragged into this! It turns out that the first old man, who had greeted us, was just an elderly resident with a mild case of dementia, who had no authority to let us wander the building. I would now be reprimanded for this violation. I asked Muhammad in what language I should speak. Morocco, after all, is a multilingual country with Arabic the main language of the street, French an official language and a colonial legacy, and widespread use of Spanish. David, speak French.
Dear readers, I must let you know that although I am good at languages, French is not one of my better ones, and I was not relishing the opportunity to have it out with the community's leader in my broken French
Discussion on Board
. It seemed an unfair fight. "Bonjour. Il y a une probleme?: (Or is it un problem...gender always caused me problems.)" And then I heard crackling static. I turned to the guy in the office, "Sir, I can't understand him." "OK, try Hebrew." Of course, the new international language of Jewish communication. So I asked in Hebrew, "Shalom. Yesh ba'ayah?" More crackling. "Sir, I still can't understand him." Well, then why don't you just try English. After all of that, the guy speaks English! Finally I heard through the crackling, "Vous etes juives? Atem yehudim? Are you Jews?" Three in one. Yes, yes, of course we are a group of Jews from America. Oh, then there's no problem. Enjoy yourself. That was the extent of his concern. But despite the community leader's blessing, the local administrator wanted us out, so we high tailed it back to the bus and headed for the old quarter, the medina.We briefly wandered the medina, whose primary feature is a beautiful 15th century fortress built by the Portuguese. Jews lived in their quarter in of the medina and after a fun lunch with drum entertainment we wandered through that area searching for remnants of mezuzot on door posts and the old synagogue and cemetery. Again, arrangements had not been made in advance to get us into the non-functioning synagogue and a very old cemetery, but at least we got to bear witness, for the first time on the trip, to the layers of Jewish history on the lanscape
In Front of Tangier Harbor
. We saw the 1920s synagogue of the French quarter that houses the contemporary community, the old folks home from the turn of the century, and the old Jewish quarter, long since in active.Our return ferry was at 3:30pm, leaving us little time to do much more than wander back through the medina to the ferry. The ride back was full of those last day conversations: what will we do back home, how tired we all were, and how amazing this experience was. It was also full of much more self-disclosure than had been the case earlier in the trip, at least with me. I learned from a couple of participants that having traveled with my husband had opened their eyes to gay couples, and two other participants talked to me about their gay relatives.
We had a great dinner at the hotel, one last closing circle, and then a 3:30am wake up call to catch a bus back to Malaga airport to fly home. It will be interesting to see how many of the amazing ideas this group generated come to fruition. Will they start study groups, host film nights, organize Shabbat dinners, bring me to Chicago to do more learning? But what is clear from my vantage point is that this is a group of 50 people, who have a much deeper body of knowledge about the Jewish past and present, which will empower them to think about how they can be part of the Jewish future.
Comments
still at it
good to see you are still the great edu-explorer of Jewish values, history and travel.
As for the Baba Sali, extreme outer ugliness, but inner beauty, so they say.
Did you ever get a group to Biro-bidjan?
sol zien stark,
Richard N
Cape Town