Synopses & Reviews
In this book, Israeli anthropologist Andrandeacute; Levy returns to his birthplace in Casablanca to provide a deeply nuanced and compelling study of the relationships between Moroccan Jews and Muslims there. Ranging over a century of historyandmdash;from the Jewish Enlightenment and the impending colonialism of the late nineteenth century to todayandrsquo;s modern Arab stateandmdash;Levy paints a rich portrait of two communities pressed together, of the tremendous mobility that has characterized the past century, and of the paradoxes that complicate the cultural identities of the present. and#160;
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Levy visits a host of sites and historical figures to assemble a compelling history of social change, while seamlessly interweaving his study with personal accounts of his returns to his homeland. Central to this story is the massive migration of Jews out of Morocco. Levy traces the institutional and social changes such migrations cause for those who choose to stay, introducing the concept of andldquo;contractionandrdquo; to depict the way Jews deal with the ramifications of their demographic dwindling. Turning his attention outward from Morocco, he goes on to explore the greater complexities of the Jewish diaspora and the essential paradox at the heart of his adventureandmdash;leaving Israel to return home.and#160;
Review
"Opening new avenues for research on the Jews of the Maghrib, this volume is an important contribution to both Jewish studies and Maghrib studies.... [It] raises a whole range of questions about how we might rethink modern Jewish history." --Matthias Lehmann, author of Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture
Review
"[T]his collection goes a long way to increasing our understanding of North African Jewish history and encourages new lines of inquiry into the subject." --Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online
Review
"[This] is a highly informative and thought-provoking collection of essays, from which the reader is certain to derive satisfaction and knowledge of a region made all the more significant in light of the revolutionary changes that have taken place in North Africa since the spring of 2011." --AJL Reviews Indiana University Press
Review
"[This] volume as a whole demonstrates the ways in which both Jewish studies and Maghrib studies are emerging from their historic marginalization and into broader discussions of regional history." --Journal of African History Indiana University Press
Review
andldquo;According to David Brooks, andlsquo;Going back is a creative process. The events of childhood are like the Hebrew alphabet; the vowels are missing, and the older self has to make sense of them.andrsquo; Levyandrsquo;s return from Israel to the country of his birth proceeds from his first fearful encounter, through the uncertainties of the Gulf War, to the discovery of the deeply ambivalent approach of the Moroccan Muslims to their Jewish neighbors. Analytic yet engaged, wary yet appreciative, Levy offers a realistic and thoughtful example of the ways in which stereotypes need to be confronted directly, and how emotion can be harnessed to comprehension and mutual understanding.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;There are few Israeli anthropologists who would dare to revisit their Middle Eastern birth home as ethnographers after years of migration and exile with the objective to study the remaining Jewish communities who still remain in their country of origin. Levy has done so, and has succeeded in producing one of the best ethnographies about home, displacement, and changing identities and communities.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;With this book, distinguished cultural anthropologist and brilliant writer Rosen offers an innovative, urbane, and effective use of biography to write a multivoiced cultural history of Morocco. Rosen first imagined the project nearly fifty years ago while conducting fieldwork in Sefrou during the time of the Six-Day War. Ironically, tribal attachments are not disappearing as the world globalizes, which is a lesson many cosmopolitan elites and politicians have been slow to learn and which makes this book and Rosenandrsquo;s provocative take-home message (andlsquo;there is safety in diversityandrsquo;) not only relevant to current affairs but also tantalizing.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;At a time when the world is weighed down by tensions among communities and religions that lead to dangerous tendencies in many quarters to fall back on a narrow identity, here is a work that makes it clear that there is no simple truth. Rosen, with the talent for which he is well known, gives a shining example of what an ethnographic study can accomplish. Such a work makes it possible to counter preconceived and oversimplified ideas about identity and demonstrates that human beings are capable of living with complexity, religious diversity, and otherness. Thanks to the surprising proximity to his subjects, Rosen shows us the trajectories of four veritable andlsquo;artists of lifeandrsquo; while avoiding the pitfalls of apologetics or romanticism.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Rosenandrsquo;s genius is to make the particular accessible and its relevance to the universal apparent. It is this quality, combined with his compassion and empathy, that makes him the ideal commentator of our complex and divided world. Although based on the stories of individual Muslims and Jews in North Africa, the book really is about our common human predicament. We are truly blessed to have this brilliant and towering intellectual giant among us so generously sharing his wisdom and humanity.andrdquo;
Synopsis
With only a small remnant of Jews still living in the Maghrib at the beginning of the 21st century, the vast majority of today's inhabitants of North Africa have never met a Jew. Yet as this volume reveals, Jews were an integral part of the North African landscape from antiquity. Scholars from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, and the United States shed new light on Jewish life and Muslim-Jewish relations in North Africa through the lenses of history, anthropology, language, and literature. The history and life stories told in this book illuminate the close cultural affinities and poignant relationships between Muslims and Jews, and the uneasy coexistence that both united and divided them throughout the history of the Maghrib.
Synopsis
In this remarkable work by seasoned scholar Lawrence Rosen, we follow the fascinating intellectual developments of four ordinary Moroccans over the span of forty years. Walking and talking with Haj Hamed Britel, Yaghnik Driss, Hussein Qadir, and Shimon Benizriandmdash;in a country that, in a little over a century, has gone from an underdeveloped colonial outpost to a modern Arab country in the throes of economic growth and religious fervorandmdash;Rosen details a fascinating plurality of viewpoints on culture, history, and the ways both can be dramatically transformed.
Through the intellectual lives of these four men, this book explores a number of interpretative and theoretical issues that have made Arab culture distinct, especially in relationship to the West: how nothing is ever hard and fast, how everything is relational and always a product of negotiation. It showcases the vitality of the local in a global era, and it contrasts Arab notions of time, equality, and self with those in the West. Likewise, Rosen unveils his own entanglement in their world and the drive to keep the analysis of culture first and foremost, even as his own life enmeshes itself in those of his study. An exploration of faith, politics, history, and memory, this book highlights the world of everyday life in Arab society in ways that challenge common notions and stereotypes.and#160;
About the Author
Emily Benichou Gottreich is Vice Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California Berkeley. She is author of The Mellah of Marrakesh: Jewish and Muslim Space in Morocco's Red City (IUP, 2006).
Daniel J. Schroeter is the Amos S. Denard Memorial Chair in Jewish History and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is author of The Sultan's Jew: Morocco and the Sephardi World and Merchants of Essaouira.
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction
1. Emily Benichou Gottreich and Daniel J. Schroeter, Rethinking Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa
2. Mohammed Kenbib, Muslim-Jewish Relations in Contemporary Morocco
Part II: Origins, Diasporas, and Identities
3. Farid Benramdane, Place Names in Western Algeria: Biblical Sources and Dominant Semantic Domains
4. Mabrouk Mansouri, The Image of the Jews among Ibadi Imazighen in North Africa until the Tenth Century
5. Abdellah Larhmaid, Jewish Identity and Landownership in the Sous Region of Morocco
6. Aomar Boum, Southern Moroccan Jewry between the Colonial Manufacture of Knowledge and the Postcolonial Historiographical Silence
7. Yaron Tsur, Dating the Demise of the Western-Sephardi Jewish Diaspora:
The Mediterranean Aspect
Part III: Communities, Cultural Exchange and Transformations
8. Philippe Barbé, Jewish-Muslim Syncretism and Intercommunity Cohabitation in the work of Albert Memmi: The Partage of Tunis
9. Susan Gilson Miller, Making Tangier Modern: Ethnicity and Urban Development, 1880-1930
10. Stacy E. Holden, Muslim and Jewish Interaction in Moroccan Meat Markets, 1873-1912
11. Saddek Benkada, A Moment in Sephardi History: The Re-establishment of the Jewish Community of Oran, 1792-1831
12. Hadj Miliani, Crosscurrents: Trajectories of Algerian Jewish Artists and Men of Culture since the End of the Nineteenth Century
Part IV: Between Myth and History: Sol Hachuel in Moroccan Jewish Memory
13. Yaelle Azagury, Sol Hachuel in the Collective Memory and Folktales of Moroccan Jews
14. Sharon Vance, Sol Hachuel, 'Heroine of the Nineteenth Century': Gender, the Jewish Question, and Colonial Discourse
15. Ruth Knafo Setton, Searching for Suleika: A Writer's Journey
Part V: Gender, Colonialism, and the Alliance Israélite Universelle
16. Joy A. Land, Corresponding Lives: Women Educators of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Tunisia, 1882-1914
17. Keith Walters, Education for Jewish Girls in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Tunis and the Spread of French in Tunisia
18. Jonathan G. Katz, 'Les Temps Héroïques': The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Marrakech on the Eve of the French Protectorate
Part VI: North African Jews and Political Change in the Late Colonial and Post-Colonial Periods
19. Fayçal Cherif, Jewish-Muslim Relations in Tunisia during World War II: Propaganda, Stereotypes, and Attitudes, 1939-1943
20. Jamaâ Baïda, The Emigration of Moroccan Jews, 1948-1956
21. Belkacem Mebarki, Zouzef Tayayou (Joseph the Tailor): A Jew from Nedroma, and the Others
22. Oren Kosansky, The Real Morocco Itself: Jewish Saint Pilgrimage and the Idea of the Moroccan Nation