Table of Contents for Memories of Absence
Introduction
The introduction lays out the argument of the book, the challenges of native ethnography, and the issue of data collection. It provides a general history of Moroccan Jews and the reasons behind the methodological focus on a remote Muslim population. This chapter also discusses in detail the social, economic, and educational background of the different generations.
1.Writing the Periphery: Colonial Narratives of Moroccan Jewish Hinterlands
This chapter provides an overview of the colonial and postcolonial historical sources on Jews of the Saharan communities and discusses the biases and agendas of colonial and postcolonial narratives that frame the historical discourse about Saharan Jewries in particular and Middle Eastern Jews in general. In addition, it describes the role of postcolonial national researchers in the re-writing of the histories of rural marginal Jewish communities. Overall the chapter highlights the connections, silence, and amnesic gaps between the colonial and post-colonial historical narratives, wading through European travelers' accounts, post-colonial nationalist histories, Moroccan literature about Jews, and the author's own ethnographic experience as a native Moroccan Muslim anthropologist studying the Jews of his hometown and region.
2.Outside the Mellah: Market, Law, and Muslim-Jewish Encounters
Using private collections of legal Islamic documents and ethnographic data, this chapter discusses the economic and social relations between Jews and Muslims. In southern Morocco, Jews were able to move among many legal systems, giving them the flexibility to transcend the restrictions of the Islamic law (shari'a), tribal customs (urf), and social structures. As weak and protected merchants and peddlers, Jews benefited from the rights that customary and Islamic laws gave them outside the mellah. Accordingly, they were able to mix their strategic efforts through what the author terms legal syncretism.
3.Inside the Mellah: Education and the Creation of a Saharan Jewish Center
This chapter looks at the internal dynamics of Jewish communities inside their neighborhoods. In the Jewish quarters, Jews were legally independent, as rabbis interpreted and controlled the internal religious and social relations before the arrival of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the introduction of secular education. The growing exposure of the Jews of Akka and other communities to modern social changes among the urban Jews of Essaouira and Marrakesh accelerated the weakening of the traditional structures in these rural Jewish quarters. In addition, with Moroccan independence and the establishment of Israel, new political institutions limited the power of the rabbis and introduced drastic cultural and social changes to these communities.
4."Little Jerusalems" Without Jews: Muslim Memories of Jewish Anxieties and Emigration
This chapter discusses rural Jewish migration from Akka and other communities in southern Morocco to Israel. It argues that the Zionists appealed to an already existing historical narrative among southern Moroccan Jews of belonging to Eretz-Israel. Although the economics and politics were strong factors in this migration, the success of Zionism in building support for this exodus can be explained by its emphasis on a local interpretation of Jewish history based on the belief in aliya. The chapter also recognizes that while Zionism used traditional Messianic symbols, the rural Jews had some agency in deciding to emigrate when the opportunity arose. The chapter has three objectives: to explain why so many rural Jews from Morocco left for Israel in the second half of the twentieth century; to critique the failure of early Moroccan nationalism to include Jews; and to clarify the role of Zionism in Jewish migration.
5.Shadow Citizens: Jews in Independent Morocco
This chapter analyzes the place of Jews in post-independence Moroccan society through their representation in national museums. Looking at conflicting narratives of different Muslim cohorts, the chapter highlights tensions in the national debate about the status of Jews in Morocco. It exposes the challenges that Moroccan society faces in its attempts to represent the national past in museums and other state institutions including educational. It also demonstrates the discrepancies between official discourse and public sentiments about Jews in particular and other minorities in general. Internationally, the government promotes Morocco as a nation of Jewish-Muslim historical symbiosis and contemporary tolerance. Nationally, the state has maintained a relative silence about its Jewish history and culture.
6.Between Hearsay, Jokes, and the Internet: Youth Debate Jewish Morocco
This chapter argues that in their views of Jews, Moroccan youth deploy a modern discourse largely based on hearsay and humor, and appropriates Western cultural references developing a new cultural model of knowledge. Younger generations are reproducing new Moroccan ideas about Jews by importing external religious and political thought and adapting them to the social, cultural, and historical realities of Moroccan society. In this process, cyberspace has become a vehicle for disaffected Moroccan youth to vent their political and social grievances over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The chapter discusses the views of different university populations, including Islamists, Marxists, and Amazigh (Berber) representatives who have developed positive and negative memories of Jews as part of their own support of or grievances against the Arab-dominated state.
Conclusion
This chapter argues that in their views of Jews, Moroccan youth deploy a modern discourse largely based on hearsay and humor, and appropriates Western cultural references developing a new cultural model of knowledge. Younger generations are reproducing new Moroccan ideas about Jews by importing external religious and political thought and adapting them to the social, cultural, and historical realities of Moroccan society. In this process, cyberspace has become a vehicle for disaffected Moroccan youth to vent their political and social grievances over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The chapter discusses the views of different university populations, including Islamists, Marxists, and Amazigh (Berber) representatives who have developed positive and negative memories of Jews as part of their own support of or grievances against the Arab-dominated state.