David Guedj

This article is a first-of-its-kind exploration of the vernacular Judeo-Arabic popular nonfiction printed in Morocco between the early twentieth century and the 1960s, in the form of single pages, pamphlets or small books. This literature provided readers with knowledge pertaining to Jewish law (halakha), ethics, culture, history, and Zionist ideology, in order to reinforce Jewish religious and national identity. I suggest here that vernacular-speaking literatures emerged in Morocco in the early twentieth century following interwoven, mutually influential processes. The four processes that precipitated vernacular Judeo-Arabic nonfiction in Morocco consist of (1) the opening of local Hebrew printing houses across Morocco's cities; (2) the emergence of new elites within Morocco's Jewish communities; (3) the rejection of the obligation to observe religious strictures, coupled with secularization processes; and (4) the advent of a Jewish national movement, i.e. Zionism.

https://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/judeo-arabic-popular-nonfiction-in-morocco-during-the-first-half-of-the-twentieth-century/

The research on Arab Jewishness in the Middle East has developed in recent years across the disciplines of cultural and intellectual history and cultural studies. In this article, I present a unique Arab Jewishness, as expressed in North-African Jewish communities during the colonial period, through the case of Elie Malka, ethnographer, interpreter, legal expert and lexicographer from Morocco. The article discusses Malka's overall endeavour and shows the centrality of Arabic language and culture in it. Malka conducted linguistic, ethnographic and legal studies, translated Latin-language texts into Arabic and Judeo-Arabic and vice versa, edited French-Arabic dictionaries, and taught Arabic to certain Jewish community sectors. I posit that Malka's Arab Jewishness was unlike the Arab Jewishness that developed organically in the Middle East, but rather constituted a mutation within the general colonial mutation that evolved in North Africa.


https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BIJMG9V2SKDRNXEPZEKP/full?target=10.1080/13530194.2022.2151416

The essay offers an analysis of a public discourse held during summer 1916 in the Jewish newspaper La Liberté, which ran in Tangier in French. The discourse concerned the place of Hebrew and Jewish studies in Jewish schools across Morocco. Reviewing the articles, I seek to explore the different shades of Hebrew culture in Morocco as shaped in the early twentieth century. I show that at the time, the Jewish community had three options of Hebrew or modern Jewish identity and culture: national Hebrew culture, universal Hebrew culture or revised religious Hebrew culture. The essay includes an appendix of five translated articles, published in Hebrew for the first time.

This essay offers a new perspective on childhood and youth in Morocco and western Algeria beginning in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Since most current studies of childhood and youth in that era focus mainly on Europe, and very seldom on Asia and Africa, our knowledge of the latter is limited, particularly with respect to the Jewish communities of Muslim lands as opposed to those of Europe. Furthermore, existing research has relied on texts authored by adults which normally depict childhood solely in the context of the Jewish calendar and Jewish life cycle, but ignores the political, social, and cultural processes set in motion during the mid-nineteenth century which precipitated changes across North Africa with a bearing on children and youth. Based on a review of French texts written by youth in Morocco and western Algeria during the early 1930s and published in a Morocco-based Jewish newspaper, I propose a model of multiple modernities in Jewish childhood and youth throughout the region. The model comprises a variety of programs: the adoption of modern European ideals, educational values, and leisure culture; the emergence of a modern national Jewish identity, Hebrew and Zionist; the continued observance of family and community traditions; and finally, the cultural segregation of Jewish youth from the surrounding population.

During 80 years of tapping into the Holocaust, Israeli theater has rarely found the history of North African Jewry to be worthy of examining on stage. Nonetheless, there were four plays staged during the years 2017-2019 that stand out: Gratefully Bound (2017), Benghazi-Bergen-Belsen (2017), Sabotage(2018) and Jacob Jacob (2019). The four plays mark a watershed change thatcan be seen in Israeli Holocaust memory consciousness vis-a-vis the fate of North African Jewry during the Holocaust. This is not to say that a reshaping of Holocaust consciousness is underway in Israel or that the story of North African Jews is gaining recognition; rather we are observing a complex interaction between players in the cultural mainstream who seek to preserve and reproduce Holocaust consciousness, and those who operate on the margins in an effort to criticize and expand it. The cultural agents on the margins work to incorporate the North African story into Israeli Holocaust memorialization. Though theyare presenting a critique of Israeli culture, they nevertheless are employing narrative and art in an effort to integrate it within their work and to give a voice to the fate of North African Jewry during the Holocaust. Indeed, early signs of change can be seen in how the memory of North African Jewry during the Holocaust is being represented, although they are still confined to the margins of the Israeli mainstream.

The following paper traces the Hebrew national active participation by Jewish youth in Morocco during the first half of the twentieth century. Starting at the turn of the century, for three decades, adults in Morocco led the Zionist enterprise as a whole and the Hebrew national enterprise in particular. The youth were mere participants in this endeavor. During WWII, and precipitated by political, social, and culturalhistorical processes, Zionist and national Hebrew enterprises gained momentum, with youths taking an active part as cultural entrepreneurs. The enterprising youths hailed from the westernized sector of Morocco’s Jewry and were marked by a majority of boys. These young entrepreneurs acted to disseminate Hebrew language and culture, mostly among fellow youth, while some were also active among adults.

The article analyzes short stories by Eliezer Smoli (1901-1985), a recipient of the Israel Prize for children’s literature. The works discussed here, dating from the early years of the state to the 1980s, feature immigrants from Islamic countries as their main protagonists. After my initial review of the ways in which Mizrahim are depicted in historical and literary studies, I delineate my own methodology for exploring their characterization both as individuals and as a group. Smoli’s portrayal of immigrants from Islamic countries is complex and largely free of the negative stereotypes that prevailed during the early decades of the state. In his stories, Mizrahim are featured as Zionist pioneers with a culture of their own. Smoli portrays their family life and the Jewish cultural capital they brought to Israel in a positive light, conveying their perspective to his young readership while exposing the failure of the establishment to assimilate them. The article contributes to the scholarship of image and representation in general, and in particular, and to study of the depiction of immigrants from Islamic countries in Israeli children’s literature.

The article traces the emergence of the Hebrew network in Morocco at each of its stages, from the early twentieth century to the mid-1950s. This was a heterogeneous and dynamic network and therefore its historical contexts can be plotted along a diachronic timeline. These historical contexts are tracked over a period of forty years, with the goal of examining their development over time, in light of the long-term political, economic, social, and cultural circumstances. The article employs terminology and theories borrowed from network theory, which is combined with cultural studies and research tools developed by Yaron Tsur. I argue that following WW2, a small Hebrew world emerged in Morocco in the form of a network of cultural agents, social and cultural institutions and textual genres that maintained ties with their (geographically and culturally) nearest neighbors. There were additional connections that bound the network elements together, consisting of Jewish organizations and institutions operating in the post-WW2 Diaspora. The network’s activity would not have been possible without the foundations laid since the turn of the century, which included sectorial clusters based on language and cultural affiliation (namely Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and French), each with its own cultural agents (i.e. the press and literature) and educational institutions.

The present paper offers an overview of Jewish and Hebrew education in French schools across urban communities in Morocco during the 1920s. By analyzing reports written by Jewish education inspectors in those schools, I show that Jewish and Hebrew studies in those institutes covered Hebrew language, religious instruction, and Jewish history. Three new developments can be found in the early twentieth century that effected change in Hebrew studies in Morocco after years of traditional Jewish education: the opening up of the curriculum and the addition of new subjects, the introduction of textbooks, and the inclusion of girls in the circle of Hebrew and religious studies in Morocco. The changes to Hebrew studies in Morocco were influenced by many factors, including the community leadership, the educators, the Alliance israélite Universelle headmasters and the teaching staff, the students  and parents. I posit that in the period in question, education continued to exist as traditional, but for the first time, Hebrew-Jewish repertoire components of different tones started to appear next to the extant cultural repertoire. Those different tones are the product of cultural interactions between the Jewish communities of Morocco and Jewish communities elsewhere.

The present article investigates the visual elements of the illustrated youth quarterly L’Illustration Juive, which was published in Alexandria between 1929 and 1931 in French and Hebrew. The analysis sets out to expose the ideologies and worldviews informing the publication’s editorial board, as well as the conscious or unconscious message that the quarterly tried to communicate to its young readership. The article explores more than 300 photographs and reproductions that featured in twelve issues published over the journal’s three years of existence. Analysis of the visual elements in this article shows that the quarterly featured many photographs of holy sites in the Land of Israel, as well as reproductions of artworks that reflected the religious Jewish way of life in the diaspora and Israel, including the Jewish calendar and Jewish life cycle. These works hold the Old Testament as a key book for Judaism, as well as for Jewish nationalism. Clearly evident in the visual elements, as in the overall visual messages of the quarterly, is the harmony struck between Jewish nationality, Zionism, and a religious Jewish cultural—or diasporic—world. It was this harmonious view that editor Rabbi David Prato sought to convey, upholding as he did a religious nationalist Jewish future, which he defined in the newspaper as a double tendance.

This paper reviews ten historical-literary Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew works written late in the Second World War in Morocco: eight works I refer to as praise poems, by Moroccan Jews; one work I refer to as lament, written by a Jewish European refugee who found a safe wartime haven in Morocco, and another work, which I refer to as a utopian treatise, by a local Jewish man. All ten works were inspired by the war and recount its course in Europe, Asia and North Africa, while some also engage with the Holocaust. The comparison drawn here between the works – praise poetry, lament and utopian treatise – allows us to examine the authors’ various outlooks on the war, informed by their personal, familial or communal experience. These outlooks assume an actual form in the literary patterns of the authors’ works, as well as in the narratives, contents and ideas selected to feature in them. The reception varied among the Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew speaking community, in which a Jewish religious and modern national presence was predominant. Therefore, contents that had a universal concern were pushed to the margins of the local discourse.

This article looks into the one-of-a-kind encounter between the inter-diasporic Jewish corporation Jewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR), and the Alliance Israélite Universelle's (AIU) Hebrew teachers' seminary in Casablanca, an encounter that studies into JCR's history have all but failed to cite. Nevertheless, Morocco's case is of considerable significance, Morocco being the only Islamic country where the Jewish community managed to obtain books from JCR. This unique case warrants a review into what facilitated the encounter between the seminary and the corporation, and an examination in light of broader historic processes that took place as part of the Moroccan Jewish relations with other diasporic Jews.

The illustrated French-language newspaper L’Avenir Illustré was published in Casablanca between 1926 and 1940. It stood out in the importance it bestowed upon the visual message and accordingly, each issue assigned entire pages to photographs accompanied by brief texts. This article looks into the visual messages as designed by the photographers, edited by the publication’s editorial board, and viewed by readers. The analysis seeks to unveil the ideology and worldviews of the editorial board and the conscious and unconscious messages the newspaper worked to convey to its readership. David Guedj’s article focuses on three groups of visual representations: portraits, photography of the Land of Israel, and photographs of life in Moroccan Jewish communities.

This article investigates the life story of two women, Miriam Grubstein and Bilha Banderly, in the Land of Israel and in Morocco. The first objective of the article is to examine the causes that motivated the two women to emigrate from Israel to Morocco during the period of the French Protectorate (1912-1956). As the two women do not constitute isolated examples of emigration from Israel or Europe to Morocco during this period, an analysis of their story may be useful in providing a method through which the cases of other women may also be studied. Banderly's and Grubstein's emigration will be examined via their private writings and in light of theories that examine their individual decisions to emigrate within a wider context. In this context, a combination of assorted evaluated parameters – gender, economic and network (family and social) – in the country of origin (Land of Israel) vis-à-vis the destination (Morocco), prove critical in the emigration decision.
An additional objective of the essay is to add a further layer to the study of Modern Hebrew culture in Morocco and of the part played by women from Israel therein. The endeavors of Banderly and Grubstein are unique and exceptional in the Hebrew cultural scene in Morocco, which was led by men and in which women occupied only a secondary and limited role. It is for this reason that the encounter between Banderly and Grubstein and the communities in Casablanca and Sefrou (respectively) sheds light on the nature of the Hebrew culture of these communities and on male attitude to the activity of women in the public domain. Banderly's endeavors gained significant success, having taken place in Casablanca, the largest metropolis in 20th century Morocco, and home to sectors of the population that had, to some degree, already begun undergoing modernization processes. Banderly associated herself with European networks of Hebrew culture or those undergoing processes of westernization thus allowing her to participate and play a significant role in their activity. In addition, she was assisted bylocal mediating factors in order to act among those communities not yet undergoing westernization. By contrast, Grubstein's endeavors in the small and conservative town of Sefrou were minor. Her efforts to promote national Hebrew culture in surroundings that had been previously closed to women encountered difficulties and floundered. Grubstein separated herself from the other networks in Morocco and acted without mediators who may have been capable of facilitating greater success.

Rabbi P. Joseph Teomim found shelter in Morocco during WWII, where he wrote a Holocaust elegy. This article compares the elegy to similar works written by Moroccan Jews and Ashkenazi Jews from Europe and Israel. The article examines the different perceptions of the war by different authors, according to their personal or familial experiences, as reflected in the literary forms, narratives, and content of the different pieces. The full elegy is included in the appendix with some corrections and annotations.

A new documentary about Shalom Shabazi doesn’t try to discover the absolute truth about Yemenite Jewry’s greatest poet. Instead, it offers a host of captivating, scholarly perspectives. The result is a fascinating work that tells the story of both a poet and a community through the mediums of poetry, music and movement, from Yemen to Israel and back.