Moroccan Jewish memory, in the Kingdom and in the world

The 2011 Constitution names the Hebraic tributary of Moroccan identity. The community is small at home, vast in the diaspora, and it remains Moroccan.

A Morocco sure enough of itself to keep its Jews inside the story.

The preamble of the 2011 Constitution says it without a detour: the Kingdom’s unity is fed by Arab-Islamic, Amazigh and Saharan-Hassani tributaries, and also by African, Andalusian, Hebraic and Mediterranean ones. The sentence is legal. It is also a pride.

The Jews of Morocco have been there for centuries: mellahs, synagogues, saints, languages, songs, kitchens. A large part of the community left in the twentieth century, for Israel, France, Canada, the Americas. They did not stop being Moroccan. The hiloulot, the pilgrimages, the family names, the accents say so every year.

Under Mohammed VI, places have been raised up again: cemeteries restored, synagogues reopened, and Bayt Dakira, the house of memory, inaugurated in Essaouira in 2020. This is not folklore for visitors. It is a way of saying that the country does not tell its story by cutting off one of its families.

In this house, the Moroccan Jewish community is not a separate file. It is one of the reasons to be proud: a Morocco sure enough of itself to keep its Jews inside the story, at home and wherever they live.

Source note. Constitution of 1 July 2011, preamble; opening of Bayt Dakira in Essaouira, 2020.