A Moroccan Passover

Greetings from the land of the sun and oranges,
this past weekend in order to properly celebrate Passover, I went down, or up depending from your point of view, to Fes. The very kind Mamane family hosted my friend Payne and I for a Moroccan Seder. It was quite an experience.

For those of you that do not know, most of Moroccan Jewry lives peacefully among other Moroccans. Since the beginning of the past century Arabs and Jews lived next to each other, considering themselves to be Moroccans in the first place. Many of the remaining are of French or Spanish decent. Thus French is quite common among all Jews. They still constitute some form of elite in many areas, the most prominent among them being His Majesty's adviser Andre Azoulay.

Another aspect of Moroccan Jewry is their following of Sephardic customs. These are extremely visible during Passover. Mdm. Mamane served various delicious dishes which included fava beans, rice, lentils, and nuts. Most Ashkenazi Jews would keep their fingers far away from all that stuff. The Seder was beautiful. It was chaotic, it was loud, it was funny, and above all it was festive. After becoming the religious authority of the house, Mr. Mamane and I moved steadily towards the food part, it was an extremely fast Seder. Yet it was interesting nonetheless. The Harosset was not the usual apple and wine mixture, but instead was made out of dates and other local ingredients. The counting of the plagues was not done by using the pinkie, but instead by mixing wine and water in a large bowl, and last but not least, Mr. Mamane, for some inexplicable reason went around with a plate, held it above our heads, put it down, and it was eating time.

Many of the traditions they could not even explain, but they seem to be distinctively Moroccan. The most famous one though are the Mimouna Days. Right after Passover, people open their houses for their family, friends, and neighbors and put a myriad of sweets on the table. These are shared among everyone, it reminded me a little bit of trick-or-treating. It is a form of celebrating the end of the yeast feast, which I will gladly joined.

It was interesting to see how much they defended their Moroccan identity. Especially when I mentioned Israel. Many Jews from here left the country after WWII, yet the Mamane's swear that most of them still maintain strong roots, and a strong identity in the country. Moroccan Jews compared to those of other countries' see Judaism to be something extremely different from Zionism, due to the long period of peace between the different population groups.

The last little thing that I want to mention is that there even used to be some Berber Jews living in the country. Most of them emigrated to Israel, where they maintain their Berber culture through this day.

Chag Sameach m'magrib va shalom,
Diogo