Beersheba (Special to Informed Comment; feature) – Amid the prevailing focus on the war and the geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East, it is easy to forget that it has not always been this way. Until the 1950s, Jewish communities had thrived in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. For centuries, Muslims, Jews, and Christians have inhabited the same lands and shared common values and norms before political upheavals, territorial divisions, and the Arab-Israeli conflict disrupted this harmonious co-existence with all its blemishes and beauty marks.
The local Jewish communities in Arab and Muslim countries significantly dwindled during the 1948 War and drastically declined following the Suez War. This tendency’s trajectory has been clearly manifested in Morocco and Egypt, which are the two countries where about one-third of all Jews living in Arab countries reside. For a long time, the narratives on the causes for the emptying of the Jewish communities in the two countries were exclusively based on nationalistic narratives, both Arab and Zionist. This, in turn, distorted the past image of Jews as an integral part of Moroccan and Egyptian societies.
This framing of the local Jewish past also assumes that synagogues, cemeteries, and Judaica items left in these countries are silent relics of the past. In contrast, I have found a sort of “living archive,” which is a unique collection that includes Jewish monuments, Judaica artifacts, and a wealth of textual and visual records spanning various periods. Since the turn of the 21st century, this archive has been continually enriched by diverse documentation focusing on the Jewish presence in both its historical context and present-day heritage. These once-taboo topics are now widely discussed across multiple platforms, including popular entertainment, media, and social networks.
Millions of Egyptians were exposed to revisionist representations through the silver screen and TV, especially the TV series Harat Al-Yahud (Neighborhood of the Jews, 2015) and the films Salata Baladi by Nadia Kamel (Country Salad, 2007) and ʿAn Yahud Misr (Jews of Egypt, 2012) by Amir Ramses. Diverse and complex representations of Egyptian Jews were provided by Kamal Ruhayyim in a trilogy centered on the life of Galal and his quest to find his identity in Egypt during the second half of the 20th century.
In Egypt, the government sponsored a costly and impressive restoration of the Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in Alexandria. After decades of neglect, several synagogues were cleaned in Cairo, the ancient Jewish cemetery in Bassatin was cleared of tons of rubbish, and part of the surrounding cemetery wall was rebuilt. The Karaite Menasha burial plot was remarkably restored.
In Morocco, an unprecedented number of projects have been carried out to preserve Jewish heritage sites, including the cleaning and restoration of many cemeteries and a number of synagogues. Impressive displays of the Jewish past are now presented at the Jewish Museum in Casablanca and at the Bayt Dhakira, or House of Memory, in Essaouira. A new curriculum is being written with a sympathetic chapter on Jewry as an integral part of Moroccan society and culture. The preamble of the 2011 constitution states that the identity of Moroccan society and its unity “is forged by the convergence of its Arab-Islamic, Berber [Amazigh], and Saharan-Hassanic components, nourished and enriched by its African, Andalusian, Hebrew [Jewish] and Mediterranean influences.”
Significance should also be attributed to the innovative projects for preserving Jewish heritage promoted by nongovernmental organizations, primarily the Moroccan Mimouna Association and the Egyptian Drop of Milk Association. The Egyptians and Moroccans who are safeguarding Jewish heritage see their commitment as an expression of a patriotic stance. They usually recast the heritage of the local Jewish community as an Egyptian and Moroccan story of past and present. The fact that it is mainly non-Jewish Egyptians and Moroccans who preserve Jewish heritage in their respective countries allows us to consider the future of Jewish heritage independently of the number of Jews in these countries.
Equally vital is the role that has been played by the authorities and the local tiny Jewish communities in providing formal legitimacy, determining the scope of heritage preservation efforts, and mobilizing the requisite resources. This renewed engagement with the Jewish past is reflected in concurrent bottom-up and top-down initiatives, signaling a multifaceted approach to heritage preservation and historical reinterpretation.
The unprecedented Moroccan and Egyptian engagement with the local Jewish past and present heritage is enriching the Living Archive. Yet, the significance of these unique materials stems from their reuse, preservation, and reference to local cultural practices and public discourses. In other words, the existence of Jewish sites and artifacts is a precondition for the preservation of local Jewish heritage, but it is not a sufficient one. It is the reinterpretation given to synagogues, cemeteries, and Judaica items that replants them into the local social and cultural contexts, thus giving them renewed meaning and relevance in reshaping the image of both the past and present. Hence, the emergence of new and positive representations of Jewish sites and heritage in popular cultural artifacts is of great significance.
Why has all of this happened in recent years? The timing is significant, driven by recent developments in Egypt and Morocco. I contend that the unprecedented revisionism and the varied opinions about the Jewish past and heritage are inseparable from the social and political struggles that have culminated in, and ensued from, the 2011 popular uprising, commonly known as the Arab Spring. Despite the differences between these two societies, both have become entangled in a political debate concerning governance, political pluralism, cultural and social identities, and the attitude toward local minorities. For a long time, silence over the minorities and their heritages was maintained by nationalistic narratives that distorted the past images of Copts, Greeks, and Jews in Egypt, and Amazigh and Jews in Morocco. In this context, a vigorous debate has developed over the Jewish community’s history and the future of its assets, particularly its synagogues, cemeteries, archives, Torah scrolls, rare manuscripts, and books.
The re-engagement with minorities, past and present, is also highly politically contested. The assortment of oppositional opinions raised regarding the possible “reinstatement” of the Jewish past into Egyptian and Moroccan history reflects a fierce debate about social and cultural identities and the deep political rifts dividing these societies regarding their present regimes and policies.
An artificial political line has been drawn between the opponents. Generally, the proponents of preserving Jewish heritage support the current regime or find it a reasonable compromise. The fierce opponents of the regime stand on the opposite side. In other words, these two political camps deal with communities of Jews or other minorities as a means of dealing with the issues of contemporary Muslim-majority society, which are identity, culture, and the nature of governance in the present.
Finally, one of the more meaningful expressions of revisionism in Egyptian public discourse about Jews is the call to distinguish between “Jewish” and “Judaism” on the one hand, and “Israel” and “Zionism” on the other. Yet, this trend has only begun. The distinction between “Jew” and “Zionist” is still blurred, as if all Jews are Zionists or are working to advance Israeli policy. The prevalence of Jewish stereotyping in public debates regarding their “nature” and their political and national commitments is now even more challenging. Against the backdrop of the horrendous war at the heart of the Middle East, the scope of erroneous and anti-Jewish sentiments and positions throughout MENA has significantly increased among all classes and ranks.
* The concept of the Living Archive is thoroughly explored in the author’s newly published book, Sacred Places Tell Tales: Jewish Life and
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