Remapping ‘tradition’: community formation and spatiocultural imagination among Jews in colonial northern Morocco

ABSTRACT

For Jews in colonial North Africa and beyond, modernization is often deemed a linear process of physical and cultural disengagement from traditional urban spaces. In contrast, this article portrays the process as dialectical and contextual mental transitions between the oppositional experiences of ‘modern-colonial’ and ‘traditional-communal’ spaces that mutually shape modern Jewish life across real and imagined townscapes. Focusing on one of the most vibrant sites of urbanization in North Africa – the mid-twentieth century international city of Tangier and neighboring Tetuan – I show how this dynamic transition was essential in shaping modernity and ethnic identity among a mobile Jewish middle class.

KEYWORDS:

• Middle class
• spatial turn
• Jewish ethnicity
• modernity
• urbanization
• the Islamic world
• Tangier

Acknowledgements

I thank Patrick Martin for proofreading the final draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An interview with Clarice (a pseudonym), 2009, Israel, interviewer: Aviad Moreno. Hereinafter, if the footnote indicates only the first name of an interviewee, then it is a pseudonym; otherwise, names are original.

2. See references to such reports cited in: Yaron Tsur, and Hagar Hillel, The Jews of Casablanca: Studies in the Modernization of the Political Elite in Colonial Community (Hebrew) (The Open University: Tel Aviv, 1995), 13–30.

3. R.E. Pearson and H.R. Barret R.T. Dalton, “The Diplomatic Geography of Tangier,” in Tanger Espacé, Economie Et Société, ed. Mohamed Refass (Rabat, Tanger: Université Mohammed V, Rabat; l’École Supérieure Roi Fahd de traduction de Tanger, 1993), 119.

4. William Kutz, “State and Territorial Restructuring in the Globalizing City-Region of Tangier, Morocco” (MA Diss., The University of Miami, 2010), 22.

5. Barney Warf and Santa Arias, “Introduction: The Reinsertion of Space in the Humanities and Social Sciences,” in The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Barney Warf and Santa Arias (Routledge, 2009), 2; Reginald G. Golledge and Robert J. Stimson, Spatial Behavior: A Geographic Perspective (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 1–2, 432, 433; Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, The Absorption of Immigrants (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954).

6. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 259–260.

7. See Haim Zeev Hirshberg, Toldot ha-Yehudim be-Afrikah ha-Tsefonit, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1965), 7 (cited in Tsur and Hillel, 20).

8. Lobillo Aranda Dolores and Juan Ruiz Cupido, Tetuan: La Huella de la Ciudad Española en Marruecos- Guía Para las Excursiones del IX Coloquio y Jornadas de Campo de GeografÍa Urbana. (AGE) (Sevilla; Cádiz; Ceuta: Grupo de Geografía Urbana, 2008), 17–18.

9. Antonio J. Onieva, Guía Turística de Marruecos: Plazas de Soberanía,Protectorado Español, Tánger (Madrid: Artes Gráficas Arges, 1947), 200–202.

10. This map, and Map 2, represent only a section of the original map I extracted from the archive.

11. See an overview at: Srougo, Shai, “The Informal Sector in a Colonial Regime: The Jewish Economy of the Lower Classes in Casablanca Between the Two World Wars,” Journal of North African Studies (2011): 78. For a different perspective, see an overview of the Tunisian case at: switch order Barbé, Philippe, “Jewish-Muslim syncretism and intercommunity cohabitation in the writings of Albert Memmi: The partage of Tunis,” in Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, ed. Emily Benichou Gottreich and Daniel J. Schroeter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 107–27. For earlier examples associated with mobility and economic status, see: Kenneth Brown, “Mellah and Medina: A Moroccan City and its Jewish Quarter (Sale ca.1880–1930),” in Studies in Judaism and Islam, ed. Shlomo Morag, Ben Ami Issachar, and Norman Stillman (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981), 253–276.

12. See, e.g, Beverly Mizrachi, Paths to middle-class mobility among second-generation Moroccan immigrant women in Israel (Wayne State University Press, 2013).

13. Doris Bensimon, “L’intégration économique des immigrants nord-africains en Israël et des Juifs nord-africains en France (Essai d’étude comparative),” Revue française de sociologie (1969): 496.‏

14. Kutz, “State and Territorial Restructuring,” 20–21.

15. Bernabé López-García, “Españoles de Marruecos: Demografía de una Historia Compartida,” in Españoles en Marruecos, 1900–2007: Historia y Memoria Popular de una Convivencia, eds. Oumama Aouad y Fatiha Benlabbah (Rabat: Editions & Impressions Bouregreg, 2008), 17–48.

16. Muhammad Alamin Albazzaz, “Tangier during the International Administration Period,” Revue Dar al-Niaba 18 (1988) [Arabic], 21.

17. Albazzaz, “Tangier during the International Administration Period,” 21–22.

18. Kutz, “State and Territorial Restructuring,” 21.

19. Michael M. Laskier, North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 225. More about Jewish emigration from northern Morocco to Israel at the time see: Maite Ojeda-Mata, “The Sephardim of North Morocco, Zionism and Illegal Emigration to Israel Through the Spanish Cities of Ceuta and Melilla,” Contemporary Jewry (2021): 1–27; Aviad Moreno, “Beyond the Nation-State: A Network Analysis of Jewish Emigration from Northern Morocco to Israel,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 52, no. 1 (2020): 1–21.‏

20. Julio Malo-de-Molina and Fernando Domínguez, Tetuán: El Ensanche: Guía de Arquitectura, 1913–1956 (Andalucía: Consejería de Obras Públicas y Transportes, 1996).

21. Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget,1969), 9–16.

22. See e.g., Jonathan Okamura, “Situational Ethnicity,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 4 (1981), 452–465; Michael Banton, Racial and Ethnic Competition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Jeffrey A. Ross, “Urban Development and the Politics of Ethnicity: A Conceptual Approach,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 5 (1982), 440–456; Ali Syed, “Collective and Elective Ethnicity: Caste among Urban Muslims in India,” Sociological Forum 17 (December, 2002), 593–620; More on this debate see: De Haas et Al. 2020, 76–78; for an alternative view, see Murat Bayar, “Reconsidering primordialism: an alternative approach to the study of ethnicity,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32:9 (2009), 1639–1657.

23. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Thomas F. Gieryn, “A Space for Place in Sociology,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000), 465, 476; Golledge and Stimson, Spatial Behavior,1–2. See also Haviva Pedaya, Space and Place: A Mass on the Unconscious Theological Political (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing, 2011) [Hebrew], especially 21–23.

24. Schlör Joachim, “Jewish Spatial Practice in the Urban Context,” Space and Spatiality in Modern German-Jewish History 8 (2017): 383.

25. Daniel J. Schroeter, Merchants of Essaouira: Urban society and imperialism in southwestern Morocco, 1844–1886. No. 18, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Miller, apportioning; Gottreich, Emily, The Mellah of Marrakesh: Jewish and Muslim space in Morocco’s red city, (Indiana University Press, 2007).

26. Miller, Susan Gilson, “Finding Order in the Moroccan City: The Ḥubus of the Great Mosque of Tangier as an Agent of Urban Change,” Muqarnas Online 22.1 (2005): 265–283; ‏Miller, Susan Gilson, “Apportioning sacred space in a Moroccan city: The case of Tangier, 1860–1912,” City & Society 13, no. 1 (2001): 57–83.‏

27. Susan G. Miller, “Making Tangier Modern: Ethnicity and Urban Development, 1880–1930.,” in Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, ed. Emily Benichou Gottreich and Daniel J. Schroeter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 146.

28. This question is my paraphrasing of Alegria Bendelac’s words from her 1987 memoir: ‘Surprised by my accent, people ask: “where are you from?” I pause and a question pops in my mind: when? Where am I from when? […] Born in Caracas to a Moroccan family descendent of expelled Spaniards, raised in Tangiers … with a Dutch husband … brothers and sisters in France, Israel, England; relatives in Canada, Spain, Venezuela, childhood friends all over the world … ’ (Alegria Bendelac, Los Nuestros: Sejina, Letuarios, Jaquetia Y Fraja: Un Retrato de los Sefaradies del Norte de Marruecos a Traves de Sus Recuerdos y de Su Lengua (1860–1984) (New York: P. Lang, 1987), 1.

29. Miller, Hubus, 278.

30. Pearson and Dalton “The Diplomatic Geography of Tangier,” 117.

31. Ibid., 119.

32. Onieva, Guía Turística de Marruecos, 331.

33. Gilson-Miller, “Apportioning”.

34. Onieva, Guía Turística de Marruecos, 332.

35. Susan Gilson Miller, “The Beni Ider Quarter of Tangier in 1900: Hybridity as a Social Practice,” in Miller and Bertagnin, Architecture and Memory in the Minority Quarter of the Muslim Mediterranean City Cambridge, MA: AKP/HUP, 2010.

36. In 1959, the streets’ names had not been replaced yet with Arabic names. Thus, the names are generally the same as those appearing on the 1956 map.

37. Deduced from the typical Jewish surnames.

38. Onieva, Guía Turística de Marruecos, 320–322.

39. The Paul Bowles Website, http://www.paulbowles.org/tangier.html (accessed 30 March 2014).

40. Dalton et al., 119.

41. During this research, I excluded from the analysis streets on which ownership was not indicated by an individual’s surname. These streets were located mainly in commercial districts, with telephone numbers of commercial companies.

42. The data provided by the 1959 telephone directory could be considered misleading, since they represent only those among the Jewish population of Tangier who owned a telephone device. Nevertheless, the idea of an emerging middle class reflected by the tendency of a substantial number of Jews to reside throughout the city, rather than side-by-side, is still substantiated Jacobo Israel Garzón, Los Judios Hispano-Marroquíes (1492-1973) (Madrid: Hebraica Ediciooones 2008),.

43. Fernandez-Llebrez, Guía Turística de Tetuan, 223.

44. Onieva, Guía Turística de Marruecos, 188–189, 236.

45. Garzón, Los Judíos, 185.

46. Vilar, “Evolución,” 96.

47. Juan L. Fernandez-Llebrez, Guía Turística de Tetuan (Tetuan [?]: S.N., 1948), 8–9.

48. Lotfi Sayahi, “Aqui Todo el Mundo Hablaba Español: History of the Spanish Language in Tangier,” The Journal of North African Studies 9 (2004), 42.

49. Ramón Pouso Balleto, “¿Qué Opina Ud. del Baile Moderno?” Luz, April 18, 1956, 12–13.

50. Ramón Pouso Balleto, “Resultado de Nuestra Encuesta Anterior-Tetuán se divierte con el baile,” Luz, May 15, 1956, 6.

51. Serels, 169.

52. See, e.g., Luz, February 15, 1956, 19; Another General Motors agency in Tangier owned by a Jew named AD Israel was advertised (See España, October 26, 1950, 2).

53. See, e.g., Luz, February 29, 1956, 2.

54. Air France and Air Iberia, the national airlines of France and Spain, respectively, advertised flights to the main cities of Morocco as well as to a variety of destinations around the world. Gibraltar Airways offered four daily flights Monday through Saturday between Tangier and Gibraltar. See, España, 9 November 1950, p.2.

55. See, e.g., “Enlace,” Luz, May 311,956, 5, “Enlace,” Luz, May 15, 1956, 17.

56. Aïda Pinto, Mon Passé Marocain (Jérusalem: Érez, 2004), 314.

57. E.g., Matty, “Para la Mujer,” Luz, February 29, 1956, 14–15; Matty, “Para Nosotras,” Luz, May 31, 1956, 14–15.

58. Ramón Pouso Balleto, “¿Qué Le Gustaría hacer el Próximo Sábado?” Luz, May 15, 1956, .6.

59. The Ladino Periodical Collection and Manuscripts Department, Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem.

60. “Las Encuestas de Luz: ¿Qué Le Gustaría hacer el Próximo Sábado?,” Luz, June 15, 1956, 19.

61. An interview with Simi (pseudonym), 2009 Israel, interviewer: Aviad Moreno.

62. “Luz Entra en la Oscuridad del Cine,” Luz, February 15, 1956, 17.

63. Boletín Oficial 1) October, 1949), 7.

64. “Solo y Arruinado Triste Balance de una Historia de Amor,” Luz, February 15, 1956, 10–12.

65. As in the case of the strict dietary laws that constrain mingling between Jews and non-Jews.

66. Abraham Israel, “Carta Abierta,” Boletín Oficial 1)Cotober, 1949), 13. New European educational institutions including but not limited to the Lycée Français schools that had been established in Tangier constituted additional realms of interaction where many Jewish adolescents, at that crucial, formative stage in human life, made non-Jewish friends with whom they interacted on a daily basis.

67. An interview with Simi (pseudonym), 2009 Israel, interviewer: Aviad Moreno.

68. Songs in Judeo-Spanish (Tangier, 1987), SA-JUNL, Call No. Y-05669-f.

69. An interview with Salomón (pseudonym), 2009 Israel, interviewer: Aviad Moreno.

See also Angy Cohen, “On Belonging and Other Dreams: the Ambiguous Positions of the Jews in “Spanish Morocco”,” Contemporary Jewry 40, No.4 (2020): 547–578. Particularly 7, 15–16.

70. Apparently, it was not a misprint, since the practice was repeated in other issues. See, e.g., Luz, May 15, 1956, first page; May 31, 1956, 16; June 15, 1956, 21.

71. Bendelac, Mosaics, 43.

72. Luz, February 15, 1956, 1.

73. The endogamy in local Jewish society may explain why marriages were referred to, in many of my interviews, as symbolic ethnic traditions. An interview with Hélène (pseudonym), 2009 Israel; An interview with Ruth (pseudonym), 2009 Israel, interviewer: Aviad Moreno; An interview with David (pseudonym), 2009 Israel.

74. For instance, according to the record of circumcisions performed by Rabbi Yamín, who operated in Tangier, 24 out of 543 circumcised Jewish boys between 1929 and 1950 were born to a mother who had converted to Judaism. Remarkably, four had Christian mothers at the time of circumcision, which means that their unique religious background was not hidden by Rabbi Yamín, perhaps due to their extremely small number in the community. On the other hand, if, hypothetically, there were Jewish children who had been born to intermarried couples but who were absent from the document since they had not been circumcised (understandably, considering their background), this absence only showcases how intermarriage with a non-Jew was considered a red line that, once crossed, would exclude a Jew from being a member of the community.

75. Gila Hadar, “Marriage as Survival Strategy among the Sephardic Jews of Salonoki, 1900–1943: Continuity and Change,” El Presente: Studies in Sephardic Culture 1 (2007) [Hebrew], 209.

76. Matrimonies were not celebrated in April or July, months in the Jewish tradition during which it was not customary to marry. Vilar, “Evolución,” 112.

77. An interview with Hélène (pseudonym), 2009 Israel; An interview with Ruth (pseudonym), 2009 Israel.

78. Gilson-Miller, “Apportioning,” 67.

79. Schlör, “Jewish Spatial Practice in the Urban Context,” 237–238.

80. Several types of ceremonies were more commonly captured on film, while others, perhaps more meaningful, were rarely photographed due to religious prohibitions against using cameras during holidays such as the Shabbat, Passover Eve, or Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

81. Reginald G. Golledge and Robert J. Stimson, Spatial Behavior: A Geographic Perspective (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 1–2, 432, 433.

82. Salomón Benarroch-Bendayan, Tánger: La Ciudad Que Me Vío Nacer y Crecer (Miami: Little Press, 1997), 133.

83. He mentioned that from the age of 19 he used to work at the General Motors Automobile Agency, which was located on Viñas St. (Benarroch-Bendayan, 200–213).

84. Bendelac, Mosaics, 29.

85. Uriel macías, Yolanda Moreno Koch y Ricardo Izquierdo Benito Los judíos en la España contemporánea: historia y visiones, 1898–1998, 270.

86. “Social: La Festividad de Purim Celebrada Brillantemente,” Luz, February 29. 1956, 13.

87. Pinto-Abecasis, 151, 161–162. Luz published two photographs showing tens of youngsters partying in a private home on the occasion of Passover. It mentioned that the photographs are examples of various celebrations taking place in Jewish homes in celebration of this occasion (“Social,” Luz, April 18, 1956, 9).

88. “Tangier Budget for the First Half of 1955” (Morocco: budget-finance, 1947–1954), JDCA, Call No. C.56–706, 10.

89. Bendelac, Mosaics, 2; See also España, June, 201,955; An interview with Ruth (pseudonym), 2010 Israel.

90. Serels, 168.

91. “Inauguración de los Nuevos Locales de la ‘Escuela de la Alianza Israelíta Universal,” Luz, 29 February 1956, p.2.

92. Based on their ownership of a telephone unit.

93. Tangier- Anuario Telefonico (February, 1959), PPC, 143.

94. See e.g., Luz, 15 February 1956, p.1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aviad Moreno

Aviad Moreno is a Lecturer (equivalent to assistant professor) at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Before joining the faculty, Moreno held fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, and Tel Aviv University. Among his awards is the prestigious Alon Fellowship from the Council for Higher Education in Israel. In addition, he has been appointed a foreign member of the Spanish Royal Academy. Many of his publications are dedicated to the study of the Jewish community in northern Morocco and its global diaspora.