Gates to Tangier Read Online Free Page B
Author: Mois Benarroch
thing, and happened many times, what do we know, maybe this happened to many parents, but only my father didn't want to forget his son, he thought about him, he missed the son he never met, or who he met when he was one year old. How do you keep a secret? Technically it see ms easy, but inside, how do you live with that?
You see, I can write a whole novel about this, a father's suffering, it isn't such a bad idea. But right now I will w rite about our trip to Madrid, from Madrid to Málaga, a travel book, a travel diary. I hate travel books, but this will be different. I have noticed that the majority of the books by Moroccans are travel bo oks, or include travel, they all want to go back, go back to what does not exist, the past, the Jewish community that does not exist anymore.
I remember that they ask ed me if we would go back to Tétouan, and I said that it wasn't even a question. Tétouan without its Jewish community isn't Tétouan, it isn't a matter of views, mountains, oceans, it is nothing about that, it is a community that lives in parallel with the Christian and Muslim communities, that was Tétouan. The same with Fez or Casablanca, communities that were already autonomous, the relationship was an everyd ay reality, but all culture exists independently of other communities, they are there. They pen etrated us deeply, and only here in Israel do we disc over how Moroccan we are, and not just Jew s.
The same happens in Madrid, or in Paris, or in New York, we discover our Moroccan-ness, but when we return to Morocco, whe n we travel to Morocco, we are again so far from the Muslims. We are Je ws again. Where did you go, we ask. Wh ere are you? What have you become without Jews?
Cities where Jews lived for hun dreds and thousands of years are suddenly empty of Jews; there are 100 left in Tangier, 300 in Fez, and 20,000 in Casablanca. For three hundred years in Tétouan the population was more than 15% Jewish, life revolved around the Jews. All the buildings in the city center were built by Jews that had traveled to the Americas and returned to their city.
Now it is like a body without kidneys, it doesn't really work.
This is what is happening throughout the Maghreb, something is missing and they know it, they know something is missing. Algeria without the Jews, said a writer on French television, after 1962, when Algeria suddenly fo und itself without Jews for the first time in its history, and this is also the case in Poland, Latvia, Egypt, Liby a, Iraq, Syria... Zionism made a home for the Je ws, and in doing so left entire countries without Jews, entire cities turned into deserts, not ju st because of Zionism, of course, colonialism started this, they led the Jews to believe that they were different from the Muslims, and that they could come to Paris or London, they sowed the seeds for exile, because they didn't want to live among these savages.
And now that the Muslim Moroccans are foreig ners to themselves, Morocco became a place of exile, because a Morocco without Jews is a Morocco in exile.
But Jews from Morocco are foreigners everywhere in the world, even in Morocco, and they aren't even there anymore. They are foreig ners in Paris, because they are not French, because they wis h they were French. But in Jerusalem they are even more foreign than in any other country, because they aren't allowed to be Moroccan, such is their shame. My father said that he was from Spain, which was also true, but he didn't say it for the right reason, he said it because he was sick of them saying that he was a "cultured Mor occan", as if they knew other kinds of Moroccans.
"You're writing nonstop....you've been inspired?" teased my brother Fortu.
"Yes, don't bother me."
"I won't bother you, but I've got a bottle of whiskey here. Take a cup. A pl astic cup, what can it hurt, it will hayyea the spirit.”
It seems as if they were talking endlessly around me, but
You see, I can write a whole novel about this, a father's suffering, it isn't such a bad idea. But right now I will w rite about our trip to Madrid, from Madrid to Málaga, a travel book, a travel diary. I hate travel books, but this will be different. I have noticed that the majority of the books by Moroccans are travel bo oks, or include travel, they all want to go back, go back to what does not exist, the past, the Jewish community that does not exist anymore.
I remember that they ask ed me if we would go back to Tétouan, and I said that it wasn't even a question. Tétouan without its Jewish community isn't Tétouan, it isn't a matter of views, mountains, oceans, it is nothing about that, it is a community that lives in parallel with the Christian and Muslim communities, that was Tétouan. The same with Fez or Casablanca, communities that were already autonomous, the relationship was an everyd ay reality, but all culture exists independently of other communities, they are there. They pen etrated us deeply, and only here in Israel do we disc over how Moroccan we are, and not just Jew s.
The same happens in Madrid, or in Paris, or in New York, we discover our Moroccan-ness, but when we return to Morocco, whe n we travel to Morocco, we are again so far from the Muslims. We are Je ws again. Where did you go, we ask. Wh ere are you? What have you become without Jews?
Cities where Jews lived for hun dreds and thousands of years are suddenly empty of Jews; there are 100 left in Tangier, 300 in Fez, and 20,000 in Casablanca. For three hundred years in Tétouan the population was more than 15% Jewish, life revolved around the Jews. All the buildings in the city center were built by Jews that had traveled to the Americas and returned to their city.
Now it is like a body without kidneys, it doesn't really work.
This is what is happening throughout the Maghreb, something is missing and they know it, they know something is missing. Algeria without the Jews, said a writer on French television, after 1962, when Algeria suddenly fo und itself without Jews for the first time in its history, and this is also the case in Poland, Latvia, Egypt, Liby a, Iraq, Syria... Zionism made a home for the Je ws, and in doing so left entire countries without Jews, entire cities turned into deserts, not ju st because of Zionism, of course, colonialism started this, they led the Jews to believe that they were different from the Muslims, and that they could come to Paris or London, they sowed the seeds for exile, because they didn't want to live among these savages.
And now that the Muslim Moroccans are foreig ners to themselves, Morocco became a place of exile, because a Morocco without Jews is a Morocco in exile.
But Jews from Morocco are foreigners everywhere in the world, even in Morocco, and they aren't even there anymore. They are foreig ners in Paris, because they are not French, because they wis h they were French. But in Jerusalem they are even more foreign than in any other country, because they aren't allowed to be Moroccan, such is their shame. My father said that he was from Spain, which was also true, but he didn't say it for the right reason, he said it because he was sick of them saying that he was a "cultured Mor occan", as if they knew other kinds of Moroccans.
"You're writing nonstop....you've been inspired?" teased my brother Fortu.
"Yes, don't bother me."
"I won't bother you, but I've got a bottle of whiskey here. Take a cup. A pl astic cup, what can it hurt, it will hayyea the spirit.”
It seems as if they were talking endlessly around me, but
Readers choose
Barbara Seranella
Max Allan Collins
David DeLee
P.R. Principe
Ronald Kelly
Varios autores
Johanna Lindsey
Stephen Moss
Deborah Fletcher Mello