Yom Kippur à la Morocco

When the question of religion arises, I have my light-hearted answer down-pat and ready to go. “I’m Jew-ish,” I say, emphasizing the last syllable and wavering my hand. Heaven forbid anyone get the wrong impression that they are in the presence of a Shabbat-observing, Bat Mitzvahed Talmudic scholar. I don’t mean to downplay my ties to Judaism. I have eaten my fair share of Seder dinners, lit the menorah quite a few times (albeit alongside the Christmas tree), and even attended Hebrew school for a year or two. Yet my “Jewishness” admittedly does not go far beyond the holiday hallmarks of the religion and a general understanding of its theology.

So, when the opportunity to spend Yom Kippur with a Jewish Moroccan couple came my way, I thought it was prime time to assert the first syllable of my identity. For the weekend anyway, I would put the “ish” aside and be a Jew. How many chances will I have to spend the holiest of Jewish holy days in a Moroccan synagogue? This was a chance not only to reconnect with Judaism, but to catch a glimpse of the life of a small, yet culturally and historically rich, community- the Jews of Morocco.

Coincidentally, the holiest of Jewish holy days fell this year within the holiest of Islamic holy months. While I had tried my hand at fasting for Ramadan and surrendered after a mere two days, I would now be giving it another go in the name of atonement for Yom Kippur.

I traveled to Fez with two other American classmates- Danny, who I am convinced knows more about Judaism than your average rabbi, and Sarah, about as religious as I am but equally excited for the experience! On Friday afternoon we met our hosts Danielle and Jacques Mamane. Jacques can trace his ancestry to the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 when his relatives fled from Spain to Morocco. Both Danielle and Jacques grew up in Fez. They are now in their mid-sixties and have two grown daughters living in Paris.

The Mamanes have been Moroccan for centuries, but make a point of distinguishing themselves from Muslim Moroccans. “Our culture is French,” said Jacques. “We speak French and only speak Arabic when we have to.” When the French made Morocco a protectorate in 1912, they gave preferential treatment to the Jews. Now that the number of Jews in Morocco is down from 300,000 in 1948 to only around 7,000 today, due to mass immigration to Israel, I think Jews like the Mamanes feel an even bigger need to guard their community and their unique character.

From the moment Jacques met us at the hotel, I was immediately at ease. Through his broken English, Jacques cracked jokes that only a sweet old man can get away with. “In Morocco,” he said as Sarah and I trailed behind Danny and Jacques, “women are always in the back!” He smiled his at us as we piled into the car to go to his house for dinner.
Danielle greeted us with open arms and two French bisous (kisses) on each of our cheeks. She speaks beautiful English and immediately began questioning us about our lives, families, ambitions…”I am not the CIA,” she kept insisting!

We soon moved out conversation from the couch to the table and sat down with a cup of kosher wine to welcome Yom Kippur and eat our last meal before our day of fasting. Danielle and Jacques, in true grandparent fashion, kept insisting we eat more. “What can I say?” Danielle laughed, “Jewish mothers are the same all over the world.”

Every bite I ate at that table was one to be remembered- from the dozen or so appetizer salads (marinated peppers, baba ganoush, carrots) to the roasted red pepper meat and chicken to the last crumb of chocolate coconut pound cake and cup of mint tea. I later discovered that Danielle is a published chef and has an acclaimed cook book on Sephardic Moroccan cuisine. I do not like to solicit but for your own sake you should definitely order this book- The Scent of Orange Blossoms by Danielle Mamane, Amazon.com. Your taste buds will thank you! The two meals I ate with the Mamanes were the best two I’ve eaten yet in Morocco. Danielle showed us her garden where she grows many of her ingredients.

After dinner Jacques, Danny, Sarah and I went to the synagogue. Danielle stayed home, for reasons which I later discovered. Unless you knew explicitly which street, which color door, and roughly how many paces it is away from the closest landmark, you would never know a synagogue even existed in Fez. The door is purposefully as inconspicuous as possible. Only after entering and climbing the narrow stairs do you see a small Star of David hanging.

At the top of the stairs, Sarah and I entered through a door on the left. We found ourselves in a long narrow section of the tiny sanctuary, partitioned off by a white curtain. About ten other women sat on two long benches, whispering to one another and looking, quite honestly, bored, hot and tired. On the other side of the curtain, two dozen or so older men wearing tallits (prayer shawls) and yarmulkes chanted in prayer. Their voices wove in and out of harmony, responding to the singing recitations of the rabbi. At times though, their voices were simply cacophony, not helped much by the fact that the entire service was in Hebrew. I didn’t recognize any of the melodies, which Danny said was probably due to differences between Sephardic Judaism (Spanish/Middle Eastern) and Ashkenazi Judaism (Eastern European).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the curtain, old ladies gossiped in quiet French. Through the curtain a few pious men turned around to “shhh” the women. Only a couple women had prayer books in their hands and only occasionally looked as though they were following along. Every once in a while the woman stood when they saw the blurred outlines of the men’s figures rising.

The men’s voices never stopped for the two hours of service Friday night and the nearly eight hours on Saturday. “Sometimes,” said Jacques explaining his mysterious disappearances from service, “I just have to go for a long walk. I am like a child. I can’t sit in one place too long!”

In contrast, barley an “Amen” came from the women. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around this dichotomy. Was it inequality? Tradition? Did the women mind that while their men were in prayer they were left so chat in the back of the sanctuary? Danny, the aforementioned Judaism connoisseur, said that in orthodox tradition women are not really required to pray because they are believed to be already spiritually superior to men and closer to God. While I have no problem consenting to women’s superiority (a true product of the “you go girl” era I suppose), I couldn’t quite come to terms with this blatant division of the sexes. I respect the separation of the sexes in synagogue and understand its logic, but why the lack of participation of the women? It made more sense to me now that Danielle stayed at home.

When we got back to the Mamanes on Saturday night, Danielle had another delicious meal waiting for us. After 24 hours of fasting, the already mouthwatering food took on an even deeper delectability. This evening, we were all more relaxed than the one before. Our souls had been cleansed and we had made new connections with one another. The Mamanes treated us like family, inviting us to Shabbat or just for a visit any time we wished. I returned to campus that night with a new family in Fez, a cleansed soul (let’s hope, having spent more hours in synagogue the past two days then the past ten years combined), and a better understanding of such a unique sect of Moroccan society. I had reclaimed a little bit of that first syllable of my religion after all and had a wonderful time in the process!