CHAPTER 1

Writing the Periphery

COLONIAL NARRATIVESOF MOROCCAN JEWISH HINTERLANDS

Global Links and Jewish Disguises

As a columnist and foreign correspondent working in the early twentieth century,Pierre van Paassen, a Dutch-American writer, worked for a number ofnewspapers, including the Toronto Globe, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, theNew York Evening World, and the Toronto Star. He became one of the best-sellingand most influential authors of his time. In addition to reporting on colonialissues in North Africa, including the slave trade, van Paassen investigatedMiddle Eastern issues and interviewed many key political figures in the regionincluding the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husayni(1895–1974) in 1929. In 1933, accompanied by a British intelligence officer, vanPaassen visited the Dome of the Rock disguised as an Arab hajj (pilgrim) togather information during the Friday sermon about local views regarding theBritish Mandate and Muslim attitudes toward Jewish migration to Palestine.Despite his wide-ranging activities as a journalist and writer, van Paassengained fame for his reports on the relationship between Arabs and Jews withinthe British and French Middle Eastern colonies.

As a world-famous Unitarian Christian reporter, van Paassen was an ardentsupporter of Zionism and a lobbyist mainly in the United States for theestablishment of a Jewish state. He accused the League of Nations and Britain—inparticular—of betraying the Jewish People, especially after what befellEuropean Jews in the Holocaust. Van Paassen prefaced The Forgotten Ally witha critique of the British Colonial Office in the Near East, highlighting Europe'sfailure to protect Jews and secure a country for the Jewish People in Palestine.Van Paassen stated that "as one who is aware and who feels with a sense ofpersonal involvement Christianity's guilt in the Jewish people's woes and theconstant deepening of their anguish, I could no longer be silent." His politicalzeal for a Jewish state became reflected not only in his call for supporting EuropeanJewries in the aftermath of the Holocaust, but also in facilitating Jewishaliya (immigration to Eretz-Israel) worldwide, even among the Jews of Africa.

On November 7, 1928, as the Paris-based foreign correspondent for the NewYork Evening World, van Paassen wrote an article about what he deemed a smalland remote Jewish community in the heart of the African desert:

Hostile tribes, disease, hunger, poverty and other vicissitudes had interferedwith the ancestral project of reaching the Promised Land, and they had remainedin the desert. But the Jews ... never had abandoned hope altogether ofcontinuing their interrupted migration some day and of ultimately residing inthe land that "that flows with milk and honey."

This passage was written about the Jewish society of Akka—the main ethnographicsite of this book. Van Paassen based his story on an interview with RenéLeblond, whom he presumed to be the French consul of Akka, and who haddescended on the outskirts of the Jewish settlement when his plane developedan engine problem and was forced to land. Leblond was collecting geographicand cartographic data for the colonial mapping of the southern Moroccan territoriesthat the French military had yet to control. By 1928, Sémach, a Bulgarianteacher of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Iraq and Morocco, questionedthe truthfulness of the story, alleging that there was no French consulat Akka and that Leblond did not show up in the registers of the French ForeignMinistry. Yet, van Paassen's story about the presence of "a flourishing andtranquil Jewish community, numbering several thousand souls, in the heart ofthe African desert, surrounded on all sides by savage and semi-civilized Moorand Berber tribes," has become part of an authoritative and institutionalizedhistoriographical narrative about the Jews of Akka in particular and SaharanJewries in general, despite its unsubstantiated sources.

Apart from a few notes about the history and culture of the small Jewishcommunity of Akka, van Paassen simply skipped over many historical datesand events without providing detailed information. He noted that the last Europeanvisitor the Jews of Akka had seen was "an explorer in 1866" and that"since that day no traveler from Europe had been in their midst." Contrary tothis claim, the French traveler Charles de Foucauld visited Akka around 1882with his guide, Mardochée Aby Serour, himself a native Jew from Akka. I donot question here van Paassen's sources; Leblond, if such a name existed, couldhave been told of these events by the Jewish elders of Akka he claimed to haveinterviewed. The inaccuracy of these dates and the vagueness of events reflectthe dilemma of reliability in oral sources that faced European travelers andlater scholars of rural Jewish societies throughout the Middle East in generaland Morocco in particular.

As rural and Saharan Jews were "discovered" by European travelers andare now studied by Moroccan historians and anthropologists, how shouldthese historical and ethnographic accounts be assessed and analyzed? Whatare the biases and agendas of colonial and post-colonial narratives that framethe historical discourse about Saharan Jewries in particular and Middle EasternJews in general? What is the role of post-colonial national researchers in the rewritingof these rural marginal communities? If we use a combination of Europeantravelers' accounts and local oral testimonies, how should we understandthese sources despite their purported contradictions and likely inaccuracies?

In this chapter I grapple with these questions and reflect on the connections,silence, and amnesic gaps between the colonial and post-colonial historicalnarratives, as I wade through European travelers' accounts, post-colonialnationalist histories, Moroccan literature about Jews, and my own ethnographicexperience as a native Moroccan Muslim anthropologist studyingthe Jews of my hometown and region. Through the chapter we will meet pro-ZionistChristians and Muslims, and deeply anti-Semitic government officialsand colonial administrators, and learn the stories of alliance and betrayal inthe common lives of my ethnographic subjects and their parallels in historicalfigures. The common practice of disguising oneself as a traveling Jew not onlylinks the stories of van Paassen and the colonial administrator de Foucauld, butreturns in my own ethnographic experience, as I become the object of a similarrumor while in the field. Before I discuss these issues, I begin with a short ethnographicnarrative that contextualizes the Jewish community of Akka in thewider region of southeastern Morocco.

Jewish Society in Saharan Hinterlands

When I arrived in Akka in February 2004, I walked through the Jewish shopsoutside the mellah (Jewish neighborhood) not far from where the market ofTagadirt took place. I could not access any of the tiny shops lining the mellah'sentrance. It was obvious that these shops had not been open for business sincethe last time Jews left for Israel in 1962. A suq (market) without Jews, as theMoroccan proverb goes, is like bread without salt. "When the Jews settled outsideMorocco," Ali, a ninety-year-old consultant, noted, "the market lost itssalt." Masses of thickened red dirt collected around the shops' entrances leavingtheir small wooden doors to the mercy of termites. Between the late 1820sand 1880s, a number of European travelers such as Davidson and de Foucaulddescribed the markets of Sus region and the Anti-Atlas as central trading andresting posts in the western sub-Saharan trading routes. When I visited theseonce busy markets in the Saharan fringes, the Moroccan adage made sense tome, especially when Ali, my guide, stopped in the middle of the square wherethe weekly suq was once held and said:

Look around you, the only thing left of Jews today is their deserted and decayingbuildings; their shops are closed. Their houses are mostly unoccupied. Theonly reminder of their presence is their cemeteries. Their tombs remind us of aJewish time and place. It is as if Tagadirt is a factory that closed, leaving thousandsunemployed and without salaries. I wish Jews had never left. They addedyeast to this economy.

According to Ali, without Jews, local markets could not grow or prosper. Hence,when Jews left for Israel, Akka as well as other rural and urban communitiesthroughout Morocco suffered from the absence of the "salt" they had added tothe local and regional economies. Ali's remark echoed many statements I heardfrom other members of his generation of great-grandparents, whose narrativesand memories were replete with nostalgic moments about a Jewish time andplace that was.

In the nineteenth century, Marrakesh, Essaouira, and to an extent Tarudantand Agadir, were major urban epicenters of the Saharan economy. Jewish peddlersand merchants throughout the southern regions of Morocco exchangedtheir commercial articles as they traveled between these epicenters and chainsof satellite rural communities throughout southern Morocco. Southern Moroccoincludes the Anti-Atlas, the Noun (region along the Atlantic Ocean),Oued Sus Valley, the southern slopes of the High Atlas, and southern DraaValley, all stretched out before one can enter the Saharan interior. Throughoutthe Sus region, Jews lived among Berber and Arab communities; Jewish familiesresided in this area until their final exodus to Israel in 1962.

Early legends claim that these Jewish communities are some of the oldest inNorth Africa. The Jewish kingdoms of Ifrane (Oufran) and the Draa Valley dateback to the pre-Islamic period. The trading centers of Essaouira (Mogador),Agadir, and Tarudant had always been regarded as the urban capitals of theJews of Sus, although Marrakesh was also a major urban destination of Jewishstudents and traders (Table 1).

In the southern Saharan hamlets, Jews lived among Muslim communitiesunder the protection of tribal lords. As the French succeeded in their gradualpacification of the south, completed by 1933, a few Jews applied for Frenchprotégé-status for fear of losing local tribal support. The Jewish communitiesof the bled (hinterland) continued to fall under the protection of tribal lords andlocal individuals. The French administrators left the political and economicmanagement of the south in the hands of tribal qaids, known as the lords ofthe Atlas, specifically Si Abdelmalek M'Tougi, Si Taieb Goundafi, and ThamiGlaoui. The use of the tribal qaids was for the subjugation of the tribal dissidents.Therefore, Marshal Hubert Lyautey, the first resident-general in Morocco(1912-1925), and his followers opted for a policy of indirect rule in the landsunder the management of these lords, deferring to local qaids on issues relatingto local Jews. In Teluet, a village under the control of Thami Glaoui, Slouschzreported that the chieftain of Teluet would imprison members (including Jews)of tribes he had conflict with when they attempted to travel to Marrakeshfor business until his feuds with the tribes were resolved. Slouschz claimedthat during his travel through Teluet, "there were ten Jewish merchants fromAskura who had been imprisoned because their Mussulman patrons had refusedto recognize the authority of the Kaid of Teluet."

Throughout southern Morocco, Jews were caught in these political changes,remaining indispensable economic agents as well as marginal political players inthe social structures of these rural communities. The traditional rural economywas reliant on Jewish peddlers and artisans, who provided important servicesto the local agrarian Muslim society. As peddlers, metalworkers, and saddle-makers,the Jews of Akka and other communities throughout the Anti-Atlasplayed an active role in tribal economy, which depended on them as mediatorsbetween the city and remote rural settlements. In return for these valuable services,Jews were guaranteed the protection of local Muslims—though guaranteeswere sometimes jeopardized by feuds between neighboring tribes.

Akka became an important satellite community in the trans-Saharan commercialchains in the nineteenth century. It housed one of the most importantJewish communities at the fringes of the Moroccan Sahara. Akka is a green valleyof palm groves at the mouth of Oued Akka, a tributary of the Draa River. Itcomprises the villages of Irahalan, Rahala, ayt-'Antar, Tagadirt, Taourirt, AgadirOuzrou, Qabbaba, and al-Qasba. An abundance of water (ten water sources)has made it one of the major settlements of the Anti-Atlas that survive on intensivesubsistence agriculture. Situated about thirteen kilometers from theruins of the Islamic city of Tamdult, Akka emerged as an entrepot in westernSaharan trade following the fall of Tamdult in the fourteenth century. Duringthe nineteenth century, Akka and Tata (Tintazart) became among the most prosperouscenters of the Moroccan south. According to de Foucauld, Akka was oneof the principal resting posts of the caravans toward Essaouira. Gold, slaves,leather, and fabric brought from the Sudan were traded in its markets.

Jewish communities were largely concentrated in urban conglomerations ofthe region of Sus, such as Agadir, Tiznit, and Tarudant, as well as pre-Saharanremote settlements like Aguerd (Tamanart), Tahala, Tintazart, and Ouijjane. Aspart of a colonial census of the Jewish population of Sus in 1936, Capitainede La Porte des Vaux argued that the Jewish population of Sus underwentmajor transformations because of massive local and regional movements sincede Foucauld's Reconnaissance au Maroc in 1888. De La Porte des Vaux assertedthat major economic changes during the nineteenth century at the level of maritimetrade, in addition to the breakdown of Saharan trade routes, caused thedisappearance of certain Jewish settlements and the growth of non-traditionalones, such as Agadir. Traditional Jewish settlements were located along keytrade routes and protected by local chieftains. The economic struggles of Jewsof pre-Saharan oases started after the diversion of caravan routes from Tindouftoward the coastal zone. This trend forced many Jews to move toward urbanconglomerations where they had better economic opportunities.

Politically, Akka was under the control of the ayt-Mribat tribe, headed bythe ayt-Wirran faction, who settled in the region after the collapse of Tamanart.In the nineteenth century ayt-Wirran controlled most of the economic and politicalrelations in Akka, Tamdult, Tizounine, Tamanart, and Icht. The localqaids (chieftains) provided protection for the Jewish merchants and communitiesof the different settlements in Akka. Akka is also the home of the zawiya(religious brotherhood) of Muhammad ban Mbarak al-Akkawi, a disciple ofal-Jazuli. His son, 'Abd Allah ban Mbarak al-Akkawi, the founder of the villageof Agadir Ouzrou, played a major role in negotiating peaceful agreementsbetween the different factions of Akka during the sixteenth century and wasone of the main supporters of the Sa'dian Dynasty. His descendents gained areligious status for Muslims within the area and established trading partnershipswith Jews.

Given Akka's economic importance, Jewish merchants and artisans wereallowed by ayt-Wirran to settle there during the nineteenth century. The protectionof the zawiya of Akka and the qaids of ayt-Mribat enabled Jews to maintaintrading networks with Essaouira and the Sudan. Monteil in 1946 countedthirty-four families in Akka in comparison to the twelve families mentioned byde Foucauld in 1883. These families were related to seven bloodlines: ayt-Didi(ayt-Twati); ayt-Ya'ish (ayt-Abisror); ayt-Shabbat; ayt-Dabda; ayt-Yahya (aytSarraf);ayt-Illiwi; and ayt-Ibgi. The families came from Tuat, Tamdult, Tamanart,Debdou, Tarudant, and Tahala. Following the establishment of the first Jewishmellah in Irahalan, Jewish families moved to Taourirt and Tagadirt. Other localnarratives by members of the great-grandparents cohort mentioned an ancientJewish settlement in Agadir Ouzrou destroyed by flooding.