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Museum of Jewish Moroccan Art

Audio-visual

Why such Center ?  

• Collect and maintain the patrimony of a very rich and diverse community spread the world over;
• give Moroccan Jews and their children to better know their roots and their identity;
• inform a wider public of the culture of such community;
• allow students and scholars to find the necessary tools to their works;
• organize visits and workshops;
• widen the collection through new contacts.

Short Historical Outline  

The variety of Moroccan Judaism results from the different influences to which it was faced for several centuries.

On the one hand, it was exposed to the influence of many successive civilizations: Romans, Vandals, Berbers, Arabs, Spanish, Portuguese, and finally French.

On the other hand, the influence of the surroundings has played an important role: cities or villages, country side, mountains or deserts.

In general, a distinction is made between two important categories of Moroccan Jews: the natives (toshavim) and the expatriates from Spain and Portugal after 1492 (megurashim).

Notwithstanding the lapse of time, each of such two groups has been able to keep its traditions and some of its specificities, more particularly in the areas of language, clothing, cooking, and music.

Since the 50's, Moroccan Jews have emigrated to other countries, mainly in Israel, France, Canada, the USA, and South America.

They have been well integrated in such countries but have nevertheless maintained a very high sense of belonging to the Moroccan community, this being evidenced among others by many happenings of all sorts and by going back to their country of origin for pilgrimages.

Related web sites  

• Sephardic-Moroccan Page
• Judaica Net (annuaire du judaïsme francophone)
• Shamash (judaism and Jewish resources)
• Modia (Français & Ivrit)
• ...

Please send us the sites you found of related interest, we shall add them to this list.

Do not hesitate to recommend our site address to others either :

        http://users.skynet.be/JMH

Date of last update: 13 Apr 2002     WebSite by: Medius Lynx