Tinghir-Jerusalem: Echoes Of The Mellah

551 Words2 Pages

In the film, Tinghir-Jerusalem: Echoes of the Mellah, filmmaker Kamal Hachkar takes us through history as viewers connect with the various people, Jews and Muslims, who recall their past lives in Tinghir, Morocco, which is now long forgotten. Jews have had a long history in Morocco and their presence there has been shaped through the course of time. They were once merchants that came to North Africa, where they assimilated with the Islamic Moroccan Berbers in the mountains. Then in the 1490’s, Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain and fled to Morocco, where they began their vibrant, mixed culture. A large part of history has been lost as a result of the departure of Jews from Morocco in the mid-1960s when 250,000 Moroccan Jews left for Israel. Hachkar, who himself searched for his roots in Tinghir, embarked on a journey in pursuit of the memory of the lost community of Jews in Tinghir who fled …show more content…

Their interconnectedness with language demonstrates their shared social knowledge and the unity of their community.
A fundamentally dynamic aspect of Moroccan culture and society disappeared along with the Jews. Jews trusted their Muslim neighbors as they shared facilities, went to school together, and lived in the same areas within their communities. Jews and Muslims lived together in peace and respected one another’s religious beliefs: Jews were able to pray freely and even “prayed quite loudly in their synagogues,” recollected one Moroccan.
From their dress to their demeanor, Jews and Muslims appeared the same. They wore similar shawls, yet not the exact same kinds. Everyone knew their place in society: “Jews with the Jews and Muslims with the Muslims.” By listening to the stories by Jews who left Tinghir and Muslims who stayed, you find that there is an extremely close cooperation between the two

Open Document