On Yom Kippur, the Jewish community of Casablanca demonstrated its loyalty to the Moroccan crown by saying prayers for the late Moroccan kings, Mohammed V and Hassan ll, as well as for the present monarch and his family. (With thanks Michelle)
According to Le Matin du Sahara, the prayers were said at the Beth El synagogue in Casablanca. The Jewish community president, Serge Berdugo and the Casablanca community head, Boris Toledano, welcomed a procession of dignitaries into the synagogue, led by the governor of Casablanca, Karim Kassi Lahlou.
Serge Berdugo intoned the prayers and the service was conducted by the Rabbi Hazout.
"The ceremony took place in an atmosphere of contemplation and piety", the newspaper reported.
Read article in full (French)
I have always appreciated your scholarly input and bitter appreciation of what happened to the three millenia old Jewish presence in the Muslim orient..i.e.1,500 years before the existence of the Islamic god, "Allah",his prophet" & everything that issued forth from them. But "praying" for assorted deceased Arab-Berber monarchs of North Africa, because a few of them showed some unexpected tolerance from a place where the very concept is laughed at? Really, that's just post-dated dhimmitude. Wasn't that nice of 'em? For all the good it did. If Israel hadn't won all her defensive wars from 1948 to 1973,all the nearly one million Jews between Casablanca and Samara & points north & south would have been exterminated.In the grand old tradition: That lurks behind the tom-toms that thunder away in most Muslim skulls.
ReplyDeleteThe historical facts you explain so well cause only the greatest bitterness and hunger for long overdue payback against those who continue to behave in the same way. And cannot stop themselves. It's time to take advantage of Islam's self-propelled flush into the sewers of history. On every continent. Not shed the crocodile tears of Dhimmis.
Norman L. Roth, Toronto, Canada
Please GOOGLE: [1] Economics of Technos, Norman Roth [2] Origins of Markets, Norman Roth, [3] Norman Roth, Economics
It IS dhimmitude. It's their survival strategy. Nowhere else in a synagogue would Jews mix religion and politics like this.
ReplyDeleteI totally disagree with both of you.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the injonction to pray for one's country and Prince/government goes back to biblical times as already referenced in Prophet Jeremiah's call to the captives in Babylon to pray for the city:
"And seek the peace of the city into which I have exiled you and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will find your peace."
The blessing known as "Hanoten Teshuah lamelakhim" has been in the liturgy uninterrupted for thousands of years and has been adopted in Ashkenazi prayer books around the 15th/16th century.
Everywhere there are Jews today that prayer is said they pray for the King/Queen/Government/state depending on that particular country's form of government.
There is particular emphasis during the holidays but it is said every Shabat morning, and yes, in England too.Check it out.
Even the American "progressives" have adopted it while changing some of the wording(no Kings in America).
Moroccan Jews are therefore not an exception there and it has nothing to do with dhimmitude.
What is nore natural than praying for your country's and its government's well-being and success?
I must say I am puzzled by the reaction.
Hi Sylvia you are quite right that according to Jeremiah Jews in exile are enjoined to pray for their host countries and rulers. My own synagogue in the UK does this every Shabbat and there is no reason why Moroccan synagogues should not do it too.
ReplyDeleteHowever, where I find Berdugo and co going over the top is to entertain a procession of all sorts of local dignitaries and politicians and uncle Tom Cobley and all on Yom Kippur of all days, and pray not only for the present monarch but his father and grandfather. This smacks of grovelling dhimmitude which even Jeremiah would have been shocked to see.
Now this is really disingenuous.
ReplyDeleteThat's the way and the day it has been done year after year for centuries, and that must be respected. Who from that community happens to be there at the moment is irrelevant.
If you have no problem praying for the antisemitic British Parliament and infantile government and do-nothing queen, then you should have none when Jews in Morocco pray for the King of Morocco who is facing much greater challenges works a lot harder and holds more responsibilities than the queen of England.
Just to be fair.
That said, you're still entitled to your opinion of course :)
ReplyDeleteWell it's always nice to have a bit of a friendly disagreement with you Sylvia. :)
ReplyDeleteYes we do pray for the Queen. But we don't pray for generations of kings gone by, or for the British parliament or for the local municipality. (Maybe we should - the rubbish might get collected :))
Psst Sylvia,
ReplyDeleteIn case you don't know:There are virtually no Jews left in Morocco.
Maybe a couple of thousand at most.There was once nearly a third of a million there;Since
"time immemorial". Which is more than can be said for the "palestinians".The most successful propaganda,demographic and financial/parasitic hoax in recent history. Do you really believe there's some kind of moral equivalence between what passes for governance in any North African failed nation state and the U.K parliament? When was the last time you ever visited those places ? D'you know what their main urban 'industry' is. Hint:It's called paedophile-tourism. But that doesn't make poor old Maroc any different than most other Muslim failed nation states. Whatever became of 'la mission civilastrice'? Maybe those wicked old colonial empires had more realism going for them than all those 'progressive' lefties & junk academics care to admit. Where are Lyautey and Kitchener now that we really need them ?
There are nearly three million muslims in Britain and about 5 million in France;Close elections followed by cobbled-together coalitions are the rule rather than the exception in most constitutional democracies,these days. Maybe that may have something to do with the fashionable pandering to Muslim voters for de-facto recognition of a "palestinian" state. N'est ce pas ?
Norman L. Roth, Toronto Canada
Oct. 27, 2014
ReplyDeleteIt is hardly a secret that the consequences of Muslim immigration to their European host societies have been disastrous: The statistics emanating from Europe's social welfare agencies,law enforcement authorities,penal institutions, public health & urban sanitation professionals & public education institutions,tell a dismal tale:That may not be reversible. Except by the most drastic measures. But even by these dismal standards,the Moroccans stand out. Ask the City fathers and most vulnerable women of Malmo Sweden:the Dutch courts who handled the ritual slaughter of Theo Van Gough,the City fathers of Marseilles,Belgium's police officers, et al. The Moroccans take the cake. Why then all that nostalgia-faux & crocodile tears among the outrageously dispossessed Jews of Morocco & their descendants ? Righteous retribution should be their goal. Any-which way they can inflict it. There's no doubt what the fate of Morocco's 2,600 year old Jewish communities would have been, if Israel had not won all her wars: And if Morocco's aboriginal Jewish community had been left to the tender mercies of their dysfunctional Muslim neighbours. Whose descendants now bestow their naturally pathological state on their European host societies. Norman L. Roth
Toronto, Canada