Jews, Music-Making, and the Twentieth Century Maghrib
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Jews, Music-Making, and the Twentieth Century Maghrib Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9g4352x5 Author Silver, Christopher Benno Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Jews, Music-Making, and the Twentieth Century Maghrib A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Christopher Benno Silver 2017 © Copyright by Christopher Benno Silver 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Jews, Music-Making, and the Twentieth Century Maghrib by Christopher Benno Silver Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Chair From the early twentieth century and through at least mid-century, indigenous North African Jews came to play an outsized role as music-makers and music-purveyors across the Maghrib. In Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, all under French rule until the middle of the twentieth century, Jewish vocalists and instrumentalists, record label artistic directors and concessionaires, commercial agents, and sonic impresarios utilized the phonograph and recording technology to safeguard and promote traditional music –– described alternately as “Arab,” “Muslim,” and “Andalusian” –– and to pioneer popular musical forms mixed in style and language (often blending Arabic with French). Those forms produced an emerging realm of popular culture between World War I and World War II. ii Jewish prominence in music was challenged during the interwar period. That challenge emanated from a set of French officials and Muslim elites, who were uneasy with minority overrepresentation in a heritage increasingly considered in national terms and increasingly understood as the exclusive domain of the majority. With the fall of the French Third Republic and the rise of the Vichy Regime during the Second World War, Maghribi Jewish musicians in North Africa and those in metropolitan France were further sidelined and silenced –– although never completely. In the postwar period, as nationalist parties in Morocco and Tunisia and later Algeria marched toward independence –– defining their political programs in increasingly exclusionary Arabo-Muslim terms –– some Jewish musicians provided the soundtrack for that march and reached staggering heights of celebrity. Their celebrity came at the very moment that tens of thousands of Jews, unsure of their future, left the Maghrib for France and Israel. Despite their departure, the memory of Jews and especially the memory of Jewish musicians remains especially vivid among North African Jews and Muslims in the Maghrib and the Maghribi diaspora. This dissertation then, explores both the Jewishness of music-making in the Maghrib over the course of much of the twentieth century and gives voice to North African Jewish cultural life by studying the music that Jews helped to promote and make popular. A musical frame not only points us to a unique timeline, different from that defined by political events, but provides us with new tools for thinking about Jewish- Muslim relations in the region as far more intimate and far more entangled than previously assumed. iii The dissertation of Christopher Benno Silver is approved. Aomar Boum James L. Gelvin David N. Myers Edwin Seroussi Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv In the course of completing this dissertation and its chapters, I embarked upon a number of other, life-changing chapters including getting married and having a child. It is only fitting then, that I dedicate this dissertation to my wife Emily and my son Roy, who embue me and everything I do with meaning. v Table of Contents Prelude: ................................................................................................................................2 Chapter 1: Recording the Maghrib ....................................................................................25 Chapter 2: Popular Music Comes of Age ..........................................................................80 Chapter 3: Sounds and Silences in the Shadow of the Second World War.....................131 Chapter 4: Marching and Waltzing Toward Independence .............................................168 Conclusion: Ends and Beginnings:..................................................................................201 vi Acknowledgements Well over a decade ago, my undergraduate advisor at UC Berkeley Emily Gottreich guided me toward the study of Morocco and Moroccan Jews. I am forever grateful to her for doing so. That push, which turned into its own pull, brought me to Morocco for the first time in 2005 and then again in 2008 and 2009. While there in 2009, I happened upon a record store in Casablanca which changed the course of my personal and academic life. In that record store, I was first introduced to the Fasi Jewish musician Haim Botbol. Since then, I have been collecting his records, as well as those of his contempories and his predecessors. His music and that of other North African musicians has not only inspired this project but continues to inspire me as well. The musicians, those who give voice to the people –– themselves brilliant, innovative, and tireless –– deserve the first acknowledgement here. From my father, who passed away in 2003 and whose own illustrious career in the American music business I hope to someday chronicle, I learned that stars are made, not born. It was with that in mind, that I persisted in attempting to tease out the mechanics of the North African music business, even as some archival sources proved frustratingly scant. His hand can be felt throughout this entire project. From the moment I first spoke by phone to Sarah Abrevaya Stein at the end of 2011, she has served as the steadiest of inspirations and proved the most steadfast supporter. I came into UCLA not sure which story I wanted to tell but as usual and with unmatched deftness, Sarah guided me in the right direction. For the last five years, Sarah has given of her time to shape my work and my academic trajectory in untold ways. Simply put, vii this dissertation would not have been possible without her and her encouragement. I am forever indebted to Sarah for her mentorship and her friendship. I am also infininitely grateful to the other members of my committee (in alphabetical order). I have found Aomar Boum, whom I have known the longest of my committee members, to possess boundless insight. He has also been a faithful guide to the borderland joining history and anthropology. Jim Gelvin has not only indelibly enriched my knowledge of the modern Middle East but so too schooled me in the fine art of concision (which I practice on occasion). David Myers, in addition to giving me the firmest grounding in modern Jewish History that I could have ever hoped for, offered me and others advice that I have long sought to follow: if a historian does nothing else, s/he should surprise their reader. I hope I have accomplished that here. Finally, Edwin Seroussi, as knowledgemeable as he is generous, has been an indefatigauble partner on this dissertation project. I am humbled to be in the company of all of my committee members. My work would not have been possible without the significant financial support of a number of organizations, foundations, and departments. At UCLA, the Maurice Amado Program; fellowships from the Roter and Monkarsh families; the Graduate Student Research Mentorship Award (GSRM); the History Department; the Center for Jewish Studies (CJS); and the Sady Kahn Trust enabled me to do the transcontinental research necessary for a project of this nature. Similarly, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS); the American Academy of Jewish Research (AAJR); and the Posen Society of Fellows provided me with generous funding to do archival work and to write. I also thank Robert Parks, Karim Ouaras, and Nassim Balla at the Centre d'Études Maghrébines en Algérie (CEMA) and Laryssa Chomiak at Le Centre d’Etudes viii Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT) for their unparalleled professionalism. I extend my thanks as well to the directors and staff at the archives and libraries visited for this dissertation project. In Algeria: Les Archives Nationales d’Algérie and Les Archives Wilayales d’Alger. In France: Archives de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle; Archives nationales (AN); Archives nationales d’outre mer (ANOM); Les Archives de la Préfecture de Police; Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF); Centre des Archives Politiques de Nantes (CADN); Le Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie (CREM- Paris); and Institut Européen des Musiques Juives (IEMJ). In Israel: the Central Zionist Archives (CZA) and the National Library of Israel (NLI). In Tunisia: Les Archives Nationales de Tunisie (ANT); Bibliothèque nationale de Tunisie (BNT); and Le Centre des Musiques Arabes et Méditerranéennes (CMAM). For this dissertation, I relied heavily on a global network of guides, gatekeepers, interlocutors, and preservors of materials and memories. This list –– in alphabetical order –– only begins to do justice to the benefit I have derived from knowing and learning from the following individuals and for the friendships formed. I thank the following: Murielle Abitbol-Levy; Bachir Aguerguan; Yolande Amzallag; Freha Amazallag; Hannah Rae Armstrong; Leila Ben-Gacem; Wafa Ben Hassine; Ilan Bieber; Morgan Corriou;