Moroccan Jewish Onomastics in Casablanca Lessons on Moroccan Jewish Identification and Positionality
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Moroccan Jewish Onomastics in Casablanca Lessons on Moroccan Jewish Identification and Positionality Senior Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Undergraduate Program in Near Eastern & Judaic Studies Professor Jonathan Decter, Advisor In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts By Gabi Hersch May 2017 Copyright by Gabi Hersch Committee Members Name: Professor Jonathan Decter Signature: _____________________________ Name: Professor Bernadette Brooten Signature: _____________________________ Name: Professor ChaeRan Freeze Signature: ______________________________ Hersch 2 Acknowledgements Researching and writing this thesis, from my study abroad semester in Morocco, to my senior year at Brandeis University has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my undergraduate career. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the guidance of my advisor, Professor Decter. Thank you, firstly, for inspiring me to look into this field through your class “Jews in the World of Islam,” and secondly, for guiding me towards pursuing this particular topic of onomastics, and for showing me where to begin such a study. I never would have thought of this on my own, and I have learned a great deal. Thank you for providing me with beneficial feedback as I made progress on my thesis, and helping me to understand making conclusions within my limitations of study. Another huge thank you to Professor Vanessa Paloma-Elbaz, for all of your incredible help conducting my research during my study abroad semester in Morocco, as well as continuing to help me from across the ocean as I rummaged the internet for archives of names. Providing me with the resource of the Jewish cemetery in Casablanca was invaluable for this project, and your advice is always greatly appreciated. Thank you to the scholars and friends I met in Morocco who helped me with my research there, as well as the scholars who suggested readings for my thesis when I came back to the States. Lastly, thank you to my friends and family who have supported me throughout this project. I hope you enjoy the results. Hersch 3 Table Of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 Interest…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6 Research Methods ……………………………………………………………………………………9 Background……………………………………………………………………………………………. 15 Jewish Onomastics……………………………………………………………………………. 15 A Brief Historical Background of Moroccan Jews………………………………… 20 More On Language as a Vehicle for Identity.……………………………………….. 27 Name Affiliations …………………………………………………………………………………… 36 Name Results………………………………………………………………………………………….. 39 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 52 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………….. 53 Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 58 Hersch 4 I. Introduction Morocco is often controversially referred to as a “transit country,” as there is overwhelming migration and movement through the country. Because of this phenomenon, there are a plethora of cultures that settle in Morocco—at least temporarily. The Jewish presence in Morocco is believed to have existed for over 2,500 years, as they settled in the area under the Roman Empire before the Arab conquest. The Spanish Inquisition of the Jews starting in 1492 led Sephardic Jews to flee to Morocco in large waves where they resided for centuries, as well, making up a separate part of the Moroccan Jewish population. These main two groups of Moroccan Jewry, referred to as the Megorashim (expelled Spanish Jews) and Toshavim (settlers or natives), lived in Morocco for centuries and became a recognized important part of Moroccan culture. With the establishment of Israel in 1948, anti-Semitism increased in Morocco, causing large waves of emigration out of Morocco to places such as Israel and France. Onomastics is a field recognizing the social and political implications of names, as mentioned in the work entitled Nomenclatural Poetization and Globalization: “Names, therefore, can have political meaning: as a function of belonging or exclusion and can subsequently become a social and political engagement with far-reaching consequences.”1 There is plenty of historical backing to this, from post-Baptism “Christian” names given to Africans, to names being used as identifiers in genocides such as Rwanda, Bosnia, and in the Holocaust.2 With their exclusionary power, distinctive names can be seen as a threat to national 1 Ankumah, 2014, Nomenclatural Poetization and Globalizations, 100. 2 Ankumah, 2014, Nomenclatural Poetization and Globalizations, 100, 108. Hersch 5 identity, and thus a threat to the viability of nation-states because of their effects preserving culture and identifying in a particular community.3 During my time studying abroad in Morocco from January through May of 2016, I was struck by how language was used as a social and political identity marker. This led me to believe that name trends among Jews could reveal vast insight into the social, political, and religious affiliations of the Jewish community of Casablanca, the families, as well as the individuals. This thesis seeks to analyze records of Jewish names in Casablanca to see if a trend could be found regarding national and cultural affiliations based on first and last names. My research will analyze name patterns in the Jewish communities in Casablanca, Morocco from the turn of the 20th century to the present in order to determine whether names trend more towards Biblical, European (colonizing forces: French and Spanish), Hebrew, Moroccan, or pan-Arab patterns. This study will touch upon the broader concepts of identity, positionality4, and preservation of culture through the narrower lens of Moroccan Jewish naming trends. Through this analysis, my thesis will demonstrate that there appears to be a correlation between Jewish Moroccan history and Jewish Moroccan naming trends through the 20th century to present day. 3 Ankumah, 2014, Nomenclatural Poetization and Globalizations, 118. 4 Positionality is defined as: “The occupation or adoption of a particular position in relation to others, usually with reference to issues of culture, ethnicity, or gender.” by the Oxford English Dictionary. Dictionary, O. E. (2017). Oxford English dictionary online. Hersch 6 II. Interest NEJS 144 To describe how I came upon this topic, my freshman year, I enrolled in NEJS144, a class on “Jews in the World of Islam” with Professor Decter (currently my thesis advisor). While this class mainly focused on the relationships between the Jewish and Muslim communities in the Middle East and Spain in the 2nd millennium, this class also incorporated the book, Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture, 1893–1958. In this book, there were essays and speeches written by Mizrahi (Arab) Jews expressing, among other things, their opinion on establishing a Jewish State in the Middle East before it occurred. Inspired by Mizrahi conceptions of Zionism prior to the establishment of Israel, I decided to study abroad in Morocco during my junior year to further my study of balance of Arab and Jewish identity of Mizrahi Jews post-establishment of Israel. Study ProJect in Morocco My semester abroad was through the SIT Program: “Migration and Transnational Identity.” In this program, for the first two months, students are enrolled in intensive and rigorous courses and living with a host family in the “Old Medina” (Old City) of Rabat. In the last month, students set out on their own to conduct an “Independent Study Project” of their choice. I conducted my anthropological research project on the preservation of Moroccan Jewish identity in Casablanca, Morocco through food rituals and language. During the month allotted to work on this project, I lived on Boulevard D’Anfa in a highly Jewish area in Hersch 7 Casablanca. With the help of my advisor, the renowned scholar and traditional Sephardic music performer and singer, Vanessa Paloma, I volunteered at a Jewish school in Casablanca for this final month. I also conducted interviews, such as one with a Moroccan linguist based in Rabat, named Mohamed Elmedlaoui, who discovered the vast effect of Jewish influence on Moroccan culture through language and Hebraic influence on words and symbols. Dr. Elmedlaoui asserted that the importance of names is that they give the individual a place of belonging, which is very telling of how a community wants to associate. In the older generation, some very famous Jewish Moroccans are named Jacques, Serge, and André. These French names serve as a vehicle for the Jewish community to self-identify with European/Francophone society. This political association is a symbolic attempt to position themselves “higher” on the cultural hierarchy; firstly, in order to situate themselves for social and economic success, and secondly, in many ways, to distinguish themselves from their non-Jewish Moroccan counterparts who often used Arab (and/or Muslim) first names. What struck me about being immersed in the Jewish community in Casablanca was that many names I came across were blatantly Jewish. Names such as Rivka, Yael, Haim and Noam were names I regularly came across. Names are identity markers: a way to group oneself in with a community, and to separate oneself from another community. This inspired me to include “names” as a component of my analysis of preservation of culture. While I encountered these names in Jewish spaces, I was not able to observe these same individuals interacting in non-Jewish