1st Edition
Sites of Jewish Memory Jews in and From Islamic Lands in Modern Times
This book brings together a collection of 16 essays that explore Jewish communities in North Africa, Turkey and Iraq. The discussions are located primarily in the 20th century but essays also examine the Jewish community in 16th-century Istanbul, and in early modern Morocco. Topics include traumatic departures of communities from countries of centuries-old Jewish residence, and relocations; pilgrimages to holy sites by Mizrahi Jews in Israel; resonances of Shabbetai Zevi in Turkey and Morocco; "otherness" and the nature of homeland; the Sephardi culinary heritage as realised in the cookbooks of Claudia Roden; sites of memory, such as Kuzguncuk in Turkey; and a controversial view of the exclusions and erasures that Arabized Jews have undergone. In this unique collection a major, but not exclusive, theme is that of the instability of memory, and the attempt to understand the interactions between memory and history as Jews recount their experiences of living in, and often leaving, their past homelands.
This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies.
Preface
Part 1: North Africa
1. Myth, History and Realpolitik: Morocco and its Jewish Community Samir Ben-Layashi and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
2. The Contribution of World Jewish Organizations to the Establishment of Rights for Jews in Morocco (1956-1961) Yigal Bin-Nun
3. Double Trauma and Manifold Narratives: Jews’ and Muslims’ Representations of the Departure of Moroccan Jews in the 1950s and 1960s Emanuela Trevisan Semi
4. The Migrations of Moroccan Jews to Montreal: Memory, (Oral) History and Historical Narrative Yolande Cohen
5. Of Messiahs and Sultans: Shabbatai Zevi and Early Modernity in Morocco Emily Benichou Gottreich
6. Al-Bilad Al-Haqaniya? Otherness and Homeland in the Case of Djerban Jewry Nomi Stone
7. Remembering the Other: Postcolonial Perspectives on Relationships Between Jews and Muslims in French Algeria Claire Eldridge
Part 2: The Middle East
8. Kuzguncuk as a Village of Mutual Respect and Harmony: Myth or Reality? Erdem Güven
9. Who Needs Arab-Jewish Identity? Fragmented Consciousness, "Inessential Solidarity", and the "Coming Community" Reuven Snir
10. Claudia Roden’s and Joan Nathan’s Cookbooks Jo-Ann Berelowitz
11. Cortijo De Sevi as Lieu De Mémoire: The Past, Present and Future of Sabbatai Sevi’s House Cengiz Sisman
12. Captive Gazelles: Iraqi Jewry in Modern Times in Relation to Cultural Practices and Vernacular Housing Zohar Amar and Ephraim Nissan
13. Three German Travellers on Istanbul Jews Yaron Ben-Naeh and Giacomo Saban
14. Mizrahim and the Development of Sacred Space in the State of Israel, 1948-1968 Doron Bar
15. Arabic Journalism as a Vehicle for Enlightenment: Iraqi Jews in the Arabic Press During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Reuven Snir
Biography
Glenda Abramson is Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford, UK. Her publications include Modern Hebrew Drama, The Writing of Yehuda Amichai, Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel, Hebrew Writing of the First World War, Soldiers’ Tales and articles on modern Hebrew literature, Jewish culture and war writing.
