Jewish Passover in Morocco -- Marrakech

My host often jokes that I'm going to leave Morocco with the incorrect impression that the country is entirely Jewish. Although I certainly see a good deal of the Islamic crowd when I walk to the Acima, to the butcher's, or take a quick, harried jaunt through the souk, the majority of people I meet through Mike are Jewish. And if they're not Jewish, they tend to look uncannily Jewish. As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, Morocco was heavily populated by this particular race until 1948, but now there are around 3000 remaining in the entire country. I believe I've met about thirty of them, so I now know 1/100th of the Jews in Morocco.

Things I never thought I'd be able to say.

Mike knows that I'm very interested in studying different religions and experiencing good food, and as Passover is an ideal time to experience a bit of Jewish religion whilst eating good food, he arranged for us to enjoy Friday night Passover and Saturday afternoon lunch with Gad's family in Marrakech. Mike assured me that Gad's family wasn't nearly as strict in regards to Passover as many of the remaining Moroccan Jews, so the prayers would probably take about forty minutes (as opposed to a couple of hours), and that they'd be very happy to share their feast with me after we'd performed the appropriate pre-feast procedures. As I grew up in a fairly religious Christian family, I'd already been able to experience a couple church Passover ceremonies during my sunday-school years, but I very much wanted the opportunity to compare and contrast.

What I remember from my sunday-school years:

I remember sitting in a cold, grey room with people a fair few years older than me. I remember the plastic tables, the plastic chairs, the paper plates, and the tacky tablecloth doing its best to disguise the cheap table and only exacerbating the condition. I remember practicing my tap dancing steps and twirling my waist-length braids in extreme impatience as the master of ceremonies droned on and on about the Bible stories my eight-year-old self already knew by heart. I remember everyone was very, very quiet. No laughing, no shenaniganizing, no slouching. I remember that after what seemed like hours of hapless waiting, I was awarded some horseradish and some salt -- to commemorate bitterness, or something of that nature. After the horseradish, someone passed me a tiny morsel of tasteless cracker -- that I might remember how quickly the Israelites fled their rather unsavory working conditions. I remember the best thing about the whole tiresome experience being the grape juice. After the prayers, I remember the food being bland and not nearly enough.

What I experienced Friday night:

Gad's mother, father, two sisters, random friend, Mike, and myself shared Passover of 2012 in Marrakech, Morocco. Before easing ourselves into the ornate wooden chairs surrounding the elaborately laid-out table, we sat in the parlor and took our aperitifs (it's a Jewish/French/Moroccan Passover). We passed around toasted nuts, champagne, olives, and pickled vegetables that were so salty I failed to distinguish the difference between the turnip and the artichoke.

After chatting amiably with Gad's sister over my pickled green beans (who studied in New York so speaks fluent English), I joined the rest of the family as they headed into the dining room to perform their traditional Seder Ceremony.

It was so much nicer than I remember. My goodness. Gad's family replaced the horseradish with celery, the grape juice with wine, and as I now know that I'm celiac, I was excused from ingesting the flavorless crackers (which were very much the same as I remember). The family laughed and joked the entire time, occasionally reaching such a crescendo that I could no longer hear Gad's father reading his Hebrew text through the cheerful French babbling.

The wine. We had to drink twice before the meal began. The instructions and reasons for drinking were in Hebrew, so I'm not sure as to why I drunk, but I did drink. Twice. If you attend a Passover and you only drink once, assume that you are being cheated out of your extra glass of wine/grape juice. 

Part of the ceremony involved passing a pot of flowers over all our heads whilst saying a prayer. This is Gad's mother (you'll notice she's sitting at the head of the table). I think she's delightful. 

Celery instead of horseradish... I don't think we even ate the rest. A little bit of date jam, but that's it. 

Mike can be very Jewish indeed. 

The ubiquitous bland, flavorless crackers. Sometimes I think it might have been better for the Israelites to have waited in Egypt for the bread to rise, even if it meant another 100 years or so of slavery. Then their descendants wouldn't be cursed to consume this sandpaper every April. 

Here's a bit of Gad's father reading in Hebrew:

After we'd finished the feast of veal, apricots, walnuts, dates, and vegetables, Mike and I bid everyone a very contented "a bientot," promising we'd see them for lunch the following day. 

Before coming to Morocco, I assumed that most Jewish food would be the fairly similar regardless of the country in which the Jew resided. The Bible tells you what you can and cannot eat, so I figured kosher would be kosher and the differences between Moroccan Jew and European Jew wouldn't be all that vast. 

I was wrong. So very, very wrong. These are not gefilta fish eating Jews. These Jews eat a Saturday lunch of vegetables and meat that have been slow-cooking for twenty-four hours. The meat cooks on top of the vegetables in a large pot, so the drippings from the beef marinate the vegetables all night long. The meat falls apart in your mouth, and I don't remember the last time I've had more flavorful vegetables. 

In conclusion, if you visit Morocco before all the Jews pack up and leave for France, do your absolute best to track down one of the remaining 3000 and ask if you can join them for Passover. It's a really marvelous occasion in Morocco.