Mellah and Mirâara Marrakech, Morocco October 15, 2007 The Mellah is the traditional term for the Jewish quarter in a city. There are very few Jews left in Morocco-once one of the largest Sephardic communities in the Muslim world. I was able to discover two possible origins of the term Mellah, which is derived from "salt" in Arabic. One was the Jewish dominance of the salt trade between North Africa and the city of Timbuktu. The other origin may have been in Fez, where it was a Jewish job to wash and salt the heads of executed prisoners so that they could be preserved and displayed around the Sultan's lands. Apparently, the term originated in Fes. Jewish communities in Morocco often dominated the salt trade, were bankers, dominated the sugar trade, were metalworkers, jewelers and tailors. However, there were also sever restrictions on the community. They could not own land, could not wear shoes outside of the Mellah and could not ride a horse. In most cities, the Mellah was located inside the Kashbah and next to the palace-fortress of the local leader. It made taxation easier, made it easier to protect the Jews from pogroms and provided a scapegoat if things went bad. The streets are extremely narrow, the shops very cramped and the buildings very high. Landlords of the Mellah-never Jews-worked to prevent the expansion of the Mellah's so every area was utilized. From what I have been able to read, there were Berber tribes that at some point converted to Judaism, Jews who may have immigrated here as early as the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. but most came to Morocco from Spain and Portugal after they were evicted in 1492. Both Mohammed V and Hussan II wanted the Moroccan Jews to stay and not immigrate after the founding of Israel in 1948 and Moroccan Independence in 1956. However, there was an active Zionist movement encouraging migration to Morocco since the 1920's. Most Moroccan Jews were extremely poor and required financial help to emigrate. The founding of the state of Israel and pogroms after the 1967 war convinced most Jews to migrate to Israel (where they again occupied the very bottom of the social scale but higher than the Palitianian-arabs), Europe and America. The Moroccan Monarchy wanted the Jews to stay for their contacts in trade and for their own vision of Morocco as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic culture. Interestingly, throughout Morocco's history they have had contact with the State of Israel, and both governments have communicated secretly by using Moroccans who return from Israel to visit family to carry secret diplomatic messages. The Mellah in Marrakech was built in 1558 by Ahmed's predecessor and is one of the oldest in Morocco. No one knows exactly why. Today the neighborhood is known as Hay Essalam and is a poor Muslim neighborhood. Most of the Marrakesh Jews that didn't emigrate overseas migrated as a community to Casablanca where they continue to live to this day-about 6000. Those that remain in Marrakesh are primarily poor and elderly and only number about 250. The Jewish cemetery, Mirâara, was started before the mellah was founded, around 1537. For the first 200 years, there were no inscriptions at all, just this elliptical mounds. Then, they shifted and implanted small marble pieces with the persons name and dates. Children were still buried without any identification. Later, the tombs followed the French Christian tradition and placed more information about the dead on the tomb. Two brothers were caretakers for the cemetery. They came from a Muslim family that has cared for this cemetery for the last 35 generations-which may be a bit of an exaggeration. Between the two of them, they spoke a multitude of languages-one brother speaking with the Israelis in Hebrew while the other brother answered my questions in English. The brother I spoke with posed for photographs taken by his brother of Chelsea and Hilary Clinton who visited the cemetery when they were in Marrakesh on a state visit in 1999.

Dar Si Said Marrakech, Morocco October 15, 2007 The Dar Si Said was build by the simpleton brother of Bou Ahmed. Today, it has been turned into a museum of Moroccan art and artifacts. The Riad is filled with lemon trees, palms and flowers. There were some wonderful doors here all made of cedar-wood. The museum was really neat because of all the very day items in it.

Palais De La Bahia The Bahia Palace Marrakech, Morocco October 14, 2007 The palace was originally built by Si Moussa in 1866-7 who had risen from slave to Moulay Hassan's chamberlain and later grand vizier. His son, Bou Ahmed later became chamberlain to Moulay Hassan and at Hassan's death, was able to both conceal his death until he was able to get Hassan's fourteen year old so,n Moulay Abd el Aziz, named Sultan with Ahmed as the regent. Ahmed ruled the state till his death in 1900. Bahia was both his house and his office. He added a vegetable garden, a hammam and a mosque to his fathers estate. It housed his family which included four wives, 24 concubines and numerous children. The house is the model of Moroccan architecture, private spaces separated by walls and gardens, you cant see into the next set of rooms from any doorway. Walter Harris, the London Times correspondent, who know the vizier, wrote about the events surrounding Ahmed's death: "for several days as the vizier lay expiring, guards were stationed outside his palace waiting in silence for the end. An then one morning the wail of the women within the house told that death had come. Every gateway of the great building was seized and no one was allowed to enter or come out, while within there was pandemonium. His slaves pillaged whatever they could lay their hands on. His women fought and stole to get possessions of the jewels. Safes were broken open, documents and title-deeds were extracted, precious stones were torn from their settings, the more easily to be concealed, and even murder took place...a few days later nothing remained but the great building - all the rest had disappeared into space. His family were driven out into ruin and his vast properties passed into the possession of the state. It was the custom of the country." Visiting the house is seeing it exactly like it was at the moment abandonment. The rooms are bare but for the beautiful tile work and painted ceilings. The royal family still lives here from time to time.

Food 101 Morocco As in all cultures, food plays an extremely important role in daily life. Morocco is still primarily an agricultural nation. It was raining on the day we arrived and we were told that Morocco had recently suffered a two year drought which had caused the cost of food to rise through the roof. Khalid said that still today the price of grain is very high and that much of it is imported from the United States. What I like so much about these countries is how healthy much of the food is. Much of the agriculture would be labeled organic in the United States, the fact is that most farmers can't afford the expensive fertilizer. Much of the meat and fish is fresh, the swordfish I had was special that day which means it was probably caught that morning. In the fish markets I have seen swordfish and sharks that were caught that morning and were being cut up for steaks. Politically, the rain is vital. When the crops fail, the poor move to cities to find work-of which there is very little. Some try to illegally immigrate to Europe and others join the underground economy. They build slums illegally and when they run out of money-often times they riot. Agricultural failure is both a threat to the Monarchy but also the the European Union. Dinning Etiquette: you eat with your fingers and only with your right hand. There are no plates-a large dish is placed at the center of the table and you just take what you want. Small dishes of salad (beans, potatoes, not a lettuce salad) are passed around as are plates of olives. You work your way into he center of the dish. Every meal is accompanied with LOTS of bread-baguettes, cornbread, flat bread, bread I don't know what it is.... The most surprising thing has been the amount of turkey that I have eaten. I didn't know that turkeys were cultivated in Morocco.

Drinks Cafe culture is something adopted by the Moroccans from France and mixed with Berber hospitality. They are primarily male preserves-in Marrakech I saw a number of female tourists drinking in Cafe's but here in Kenitra, the cafe is all male. There is a joke that goes between one cafe and another cafe there was a cafe. (just replace it with Starbucks and you get the idea) Coffee-this may be what I miss most during this Ramadan time. I have been having coffee after the Iftar, and it is a strong almost espresso like solution which requires milk and sugar or it will burn a hole in my stomach. Most people drink it nas'nas-half milk and half coffee. Mint Tea: Everyone here drinks mint tea and almost all the time. It is the national drink. It is a strong green "gunpowder" tea with lots of fresh mint thrown in. It has plenty of caffeine and plenty of sugar. Expiates often jokingly call it "Whisky Marocain." Soda: They do drink a little bit of soda-like a jelly jar glass full with dinner. Coke Cola is very popular which was introduced when the Americans invaded Morocco during World War II. The soda of choice at most cafe's seems to be Fanta-an orange soda. Hunja: a strong ginseng tea with lots of cinnamon thrown in. It is traditionally also eaten with a dark heavy cake like gingerbread called sellou. It is very good for you if you are sick and is reputed to be an aphrodisiac. Fruit and Vegetable juices. Morocco made a decision to become an orange exporting country in the 1960's so orange juice is everywhere. I have also had various vegetables mixed with milk-the Zucchini juice kinda tasted like pistachio's.

Meat-Fish-Poultry I don't know how a vegetarian could travel outside of the tourist areas. If you ask for a meatless dish-the presumption is your too poor to afford meat so they will give you meat as an act of charity. Sardines the size of your fist, baked-excellent. Swordfish and perch-I think-baked or fried. i was a little concerned-I saw the fish-market where this food was purchased. Also, the river is the most polluted in Morocco - Oued Sebou-mainly from factories in Fez. A kind of Moroccan sausage called Merguez with lamb, seminolia wheat, rice, spices and green olives. It was ok but the cat loved it. Pastilla: a kind of pie-fillo dough wrapped around ground almonds and shredded chicken then topped with sugar and cinnamon. I am not use to eating meat with raw sugar, but it was actually very good. Most street food is meat based, like berbouch (snail soup), swarma (shredded chicken in pita bread) or grilled meats and sausages. At the Djemaa el-Fna, I saw an English woman get sick at sight of sheep's heads and all the smoke from the grills. Again-with the french fries. They must have become universal. Everything gets served with fries, swarma, chicken and olive sandwiches, pot roast-I even had an omelet with fries thrown in.

Hassan II Mosque Casablanca, Morocco October 20, 2007 "i wish Casablanca to be endowed with a large, fine building of which it can be proud until the end of time...I want to build this mosque on the water because God's throne is on the water. therefore, the faithful who go there to pray, to praise the creator on firm soil, can contemplate God's sky and ocean." Hassan II on the day of this birthday July 9, 1980 Hassan got his wish. The mosque took thirteen years to complete and was inaugurated on August 30, 1993. Designed by French architect Michel Pinseau, it has the worlds tallest minaret at 210 meters (about 650 feet) and at night a laser beam is shined towards Makka. It is the third largest mosque in the world, after the massive complexes in Makka and Medina. To contemplate the ocean, part of the floor is glass which looks down to the Atlantic ocean. To contemplate the sky, the roof - covered in cedar-wood engravings-rolls open on specific religious feast days and to "change the air;" according to the tour guide. The mosque could house Notre Dame in Paris or St. Peters in Rome within its walls. The floor is headed for the winter, and the large doors-which are brass and titanium-are electrically operated. (Because the mosque was built over the ocean corrosive salt air is a major concern. As the guide said-"if we open all the time (the roof), the air break everything." The interior has room for 20,000 male believers and 5 thousand women. The courtyard contains enough space for another 80,000 believers to join in. All the other mosques I have been in always put women in a balcony in the back. Pinseau took a different approach-putting a series of back escalators and staircases from the ablutions room to two enormous loges-so the women literally worship above the men. I thought this was a nice compromise. The mosque was built almost entirely of Moroccan goods, cedar woodcarvings, marble, stone and plaster. The only foreign product is glass from Marano, Venice in the chandlers - of which there are 56. Fourteen hundred workers worked during the day and a further eleven-hundred worked at night. The mosque was paid by "voluntary" subscription-costing in excess of $750 million. So much money was donated, that the money supply country wide shrank and it reduced inflation. I really wanted to visit this mosque because there are only five mosques in Morocco that non- muslims can visit. The French, in an effort to get along with the Moroccans, agreed to forbid westerners from visiting their mosques and the policy has remained.