On Tuesday after spending time at the ocean I went to Bayt Dakira, a Synagogue and museum displaying the history of the Moroccan Jews.

I learned that during World War II the King of Morocco took steps to protect Moroccan Jews from Vichy persecution. I first learned this from my Uber driver in Virginia. He was from Morocco, born in Casablanca. We chatted for an hour outside of my cousin's driveway, a couple of weeks before my departure to Morocco.

May the words blow reach your hearts and minds, let them be the antifreeze to our foggy windows so that we may all see beyond that which is in front of us. I pray we continue to separate the actions of religious and political institutions, and their desire to separate us for the sake of profits and power for a few. Yesterday our focus was Russia and Ukraine. Today it is Israel and Palestine (again), tomorrow it will be another two countries, and most will forget our calls for peace and only remember the hate in our hearts for one another.

Bayt Dakira, Synagogue and Museum (translated from Arabic to English using Google Translate):

<<Bayt Dakira” has assigned itself this mission, this duty of memory. At the heart of a three-dimensional space, spirituality with the Slat Attia synagogue, memory and history with Bayt Dakira and science with the Haïm Zafrani Research Center to revisit the history of Islam-Judaism relations, she intends tell, present, testify. Tell this unique and exemplary story, present its most exhilarating chapters and its most contrasting pages, and finally bear witness to this spirit. Because there was a spirit of Mogador, or a breath if you prefer. Lively and powerful as shown by the exceptional successes, over time in Morocco and throughout the world, of the Souirie Jewish diaspora.

"Anti-Semitism is the antonym of freedom"

In fact, racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular are not opinions at all. Anti-Semitism is the antonym of freedom of expression. It manifests the negation of the Other and constitutes the admission of a failure, of an insufficiency, of an inability to coexist.

However, the battle against these scourges cannot be improvised. This fight has a name: education (...)

The history of Moroccan Jews is a very eloquent illustration of this. Carried by the Sultans and Kings of Morocco, it is the story of a crossed destiny and a historical continuity which has, at all times, considered the Jews as Moroccan citizens having the same equal and complete rights as their brothers. Muslims.

This is the image we want to draw in the minds of our children. It is this heritage that we want to leave to them. And it is this message of peace that we have come to deliver, by giving education the place of choice that it unanimously deserves.

Excerpts from the Message of HM King Mohammed VI to participants in the UNESCO Summit on "The power of education to prevent racism and discrimination: the case of anti-Semitism". (New York, September 26, 2018)

Faith in life, faith in humans

In these times of withdrawal where points of reference are blurred and disarray dominates, it is imperative to remember that this was possible. It was possible to live together while remaining ourselves. It was possible to recognize difference and establish its respect as a rule of life. It was possible and if it was, then it can be again. Shalom Alaykoum, Salam Lekoulam. The embers are still hot, just waiting to be rekindled. So that hope can be reborn. So that faith can be rekindled. Faith in life, faith in humans.

Shalom Alaykoum, Salam Lekoulam

Listen. Do you hear them? Do you hear these children's laughter that punctuates the night.

Starry? Crackling like living water, they fill the narrow streets with their echoes.

Listen up, it was yesterday, just yesterday, and Essaouira-Mogador remembers. She remembers this time of fraternity, this market square occupied by a joyful crowd. It's the Mimouna. Jews and Muslims invaded the streets and squares of Mogador, together, by the hundreds, by the thousands. Hearts are jubilant, houses open, tables generous and the neighbour king. Essaouira-Mogador likes to do things in its own special and unique way. She wanted her sons united by a common history. A history made of successive contributions, of stones deposited

Over the centuries by all the civilizations which have fertilized this rebellious point of land. And so many of them nourished the silt that Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah could not hope for better soil for his city-world. Because that’s what Mogador was, for more than a century. A city magnetized by the distant horizon, open to others and which welcomes, adds and never rejects. The foreigner feels at home there, each Mogadorian, in his own way, coming from elsewhere. Extremely rare in Islam, Moroccans of Jewish faith formed the majority of the Souiri population in the 19th century. They live alongside Muslims in exceptional proximity. This serene coexistence permeates Souiri Judaism, a Judaism of the spirit and not of the letter, bathed in spirituality and open to the universal, like this city swept by the sea air.

Ronit Elkabetz

She still had so much to give, so much to say. Like an incandescent star that irradiates the sky before disappearing, Ronit Elkabetz passed away at the peak of her career. Carried away by cancer. She was only 51 years old.

"Those who live are those who struggle" she declared. Actress and screenwriter Ronit Elkabetz excelled in the interpretation of rebellious female characters. Intense eyes, ivory skin and jet-black hair, Ronit carried her origins across his shoulder. Her flamboyant beauty resembled that of her ancestors from Mogador.

From the City of Trade Winds, Ronit inherited the cultural tradition, which she strongly claimed. “Arab culture is in our blood, in our cuisine, our music and our language,” she said, recounting that, when she was a child, “her family gathered every Friday afternoon to watch an Egyptian film.”

Arriving in cinema in 1990, she co-wrote and co-directed with her younger brother, Schlomi, a trilogy built around the story of her parents. The main thread is Viviane, a woman in search of emancipation whose character is directly inspired by her mother, a hairdresser in Mogador.

In Israel where Ronit returned to live in 2000, she said “I live in the heart of the old city of Jaffa because it brings the two communities together closely... It is important for me to share my daily life with that of the Palestinians.".

From Mogador, Ronit not only inherited the beauty of it's women. She also had a taste for the other and a militant quest for peace which never left her.