A true beacon of hope

A couple days ago we had some free time and I decided to go back to the Jewish quarter in Fes with a friend. This man named Jacob approached us, who said he was Jewish and has lived in Fes his whole life. He showed us all these buildings which used to be occupied by Jews, and even showed us an old synagogue he was trying to restore.

My judgement probably would have been better had I not been so desperate to find a connection like this one. This was the moment I had been waiting for; to meet a Jewish person living a Jewish life in Fes. Someone who is thriving with the life he is leading. A beacon of hope for Jews everywhere that Jewish life is still alive in places where the Jewish presence was once so strong.

At the end of our tour, he asked for money. Not tzedakah, but exploitation. He was not satisfied with all that I could offer him. He wanted more and when I said that was all I had, he became furious. He asked me how I could give him so little when he was trying to bring back this synagogue for people like me; American Jews. Ahh okay now I understand the whole point of this “tour.” Maybe he heard my friend and I talking about the rabbi’s house we passed, or perhaps he had followed us all the way from the Jewish cemetery. He heard us speaking English. He knew we were Americans and that at least one of us was Jewish. Perfect opportunity. Let’s make these people believe these random buildings were once of significance to their people. Let’s see how much I can bullshit them and then how much money I can get from them. After all, American Jews are rolling in money, aren’t they?

Why? Why would you take advantage of someone like that? Someone who’s looking for their people’s history, someone looking for a piece of their past. I truly don’t understand. Upon meeting the man I thought, “Wow this is another miracle from God, another chance to have my spirits lifted.” I followed this stranger who I thought I could trust, through the streets of the Jewish quarter which doesn’t have enough Jews to even be called such anymore. It’s merely a museum now.

I followed him blindly, gulping up every piece of information, taking pictures of every random building he claimed to be restoring for Jews to come back and see. He claimed there would be a revitalization of Jewish life in the area, but really all he was looking for was just a plump stack in his wallet.

Now this could all have been true. He could have been Jewish, could have been showing me an actual synagogue that he was trying to restore. I think I was just frustrated with the fact that he took advantage of my identity as a Jew to get money out of me, instead of just taking me on a tour out of the goodness of his own heart in order to educate a fellow Jew.

I’m weak. I don’t really know how to move forward. I don’t know if I can do much more of this isolation from my community. I don’t know how much more I can stand praying by myself, quietly, so as not to bring attention to my actions. I don’t know how to stop living in fear, how to stop questioning whether I’ll wear a Jewish star today. I just want to live, I want to be proud, I want to share with the world my amazing culture, traditions, and family.

I want to travel. Oh gosh I want to travel so badly. I want to go everywhere in the world without worry how those people feel about Jews. I want to be able to learn from everyone’s different cultures and to share my own. But it’s not that simple. And unfortunately it hasn’t been that simple for a while now.

Earlier today, we had a lecture conducted by two professors from a university in Mekenes. One of the professors was talking about religious pluralism in Morocco and claimed that Morocco has always been so welcoming to Jews and other minority religions. He claimed that Jews have only moved out of Morocco because they wanted to live in Israel, that they felt compelled to move to their homeland. He said it wasn’t an invasion, but an opening, a conversion that was neccessary to give people organized religion.

What about the thousands of Jews massacred for refusing to convert? What about the Animist religions that were completely lost because of their forced conversion? By calling the Arab invasion of Morocco an “opening,” he was closing all the other religions present at the time, shutting them out by saying they were not there. They were more than there; they were thriving. However, even when I brought this up to him, he completely disregarded me, flashing his condescending smile and saying “We’re all similar and different, so let’s accept the differences.” No, it’s not okay to disregard other people’s history by overshadowing them with yours. It’s not okay to end the conversation when you know I’m right, by throwing some kumbaya shit at me. Acknowledge your mistake, acknowledge the people you’ve overshadowed, acknowledge me.

I went to the Jewish cemetery in Fes and literally saw with my own eyes, graves that marked people who had been massacred because of their refusal to convert. People who stood up in the face of adversity and stood strong by their beliefs. There was one grave of a 14 year old girl named Solika Hatuel. She was killed because of false accusations that she had converted to Islam and then converted back to Judaisim; a crime of treason at the time. In order to be saved, the king told her she just had to convert to Islam fully and denounce her Jewish faith. In refusal to do this, she was killed in front of the entire community in 1834. “I will not leave or change my bright Judaisim,” she said before her fate was sealed.

I can no longer walk blindly. I can no longer let people get to me. “You need a tougher skin,” my dad recently told me. I need to be more like Solika. I need to stand up boldly for myself, my beliefs, and my people. I can’t be bullshitted, I can’t be taken advantage of, and I most certainly can’t be made ashamed. I need to embrace my religion without anyone standing against me, and realize all the people who came before me, who had it much harder than me, and who worked for a better life for me. I need to prove that their efforts weren’t for nothing; that they did make a difference and that I do have a place in this world, as frightening as it might be sometimes. Solika is the true beacon of hope.

So, who’s going to join me?