De-Westernizing Morocco: Pre-Migration Colonial History and the Ethnic-Oriented Self-Representation of Tangier’s Natives in Israel

The article presents and analyzes the self-representing narrative strategies through which westernized Jewish immigrants from Tangier (Morocco) de-westernize their personal pre-migration colonial history in the context of the ethnic conflict in Israel. By so doing, the article challenges from a new...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Aviad Moreno
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea CDEC 2012-11-01
Series:Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History
Subjects:
Online Access:http://Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Beer-Sheva, Israel)
Description
Summary:The article presents and analyzes the self-representing narrative strategies through which westernized Jewish immigrants from Tangier (Morocco) de-westernize their personal pre-migration colonial history in the context of the ethnic conflict in Israel. By so doing, the article challenges from a new perspective the general post-Zionist notion according to which ethnic revivals among Moroccan Jews in Israel came about in opposition to the European-oriented national narrative; A narrative that had distorted their authentic Mizraḥi culture and history, often in the form of de-Arabization. In an attempt to explain the motivations for de-westernization, the article further implies that not merely did the ethnic revival of Tangier’s natives not match the general post-Zionist notion, but moreover that it had often formed shape in the course of contrasting it. Only through de-westernized self-representations, could Tangier’s natives contest the general representation of Moroccans as Mizraḥim with the sense of “their own” Moroccan ethnic history.
ISSN:2037-741X