Jewish Museums -- New article on Casablanca

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I have posted in the past about the Jewish Museum in Casablanca, Morocco -- to date the only Jewish museum in the Arab world. (For web sites on Jewish Morocco, click HERE and  HERE)

There is a new article now on AFP/European Jewish Press.

Founded in 1997, the Jewish museum assembles a hodgepodge of objects -- clothes, tools, even a jeweller's studio -- that attest to the rich history of the country's 2,000-year-old Jewish community.


"It's the only Jewish museum in the Arab world," said museum curator Zhor Rehihil, a Moroccan civil servant who is Muslim.


Some 5,000 Jews live in Morocco today -- including 2,000 in Casablanca, according to Rehihil's estimates.


The school visits "show to Moroccans that there are other Moroccans with other religious beliefs," she said.


And the museum's philosophy?


"That the Jews of Morocco did not disappear without a trace," says
76-year-old Simon Levy, who has directed the museum since its creation.


He wants Morocco to acknowledge its Jewish heritage in other ways -- namely in history textbooks, which he says is not currently the case.