The Jewish Moroccan Diaspora--ERETZ AMAZÔNIA, The Jews of the Amazon

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

While the number of Jews living in Morocco has dwindled to a few thousands, there are approximately 1.2 million Moroccan Jews living in other countries. In Israel, Moroccans constitute the second-largest Jewish community. Moroccan Jewish immigration to Israel, France and Canada has received scholarly attention, but there is one migratory movement that remains relatively unknown outside of its local reach: the Moroccan Jews in the Amazon. Jews began arriving in the Amazon in 1810, and their numbers grew due to persecution, poverty, wars, the boom of the rubber industry in Brazil and, finally, Moroccan independence.
This panel focuses on the Jewish Moroccan diaspora, with special attention given to the diaspora in the Amazon. Composed by scholars from the disciplinary fields of ethnomusicology and literature, it also offers the perspective and inside knowledge of an active leadership figure of the Amazon community. Not speaking in unison, this panel creates a rich and variegated panorama of the region and the Jews who live there and create culture.

Sub Unit

• Sephardi/Mizrahi Studies

Chair

• Naomi Lindstrom, University of Texas

Individual Presentations

• The Moroccan Sephardic Diaspora of a Canadian Ashkenazi ethnomusicologist - Judith Cohen, York University

• Moroccan identity, the Amazon Jews, and the shaping of Jewish identity in two authors, Brazilian Marcio Souza and Israeli Moïs Bennaroch - Monique Rodrigues Balbuena, University of Oregon

• From the mountainous desert to the rainforest: the journey of the Moroccan Sephardic Jewish community to the Amazon - Anne Benchimol, Comitê Israelita do Amazonas

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 11