May 21, 2020Dear friends,It is always a great pleasure to welcome new members to this group and to see that we are not alone in this quest for our past and our common roots.Lina Corcos, my dear Lina, our friend and certainly one of the most vivid memories of Mogador and Agadir, Catherine Le Dortz, Esther Kasket, Lucy Garzón de Benarroch, Albert Hen, Simon Haim Skira, Dave Dadoun, Suzie Suzette, Katia Dahan, Delphine Toledano Ep Abitan, Judith Bryan, Viviane Harrosch, Jacques Levy, Yorel Zrihen, Jos Cohen, Evelyne Lancry, Lynda Benistydelouya, אורה ינקלביץ', בת שבע אורן, Lucie Harris, Aviad Ben Izhak, Joe Elhadad, Jessica Benchetrit Elkaim, Myriam Elbaz, Zagury Simon, Josseline Cabessa, Roger Gheriani, Atlan EtMyriam Cohengilles, Armand Bohbot, Raphael Aloun, Charles Levy, Johanna Allal, Johanna Dray, Johanna Assraf, Jorge Ülgen, Jorge Amzalak Navarro, מלכה אוחנה, Gad Medalsy, Rebecca Levy , Israel Genealogy Research Association, Rosemary Eshel, Raymonde Abenaim, Michael Barchechath, Eric Elbaz, Patricia Rimok, Ynon Peretz, Dan Benchétrit, Simon Bensimon, Robert Hazan, Allie Bitton, Lucette Laclau, Elizabeth Ohana, David Bohbot, F-Joseph Botbol, Max Assouline, Michel AZUELOS, דבורה מסס שרעבי, Jonathan Dray, Michel Dray, Guy Dery, Roger Berdugo, Joseph Bitton.Thank you so much for joining us. I hope that we will be able to give you this boost to encourage you to do the necessary research work to preserve the memory of our community and our families.A big thank you also to my dear friend Arielle Sebah-Lasry, to Yaakov Marrash Fischel and Guy Ohana Foster who work without counting for our group, to Michel Dray, Annabelle Yaëlle Cousin, Herve Bitton, Becky Rubenstein OHanna, Laurence Benaim, Lucie Harris, Maurice Ohayon, Marguerite Adams, Michael Mishali Pascucci, אורה ינקלביץ', Michele Elkaim Soussana, Myriam Toledano, Laura Maratchi and Stephens Husson for inviting you.I copy below in full the recent publication of Michael Sicsu as this is a perfect illustration of the goal of this group. I hope, Michael, you don't care. It describes our approach so well that I would like to highlight it so that it is read by the greatest number!"My great-grandmother Myriam Benoliel (born 1861 in Tarifa)Daughter of Moses Benoliel & Yogeved Benmiara. Probably deceased in Mogador. Sister of Don José Benoliel, huge Jewish intellectual, multi-language (9 languages) poet, painter, student at the ENIO and then teacher at the Alliance Israélite Universelle, one of the first Zionist (went to Jerusalem walking) writer, philosopher, journalist, and traveler, whose academic chair still bears his name today at the University of Lisbon, and especially the person who restructured and reinvented the Jaketia, the language of the Spanish Jews, a mixture of Hebrew, Spanish & Arabic, the language that the Jews exiled from Spain spoke in the northern area of Morocco since the inquisition or even before.Myriam Benoliel like her sister Oro, had married a pioneer, my bisaïeul, Avraham, who ran from the Ottoman Empire to Tarifa, Tangier (1894-1905) then the first Jew to leave the ramparts of the medina to buy a land of the sea shore whose neighborhood still bears its name today, although arabized. (Abraham Hamouth has become Dar Brahim Hamo)Myriam Benoliel grew up in Tarifa where I walk around every time with nostalgia and ball in my stomach, imagine the immoralities of my so minority people, and my ancestors who wandered in this Catholic Spain post inquisition (eliminated in 1834).For many, the 3000 Jews who lived in Andalusia (Andalusia, Spain, Ceuta, but also Gibraltar) around 1860 were Jews from Tetouan as was probably Myriam Benoliel.When in 1859 General Prim's Spanish troops, after the battles of Wad-Ras & Castillejos, entered victoriously in Tetouan, (Episode known as "African War"), they were aback and tried to meet these Jews there Megorashim "expelled" 367 years earlier, at the shouts of "Viva la Reina Isabel", speaking a perfect Spanish, and not mixed with the Toshavims, these indigenous Jews speaking other languages and close to the Arabs and the Berbers.The occupation of Tetouan by Spanish troops lasted two years, two years during which Jews of Tetouan obtained rights never obtained under Muslim domination, such as the abolition of the Omar's Pact and the status of Dhimmis which free them of paying the jizya, a tax reserved for minorities in the Muslim world in exchange for their physical protection.The Jews could ride or dress other than black.Once the war treasure paid by the very passive and inexperienced Sultan Mohamed IV at the end of 1860 and the departure of the Spanish, the Jews from Tetuan preferred to live in a country which already partly adopted the ideas of lights, rather than under the yoke of the the arbitrariness of local caids.Following the progress made by the tetouanais, all other Jewish communities in the Kingdom pressed the Sultan to no longer be dependent on anti-Semitism from local authorities. The visit to Morocco of 91-year-old Sir Moses Montefiore as well as the pressure of leaders of the European Judaism (Adolphe Cremieux, Narcisse Leven, the Pereire brothers) or the empress Eugénie de Montijo improved the degrading living conditions of their coreligionists.It is on this date that my grandfather's grandfather, Yahia SICSU (and all his children Aharon, Abraham, David, Esther, Regina-Rahma, Camila, Myriam & Estrella) on an order of the Minister of War, (re)became Spanish for I quote, the great services rendered to the crown of Spain during the African War.This is how I was born Spanish.Dear friends who read me, enjoy this lockdown, value it, walk in the footsteps of your ancestors if you can, speak while there is still time with the elders of your family or the Synagogue, dig yourself, dig, buy old books, or extracts on googlebooks, make this effort before everything gets lost forever, this should be a duty for everyone.We are in the century of volatile, ephemeral and quota, you have to hustle the events to find the right information and pass it on to your children, because it has incredible value.Around this Straits of Gibraltar has developed a specific Jewish culture and extraordinary wealth, that of the Sefardim, the Sefardi culture, which still lasts in 2020, where we sing in Spanish at every party, Shabbat or every wedding, as we celebrate every year at Pessah our outing from Egypt 3332 years ago.We Spanish Jews, still marry for many of the women of this culture, and we keep it carefully. It is the geography that makes history, these two pillars of Hercules in Africa and Europe, the share of mysticism and sacred that they have caused in men have created incredible destiny and drama, Maimonide, Tarik Ibn Ziad, Avicennes, Sancho IV, Guzman el Bueno, Boabdil and so many others.A tip dear FB friends, dig, seek, search, read, whin, to find your Myriam Benoliel, to find love, to travel, to dream, to imagine, to enhance, to pass on your turn.And thank you! ♥️🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇲🇦🇲🇦🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸♥️I hope this will inspire you, all of you who just joined us."Manaïts, Manaïts", said Jo Kakon in one of his chronicles of Mogador. Unlike the donkey of history or the carrier - depending on the version -, let us not be knocked down by the task to be done to find our ancestors. Create and complete your family tree at Geni.com, connect families with each other (see https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogiedesjuifsdumaroc/about/). This is a necessary and obligatory first step in the digging of our past.