We approached a taxi and asked the driver his fare to the Sheraton Hotel, which was quoted at about ten times the rate we had been briefed it should be. We tried to negotiate, but the driver simply walked away.
I walked over to another taxi. Same story. Had all these taxi drivers seen the same movie?
It was getting cold and there were no other tourists standing outside the main terminal building of the capital city of Morocco. In fact, it didn’t look much like an urban centre at all.
There were no taxis.
And there were five of us cold Aussies.
A few hours later, we somehow managed to get to the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Casablanca.
My brother-in-law, Isaac, had an ex-Moroccan friend in Sydney whose family – the Ifergans – still lived in Casablanca. Isaac had asked us to phone this family to give them his best regards. It was Friday afternoon when we got around to phoning them and we tried our best to pass on the regards and to wish them all the best for Shabbat; but communication was difficult, as they spoke Arabic and French and we spoke English, German and Italian.
Shortly afterwards we received a phone call from the desk advising us that there was someone downstairs to see us.
Her name was Edith and she was the youngest daughter of the Ifergans. She spoke some English. She was on her way home from the dentist, where she had just been operated on for two abscesses under her teeth. She was a bit pale, but insisted that she would wait for us and walk us to the synagogue, about twenty minutes away; she explained that it was not safe for us to try to walk to the Old City by ourselves, especially as it was getting close to dusk and she was on her way home anyway.
Soon we were all walking together.
We were fascinated by the sights, the sounds and the smells of the Old City. It was very close to sunset, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes to go. The red of the low western sky was magnified and distorted by the pollution in the air. We could hear muezzin voices chanting out of loudspeakers in minarets. People were milling around buying and selling their last goods before the end of the day.
It was the end of Friday, the end of Islam’s holy day of the week and the beginning of the Jewish holy day of the week.
Edith stopped at a wooden door in a narrow alleyway. She knocked and the door opened. We followed her inside.
“Shalom Aleichem (welcome!)” we heard. “Shabbat Shalom.” We conversed in English and in Hebrew and a smattering of other languages.
The synagogue was nice. It felt so much like home.
The service and prayer book were very similar to ours. The tunes, however, sounded different. And there was no prayer leader; instead, one of the elders pointed to various congregants, each of whom, in turn, chanted a paragraph; other parts of the prayer were chanted by all in unison.
The sound of the Hebrew was beautiful; the tunes, however, sounded more Arabic to our ears. But the conviction, the respect, the participation and the profound familiarity of the congregants with all the parts of the prayer were truly something to be experienced.
This was the beginning of Shabbat.
Many people were dressed casually, some young people even in jeans and open-necked shirts; others were more formally dressed. Everyone treated everyone else with respect, warmth and caring dignity. We felt a very special feeling of Jewishness, that Friday evening. We also felt part of this community.
After the service, Edith insisted that we join her parents at their home for Shabbat dinner. We felt embarrassed that we were imposing on them; we did not even have anything to bring to them. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer; rather, she insisted that her parents were expecting us.
We walked a short distance through a few more twisted alleyways until we came to a gate in the wall. Edith took some keys out of her pocket, unlocked the gate, opened it and beckoned us through. She closed it after us, locking it securely and told us to proceed up some stone stairs to a wooden door, where she knocked.
We heard the distinct sound of a number of locks being unlocked and sliding bolts being slid open. After what seemed to us to be some time, the door was opened and we were warmly welcomed in by an elderly gentleman with whom we instantly felt comfortable. “Shabbat Shalom – Shabbat Shalom u-mevorach (A Shabbat of peace and blessing)”. His loud, husky voice enveloped us. He then gestured in the direction of his wife, introducing us. Edith was not feeling well after her ordeal at the dentist. She tried her best to be hospitable, but after a short time reluctantly excused herself and went to her room.
We all sat down at the Shabbat table. We sang Shalom Aleichem and Eshet Chayil13 Mr Ifergan – Yaakov – proceeded with the kiddush in a loud and passionate way, full of emotion. We all washed our hands, made the blessing and returned to the table for the blessing over the bread.
13 Two prayers recited or sung before the kiddush, the blessing over the wine; the first is a welcome to the angels that accompany us from the synagogue to the home; the second is the latter part of chapter 31 in Proverbs, a hymn to the “woman of valour”.
Yaakov took the Shabbat cover off the two challahs (special bread for Sabbath), lifted them up high over the table and, in a loud voice full of dedication and faith, raising his eyes, he said (as is the Sephardi custom): “pote’ach et yadechah umasbi’a lechol chai ratzon” (You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing – Psalms 145:16), then made the blessing over the bread. He broke bread, tearing off small pieces by hand, gently tossing a piece to each of the people sitting around the table, after dipping it in some salt.
This warm and meaningful togetherness was, in many ways, just like being at home.
We ate and we talked. We sang and we enjoyed and then ate and we talked some more in a hodgepodge of languages and gestures, but with a strong bonding and all-encompassing enjoyment. Soon it was after 11:00 p.m. and it was time to call it a night.
Yaakov insisted on walking us the short distance to the nearest gate in the wall of the Old City and pointed out the way back to the Sheraton Hotel along a well-lit main road.
The next morning we walked back to the synagogue and after the service we were introduced to other members of the Ifergan family, as well as to other congregants. Again we were invited to Shabbat lunch; no refusals accepted.
The afternoon flew by and Saturday night was upon us. We experienced a richness of Jewish togetherness, religious belief and expression. We felt like parts of one extended family.
Since that Shabbat in Casablanca, I have adopted reciting the verse Pote’ach et Yadechah as the preamble before making the blessing over bread; and each time I feel a happy tear of sentimentality as I reconnect with Yaakov and with all of my people – past, present and future.
Shabbat in Santiago de Chile
The 1980s were particularly exciting and challenging times in Chile, especially the mid-eighties. Chile had been the only nation in the world to democratically elect a Communist government, back in 1970. Salvador Allende was its President for three years. The people suffered. The economy collapsed. The people suffered even more.
When the situation in the country reached an unbearably low point, a military junta was formed which led to a coup d’état, typical of many other violent changes in South American governments. The Communists and this new right-wing government imposed their control and leadership over Chile. General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte purged the country of its Communists and proceeded to manage a dramatic program of political and economic reform, reconstructing and rebuilding a failed economy, democratising and educating his country, empowering his people and lifting the standards of living with impressive success over a relatively short period – just over a decade.
How