Read Online The Expelled by Mois Benarroch - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mois Benarroch
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where I became a different person. Because others viewed me in their own way and with every glance I was becoming someone else. The destructive glance, the anxious glance, the distressing glance of the others.
They were afraid that I, one of so many, would destroy their way of seeing the world. This world where they saw themselves as the rearguard of the European world and they saw me as the wild one coming from the trees. The savages had to see themselves as they were, look at their own violent faces in the mirror, and so they turned the mirror toward me and there they witnessed their violence, but they pointed it to my face. I was the violent one now, and I had to demonstrate the impossible, that it wasn't my face but theirs, that they couldn't see. They wouldn't see.
Well, anyway. Someone decided to put an end to Moroccan Judaism, or no one did. In the twentieth century, things happen. There are no mighty kings who destroy, there is bureaucracy, democracy, different people do different things in their offices and suddenly an atomic bomb drops. The decision was made by many, some here and there, experts and politicians, and they turned us all into nomads. Hey, you, listen, it's your turn to leave, there is no more place here for the Jews; Because of Zionism, colonialism, nationalism and the possibility of making a few dollars. But how can one explain that the Nazis ended Judaism in Arab countries and not European countries and that Jews left Northwest Africa and headed to France or other European countries. What kind of domino are we playing?
Time was playing a sick joke on me, damn it. I was facing a new inquisition, the worst that I could imagine. It was such an inconceivable inquisition that I'm afraid to see it even today, and nobody around me can see what I did. How could they? It took me fifteen years to begin to see it myself. Those who want to convert me today are the Jews themselves, and they want to convert me into a European and Christian version of Judaism, a very Christian version. And nothing is enough, but there is always a court that says I'm not a good Christian, that I still have to leave more parts of me behind to become a new Jew, this is how you create the new identity, a new Jew like the first Christians were the new people of Israel.
I don't want to, I object, like my ancestors, those expelled, but I can't refuse, and my children don't even understand what Judaism I'm talking about, nor can I write about it in the new Hebrew kidnapped by that same new Judaism. A Judaism that wants to defend European values, the same values that led the Jews to Auschwitz. There is a complete exclusion of the Sephardic Jew in the society and it's what is considered most normal.
And that brought me to a wall, a wall that I couldn't cross. A wall where I couldn't pray.
3
“Well, I can see that it makes no difference at all, I don't know if you're even listening to me or not.”
“Yes we're listening and what you read was very interesting, but what we want to know is what happened next.”
“We turned back. You really find this notebook interesting? Well, I'll leave it here as a gift, and if you can send me some more tuna sandwiches, I'm hungry again. I don't know if you give breaks here, but I've been here for six hours and I would like to take a shower and get some sleep, go home or to a hotel, anywhere.”
“When you get to the accident.”
“For the record, there is a lot more to tell, we were driving around for three more days.”
“Be concise and don't tell us a lot of stupid stuff, and don't read notebooks from back people.”
“You don't like back people either?”
“We haven't said anything, nor are we saying anything about back or front people, we're just listening to your story.”
“But I was reading the notebook of a back person.”
“And now it's time to confess.”
“Confess what?”
“We don't know, to confess to something, there is always something to confess. Some
They were afraid that I, one of so many, would destroy their way of seeing the world. This world where they saw themselves as the rearguard of the European world and they saw me as the wild one coming from the trees. The savages had to see themselves as they were, look at their own violent faces in the mirror, and so they turned the mirror toward me and there they witnessed their violence, but they pointed it to my face. I was the violent one now, and I had to demonstrate the impossible, that it wasn't my face but theirs, that they couldn't see. They wouldn't see.
Well, anyway. Someone decided to put an end to Moroccan Judaism, or no one did. In the twentieth century, things happen. There are no mighty kings who destroy, there is bureaucracy, democracy, different people do different things in their offices and suddenly an atomic bomb drops. The decision was made by many, some here and there, experts and politicians, and they turned us all into nomads. Hey, you, listen, it's your turn to leave, there is no more place here for the Jews; Because of Zionism, colonialism, nationalism and the possibility of making a few dollars. But how can one explain that the Nazis ended Judaism in Arab countries and not European countries and that Jews left Northwest Africa and headed to France or other European countries. What kind of domino are we playing?
Time was playing a sick joke on me, damn it. I was facing a new inquisition, the worst that I could imagine. It was such an inconceivable inquisition that I'm afraid to see it even today, and nobody around me can see what I did. How could they? It took me fifteen years to begin to see it myself. Those who want to convert me today are the Jews themselves, and they want to convert me into a European and Christian version of Judaism, a very Christian version. And nothing is enough, but there is always a court that says I'm not a good Christian, that I still have to leave more parts of me behind to become a new Jew, this is how you create the new identity, a new Jew like the first Christians were the new people of Israel.
I don't want to, I object, like my ancestors, those expelled, but I can't refuse, and my children don't even understand what Judaism I'm talking about, nor can I write about it in the new Hebrew kidnapped by that same new Judaism. A Judaism that wants to defend European values, the same values that led the Jews to Auschwitz. There is a complete exclusion of the Sephardic Jew in the society and it's what is considered most normal.
And that brought me to a wall, a wall that I couldn't cross. A wall where I couldn't pray.
3
“Well, I can see that it makes no difference at all, I don't know if you're even listening to me or not.”
“Yes we're listening and what you read was very interesting, but what we want to know is what happened next.”
“We turned back. You really find this notebook interesting? Well, I'll leave it here as a gift, and if you can send me some more tuna sandwiches, I'm hungry again. I don't know if you give breaks here, but I've been here for six hours and I would like to take a shower and get some sleep, go home or to a hotel, anywhere.”
“When you get to the accident.”
“For the record, there is a lot more to tell, we were driving around for three more days.”
“Be concise and don't tell us a lot of stupid stuff, and don't read notebooks from back people.”
“You don't like back people either?”
“We haven't said anything, nor are we saying anything about back or front people, we're just listening to your story.”
“But I was reading the notebook of a back person.”
“And now it's time to confess.”
“Confess what?”
“We don't know, to confess to something, there is always something to confess. Some
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