Wednesday 29 August 2012

And we are back!

We got home from Madrid on Monday and have had a couple of days to adjust to the time change.

Now that I have thought a bit of it more, I think the project has taken a bit of a different turn than I originally planned. The original plan was to photograph the registries, and if we got any additional documentation, that would be a bonus. Now it looks like we got many more documents and historical information than we expected, and probably a bit less of the registry-type information we expected.

The following is a list of the books we photographed:
  1. 1. Minutes of the Comunidad from:
  • a) 1896 - 1899
  • b) 1911 - 1915
  • c) 1915 - 1928
  • d) 1928 - 1935
  • e) 1931 - 1945
  • f) 1941 - 1950
  • g) 1954 - 1972
2. Rabbinic Tribunal documents from 1922 - 1945

3. List of library books in different yeshivot

4. Death registers from 1936 - 1943 and 1892 - 1961

5. Marriage registers - only some

6. Selected Proceedings of the Board of the Comunidad of Tangiers -  1861 - 1875

7. Caja - Grand Livre

8. Gemilut Chassadim 1955 - 1958

9. Ledger 1985 - 1997

10. Registro des Funciones

11. Tsvaot Umatanot

12. Assorted random documents

Now the task will be to figure out how to abstract the information for our registry database. We will also need to consider how best to share the other documentation we photographed.

This is me at the El Minzah. I will upload some samples of the books and more cemetary pics tonight.



Saturday 25 August 2012

Last day in Tangiers - Bittersweet

Friday was our last day in Tangiers before we flew to Madrid for the weekend. We had a few hours in the morning before our flight, so we thought we would head back to the old Jewish cemetery to try to find my great-grandmother's grave. I am not sure she is definitely buried there, but I saw a note in one of the books that said her name and "Rue Portugal" as the location of her grave, so that's all we had to go by. We headed down these stairs built with accessibility in mind (imagine them on a rainy day!) and past the chicken market (avian flu city) to the cemetery.

We seriously checked every grave in that cemetery - and no luck. It was not as hot at is was on Wednesday so we were able to spend more time, but it didn't make a difference. It also didn't help that the lady who lives on the cemetery property to guard it followed us around the entire time with her dog and was not happy with her first five dirham tip so we had to get some more change before we left. We did see the genizah which is located in the section of the cemetery for the Kohanim (priests) which we hadn't seen before.




Then it was time for one more coffee. See if you can spot Eli.


It was time to say goodbye to the El Mizah, which was fine with both of us. Its a nice hotel, but the staff are over/underwhelming, to say the least. Fourteen waiters wearing fez hats standing around and it still takes an hour and 15 euro to get a coffee.


And then off to Ibn Batotuta International Airport for the flight to Madrid.


We made it to Madrid about an hour before Shabbat. This is the view from our hotel room on Gran Via.




Tonight we walked around the city and stopped for beers in a bar that also had karaoke. This was the one english song.


One more day in Madrid...

Thursday 23 August 2012

Chefchaouen and Tetouan

Update on the Marriages 1 book: We contacted the Rabbi of Tangiers today (he is in Israel) and he told us that the Marriages 1 book we wanted access to is locked up in his office. He told us it it just an abstract of information written in greater detail in the other books that he gave us, but we cant confirm this until we go through what we have photographed carefully. I think that the only marriages books we photographed recorded marriages from 1930 - 1940. I guess this means another trip to Tangiers!

We hired Ahmed this morning to take us on a day trip to Chefchaouen and Tetouan. Chefchaouen is 110 kilometers from Tangiers, but the roads and the quality of the ride mean that it takes a very long time to get there! We did have a "limo" though from the early 80's... PS when you get the option of 1000 dirham for a car with with no AC or 1500 dirham for a car with AC, it is not the time to be cheap!


Chefchaouen reminded us of Tzfat. The walls and houses are all painted blue. It is totally gorgeous and very peaceful. I told Eli we are painting our apartment blue when we get home. Now he is saying it looks like the inside of a swimming pool.


We took lots of blue pics.



We also explored the Kasbah, built in 1492. It is not blue so I wont post a pic here now. I dont want to ruin my blue theme. After a couple of hours wandering around (and of course, sweating profusely), Ahmed drove us to Tetouan. We wanted to go see a famous Rabbi's grave that Eli's dad told us about. When we got there, the gate was locked and no one was in sight.

We managed to find another entrance on the other side of the main entrance to the cemetery, where the guard and his family (and turkeys) lived, so he unlocked the gate and let us in. We went to go visit the graves of Rabbi Yitzchak ben Gualid and his family. His grave doesnt have anything written on it because he was very modest.


I dont think my blue skirt was a coincidence!

We headed back to Tangiers, and did some shopping because we leave tomorrow. We did see the same van with a blaring loudspeaker on top of it that we have been seeing all week, advertising for Cirque Amar. It sounds like those trucks in Meah Shearim announcing funerals. We were told by the guy giving out 2 for 1 vouchers that the Circus is in Malabata (near Tangiers) and has an alligator and lions. I am not sure what goes down at a Moroccan circus, but I am not too keen to find out. Eli would be especially nervous considering the chaos and the wild animals and the potential for major safety hazards.


Now we are back at the El Minzah, for our last night in Tangiers : (
Off to Madrid tomorrow!


Wednesday 22 August 2012

Another wild day!

This morning started out great, as per usual. We enjoyed our breakfast in the El Minzah with our "white" coffee and headed over to the communidad. We spent two hours photographing books and we are done! Except for the one book that is still in the synagogue that we are trying to get our hands on. It is the book that started the whole project, the Marriages 1 book. The Rabbi left it in the shul and he is in Israel with the main communidad guy too, so we have been trying to get in touch with him to get us access to the book.

We dropped our equipment at the hotel and headed back out to go to the old Jewish cemetery. On the way there, we stopped at a bank machine for some cash. I got the cash and put my card away, and then for some reason, I thought the machine didnt give me my card back! I made a whole stink at the bank and made them open up the bank machine from the back. Turns out the card was in my purse the whole time. We snuck out of there pretty fast!


Haha! Then we headed over to the old Jewish cemetery with Abdelsallam outside of the Medina, on rue Portugal.



We spent about an hour and a half looking for my great-grandmother, Esther Haligua's grave, but no luck. Unfortunately, there is no guide to old Jewish cemetery and its pretty huge. There is also no shade, and every path has unmarked graves that need to be avoided while walking through. We said a prayer at the front of the cemetery for my great-grandmother and all the people buried there.

Next we went back to the hotel to cool off a bit. We tried to call a few contacts in Tangiers to get access to that one book, but no luck yet. We did hear that one of the men we were looking for was possibly at the "Casino" but no additional information.

So we headed off for our tuna lunch and ate it in the park overlooking the sea.


We wandered around and tried to find the Casino. We thought we found it but no one answered the door and we werent sure the parking garage attendant who led us there was right about the location.

Back to the hotel for some more cooling off, and then we headed over to the Medina to see our friend Muchsin who sells watches and has good information and tips. We wanted to find out if we were getting ripped off for a trip to Tetouan and Chefchaoun tomorrow. He said we were not getting ripped off. He didnt want to come with us though, because he just got back from the Hajj in Mecca.

We stopped for a tea at our favorite Cafe Central, and our waiter was nice to us this time and took a photo without being asked!


We decided to give the Casino another try to track down someone who could get us access to that last book. We walked back up and rang the bell. Success! We found the Casino!!


Our contact was NOT there, but his wife was!! She said we could find him around the corner tomorrow. Its a good thing that we gave ourselves a week to do this project. Just finding the right people to open doors is a challenge and a very lengthy process.

We ended our day at Cafe de Paris, with these guys:


Nothing has changed in that place in a hundred years, including the bathroom! HA!


Tuesday 21 August 2012

Birthday Update

Celebrating my 29th birthday in Tangiers! We are having a very successful trip so far. We got off to a rocky start on Sunday when we were not able to find the communidad or our contact person and we walked up and down some hilly streets in 35 degree heat with all our equipment.

Eventually, we found our contact by hunting him down bit by bit until it ended with us in his living room with his wife and son. His wife was mid-boureka making, btw.

We have photographed about 4500 pages so far of minutes, death registers, marriage registers, rabbinic tribunal records and a bunch of stuff we cant read or recognize but are sure has value.




More on what we discovered and what books we have photos of later. 



Today we photographed for four hours in the morning, and then we waited in line for an hour at what must be the most popular tuna sandwich restaurant in Morocco.

After a quick snarf of our sandwiches (we were late because the line took so long) we found our guy and headed off to the new Jewish cemetery.  The pics of the cemetery and shul are on our other camera, so will post them later. We visited the following graves: Mose Benzaquen (my great grandfather), Jacob Benzaquen (my great uncle), Fortuna Haligua (my great aunt), Allegria Haligua (my great aunt), Aureile Reiner (our friends grandmother), Amram Assayag, and Simy Elmaleh. It was quite an adventure as it was seriously hot, there were tons of thorns and bushes to climb through, and we had a hard time locating the graves. But with my dad on bbm directing us, Eli reading the maps, and our guide telling us he knew where the graves were all along, we succeeded.

Then I wanted to go back to the hotel, but our guide was adamant we continue, even though our clothes were soaked through with sweat and Eli's foot was bleeding from thorns he fell on in the cemetery.

We visited Rue de Synagogue in the Medina and saw the Nahon shul again. We took some pics of the beautiful architecture and artifacts. It is so sad that the shul is desolate and empty and there are no more services there ever. 

We had some more fun when we got back to the hotel and had to change rooms for a third(!) time because "the agency did not give us the information", a running theme in Morocco.

We have a few more books left and then we are going to explore the city a bit more. Will keep this blog updated now that we have internet. Yesterday was Eid al-Fitr and apparently the whole Morocco was online so the internet went down. At least thats what the guy in the fez and bloomers at reception told us!

Here's us at an Eid photoshoot last night. You pay the guy to sit on his backdrop. This was seventy five cents Canadian. Totally worth it!

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Success! I figured out how to enable comments! Now you can read my blog and leave me messages! Yay!

Update: We are headed to Barcelona on Thursday, August 16th and then we fly to Tangiers on Sunday, August 20. I am anxious to get there already and see what books they have for us to digitize.

I had a nightmare last week that we got to the Jewish community centre in Tangiers, and the curator(?) over there showed me a cupboard and told me all the archives are in there. I opened the cupboard, and there were five Dr. Suess books in Hebrew and he was like "yeah, that's all that there is". And I kept saying, no, we came really far, I know forsure there is at least the marriage book... The weirdest part about it was that the curator guy was a friend of mine who lives two blocks away from me in Toronto...