Dr. Mohamed Chtatou states that the hamsa (five-fingered hand symbol) constitutes perhaps the most visible shared protective symbol, used by both Jewish and Muslim communities in multiple material forms: metal jewelry (silver pendants, brooches), ceramic plaques hung in homes and businesses, painted decorations on doors and walls, embroidered motifs on clothing, and miniature versions attached to children’s clothing (Stillman, 1979). There was nothing like this closeness in European Christian-Jewish connections.

Verbal protective formulas showed both convergence and distinctiveness, with both communities employing blessing formulas when offering compliments (to ward off inadvertent evil eye), spitting sounds or actions (tfu tfu tfu in Yiddish-influenced Israeli Hebrew, similar sounds in Amazigh), and religious invocations (Baruch Hashem “Blessed is God” for Jews, Bismillah “In God’s name” for Muslims, Mashallah “What God wills” in both) (Stillman, 1979).

The functional equivalence of these formulas across linguistic and religious boundaries reflects shared underlying beliefs about the necessity of deflecting envy and supernatural harm through verbal-ritual action (Bilu, 1996).

Death and mourning rituals reflected shared values regarding rapid burial, ritual purification of the deceased, simple shroud burial, and structured mourning periods, though specific timing and practices differed ((Chtatou, 2022, December 29 ; Bilu, 1996). Both traditions emphasized regular grave visitation, commemoration of death anniversaries, and mourning restrictions limiting celebratory participation for defined periods (Jewish shiva/seven days and shloshim/thirty days, Amazigh three-day intensive mourning and forty-day commemorations) (Stillman, 1979).

Professional female mourners operated in both communities, performing stylized lamentation with similar vocal techniques and physical expressions of grief including ululation, though specific mourning songs differed linguistically and thematically (Kapchan, 2007).

Most Jews know that there is a 1400-year history that Jews in North Africa and the Middle East were persecuted much less in Muslim countries than they were in European Christian ones.

It would be a major mistake to judge from the Palestinian-Israeli political conflict in the 20th century that Jewish-Muslim relations have usually been poor. The opposite is true. Prior to the rise of secular, political, nationalism in the last half of the 19th century, and the rise of politicized religion within Judaism and Islam in the last half century, Jewish-Muslim relations were usually characterized by neighborliness and amity. Yes, amity, as the North African Jewish celebration of Mimouna (pronounced Meemouna) shows.

The Moroccan Jewish festival of Mimouna, a 24-hour food-centered celebration, begins right after the week of Passover ends. For many centuries, Moroccan Jewish homes were emptied of leavened bread and flour during the week of Passover. At the end of the week of Passover, Jews could eat leavened bread and pastry again, but they actually couldn’t because they had emptied their homes of all ordinary flour so there was nothing to bake with. And that is when their Muslim neighbors came in.

Shaul Ben-Simhon, who immigrated to Israel in 1948 at age 18, said that in Morocco the holiday of Passover brought Jews and Muslims together each year. Ben-Simhon recalled the tradition of Arab neighbors bringing flour to his home, so his mother and grandmother could make baked goods. Often this was the same flour that Jews had given to their Muslim neighbors a day prior to the start of Passover, so Jews could rid their homes of leavened flour, prior to Passover.

When, after the end of Passover, Muslims came to Jewish homes to return the flour, they were always invited to stay for a few hours and enjoy the soon to be baked goodies.

Thus, Jewish homes were filled with neighbors, friends and family exchanging traditional Arabic blessings of good luck and success while awaiting the laden trays of delicious Mimouna baked goods. The celebration often was repeated the next day with even more pastry and joy.

In Israel, unfortunately, for the first two decades of statehood, the festival was hardly observed at all. “In the early days of the state, we Moroccans were busy with absorption and working hard, often in construction. We didn’t have the energy or self-confidence to celebrate Mimouna,” said Ashdod resident Shaul Ben-Simhon.

That all changed in 1968, when Ben-Simhon, at age 38 and a high-ranking official at the Histadrut, Israel’s trade union alliance, organized a Mimouna celebration in Lod in a bid to help the integration of Moroccan immigrants into Israeli society. His effort to raise the community’s morale attracted 300 participants. The next year, Ben-Simhon moved the celebration to Jerusalem, got then mayor Teddy Kollek’s support, and a crowd of 5,000 showed up. This grew into a major celebration in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park that today draws over 100,000 people. There’s an estimated population of 500,000+ Moroccan Jews in Israel.

This event inspired the revival of Mimouna all across Israel where Moroccan Jews and Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds flock to smaller public and private celebrations. A special law even requires bosses to grant employees unpaid leave on the day of Mimouna, if they want to carry on celebrations from the previous evening.

Since the Torah states that a Jewish home must not contain any leavened bread during the week of Passover, many Jews “sold” their regular household flour to a non-Jewish friend or neighbor, who then “sold” it back after Passover. Unfortunately, the Orthodox Rabbinical bureaucracy has arranged for a formal “sale” of all the leavened flour in the state  of Israel to a few Arab Muslims or Christians, so the much more personal, private transfer to one’s Arab neighbors rarely takes place today in Israel.

Perhaps, a restoration of this part of the Passover tradition will help bring Jews and Arabs in Israel closer together. Ben-Simhon believes that Mimouna promotes unity between families and neighbors. In Morocco, it was a day when people would visit each other to undo grudges.

There are several theories regarding how the celebration got the name Mimouna. I think that it comes from the Arabic word Amina and the Turkish word Emina that sound similar to the Hebrew word Emunah (faithful).

Indeed, Emin, Emina and Ahmina are names in Turkish and Arabic, meaning a faithful or trusted one. Jews trusted their Muslim neighbors to guard the flour faithfully from becoming impure, and their Muslim neighbors always did so.

Perhaps the revival of the Jewish-Muslim celebration of Mimouna in Israel could stimulate Muslims and Jews in other parts of the world to reach out to each other and share traditional pastries made from both leaven and unleavened flour. Passover this year ends after sundown on April 8 for all Jews in Israel and for Reform Jews worldwide, and on April 9 sundown for Orthodox and Conservative Jews outside of Israel.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jewish and Muslim individuals invited each other to this “Celebration of Muslim-Jewish Amity.” As the great scholar and saint Rabia answered when asked, “Do you love God?” She answered, “Yes.” – She was asked again, “Do you hate the devil?” She answered, “My love of God leaves me no time to hate (even the devil).” Rabia al-Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya (715-801 CE)

If all Arabs and Jews would live up to the ideal that ‘the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other’ is the will of God; we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.

In that day Israel  will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”… (Isaiah 19:23-5)

Allen S. Maller is an ordained Reform Rabbi who retired in 2006 after 39 years as the Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, California. His web site is: www.rabbimaller.com. He blogs on the Times of Israel. Rabbi Maller has published 1100+ articles in some two dozen different Christian, Jewish, and Muslim magazines and web sites. Two recent books are: “Judaism and Islam as Synergistic Monotheisms’ and “Which Religion Is Right For You?”.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)