Keys to Tetouan Read online

  Keys to Tetouan

  Mois Benarroch

  Translated by orna taub

  “Keys to Tetouan”

  Written By Mois Benarroch

  Copyright © 2016 Mois Benarroch

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by orna taub

  Cover Design © 2016 Alan green

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Keys to Tetouan

  The Allies | 1996

  1

  Tetouan 1868

  2

  Tetouan 1860

  3

  The First Letter of the Twentieth Century

  4

  Tetouan 1914

  5

  Benzimrao

  6

  Rio Martin 1948

  7

  Tetouan 1996

  8

  David Sananes 1996

  9

  La Alliance - Caracas 1995

  10

  El Itihad Maroc

  11

  Tetouan 2000

  12

  A letter from the past found by Isaac Bibas in one of his grandfather's books

  13

  Azancot

  14

  Moshe Benzimra's amnesia

  15

  Mois in Paris

  Moshe Fernando

  17

  Purim

  18

  Tetouan Of Above

  19

  Exile

  20

  Zemer

  21

  Fernando

  22

  The key

  Inscription

  Dedicated to all the people of Tetouan, in all of their 500 years existence, for the torch they carried, for the pride they planted in me and for their longing for Jerusalem. I carry them with me just as the people of Israel carried Joseph's coffin all the way from Egypt to Israel.

  "Morocco!

  That's where I'm at

  Twenty percent at least

  And I went for a hundred

  Who but I would know.

  Breath

  And end

  Come back my soul"

  Shimon Shlush

  "you say Morocco

  And I feel fine

  I haven't seen Morocco

  For a long, long time."

  Jackson Browne

  "I am not the passenger

  I am the ride”

  Chris Smither.

  The Allies

  1996

  "I'm here, I'm... sorry I came to you unannounced, my name is Fernando Benzimra, I found your name in the phonebook, I asked your wife whether you are Moshe Benzimra from Tetouan, and then got here by taxi. First of all, I need to tell you my father died, I always thought he moved from Madrid to Caracas, and stayed there till the day he died.He left me a letter, or should I say, a bomb, in which he told me I'm Jewish, I'm Jewish... unbelievable, all that time I avoided telling him I have a Jewish son, a Jewish wife, so now my father is Jewish and my son is Jewish, according the Jewish Halacha, yes, that I understand, but I, Fernando Benzimra, am not Jewish, because my mom is Christian."

  "Hold it, Hold it, slowly, slowly, or quickly, quickly, because I'm leaving tomorrow, and you know where I'm going to, to Tetouan. My family was one of the last to leave there, in 1973, so I understand you're some relative of mine, but probably not closely related, because my father, Mimon Benzimra was an only child, so we might be cousins."

  "A cousin, who shares the same name as you, Mois Benzimra, or Moshe, that's the new name, the old one, the biblical or whatever, I read the letter and came here to look for my family, here take the letter, take it, read, such a simple sentence, I find it hard to understand why he didn't tell me this earlier, what did he have to hide, and what did I have to hide by not telling him I have a Jewish son, I was afraid, of my momfirst of all, who was very Catholic, after she died I didn’t see no reason to tell him about it, that was long ago, a long time has passed since he was born, he's twelve now, John Benzimra, do you know why his name is John, because he was born the day John Lennon was murdered, the 8th of December, and since Olivia and me loved John Lennon so much, we gave him that name."

  "Yochanan, such a long story, the whole the Benzimra family was spread all over, and now you're like trying to connect the loose ends, I heard about your father, I heard about him marrying a prostitute, there was another one who married a prostitute, I guess it runs in the blood of Benzimra, he actually married a black prostitute in Caracas, I'm guessing your father didn't know anything about it too, he disconnected himself from that thing, maybe it's his brother, I don't know, maybe you should go look them up, the black Benzimra family, that actually sound wonderful to me, not only gentiles marrying Jewish women."

  "I didn't marry her, we just live together."

  "Having kids with Jewish women, black Benzimras, others wander around the world, what are they looking for, just like me, what am I looking for, why am I going back to Tetouan tomorrow, what am I looking for? Can you tell me, and you, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a relative in me? Thanks a lot, maybe I should hug you, tell you everything, tell you it was wonderful there, you want to find some kind of wonderful and wondrous past there, there was never such a past, maybe in the early years of the Spanish occupation, maybe, they always made it look like it was some sort of paradise there, paradise full of garbage in the streets, what paradise? And I was there until I was fifteen years old so I know, I rode these roads, there was no dream there, even though my father went back and passed away there, two years ago, went back to die there, because here was even worse, your dad did good going to Caracas, at least there you didn't lose everyone's respect, here even the dreams of the past are gone, we've been run over here, we were oppressed."

  "By who?"

  "By the other Jews, the Ashkenazim, here, read, "The East African Rift Valley", I'm a writer, and a poet, read it, here, there's a part I translated to Spanish, a few poems too, I guess you won't understand any of it, what's all this to you, and anyway, what can I say that will help you, why did you choose to meet me, because I carry your father's name, why didn't you go to your uncles there, in Caracas, you thought that the farther you go the better you'll deal with the blow, what did you think?"

  "I don’t know, I heard Jewish, and decided to go to Jerusalem, yes, I found an uncle, an old brother of my dad, he said Kaddish at the cemetery, I didn't understand anything obviously, I read the translation from Hebrew"

  "From Aramaic, the Kaddish is said in Aramaic."

  "What's Aramaic?"

  "A Semitic language close to Hebrew that was used by the Jews two thousand years ago. The Kaddish is said in Aramaic, according to the tradition, so evil angels won't understand it, according to that same tradition, angels understand Hebrewonly."

  "The angels do, but I don’t... so he said Kaddish, it sounded very beautiful, but he wasn't willing to talk to me about anything, he told me to live my life and forget"

  "That’s what I'm saying too, live your life, if your mom was Christian, so you're Christian, why do you need all this being Jew mess, if one can choose...I would have given up on being Jewish, well, maybe not, I don’t know, some days I would and some days I wouldn't, some days, Fernando, days when I'm so happy I live in Jerusalem, every stone speaks to me, I think of all of our ancestors, all of the Benzimras who dreamt about Jerusalem, I think of them and I walk their steps, every step I take is a step of one of my ancestors, many steps. In other days, every stone in Jerusalem just falls on my head, and breaks me, some days everything here is so hard
, so hard."

  "I'm a doctor"

  "And I'm a computer programmer, that won't change anything, the professions, the pain will stay the same, the longings are the same, we will search but we'll never know what we're looking for. Go, get on your way, read what I gave you if you want, I'm leaving for ten days now, if you'll still be here, maybe we'll meet again, although, I don't think you'd want to."

  1

  - Where are we going mom?

  - To our land.

  - To Israel.

  - Hush... don’t say that name, you mustn't say that word

  - Why mom?

  - I'll tell you why when we get there, a policeman can arrest us if we say that wordhere.

  - And when do we go?

  - Soon

  - In a month?

  - In a month, in two months, a year, as soon as your father finishes his businesses here.

  - But why does he say he wants to go to Canada or Venezuela.

  - From here, son, from here we're going to our landonly, enough with this exile, it's been long enough, from here, son, I'm telling you, no matter what your father says, we're going to our land, that's our country.

  Tetouan 1868

  Write it, write it down my grandson, I don't have much more time to live, you know, and it's important someone writes down what happened back then, in 1868, I remember everything as if it happened yesterday, I was thirteen years old then, write it down, because you write beautiful Spanish, educated Spanish, my language had been mixed with the Brazilian Portuguese, besides they didn’t really teach Spanish at Alliance, that started later, write it down so somebody remembers, that was the hardest winter inthe Juderia of Tetouan, that year was the worst, four years after the Spaniards left the city, and even then it wasn’t easy, when the Spaniardscame the Arabs looted our houses as if we were to blame for their fall, and not the incompetence of their Sultan, our Sultan too perhaps, no I'm not talking about Franco's Spaniards, I'm talking about those who came to Tetouan on 1860, long before you were born, my son, Mimon, my grandsonwhocarries my name, those were other Spaniards, they were impressed of those Judío who speak the language of Cervantes with them, and when the famine came the Burgos Spaniards sent us money, you know, like an old cousin, a good one, that's not exactly what I wanted to talk to you about today, but about Ayish and Lashen, you don't know them? Maybe you've heard of them, those two criminals, their names alone became the city's cause of anxiety for two years, it started after Sukkot when Abraham Pariente, you definitely know his son, Jacob Pariente, the one who married Sultana, him and Mois Azulay left to Tangier as they used to do occasionally, when someone ambushed and stabbed them, Pariente died on the spot and Azulay, who was the French diplomat in the region for a certain period of time was badly wounded. That was just the beginning because few days later Pinhas Azulay and his son were killed too, and of course you know that back then, just like today, we were not allowed to carry arms or defend ourselves, so the important Jewish people of the city went to speak with the important people of the region, if it was the Spaniards or the French, or even the British, Dr. Shmidl from Austria simply laid all the blame on the Jews, and told them that if they hadn’t left their Juderia to make a living, and by that not breaking the existing boundaries, then that incident wouldn't have happened to them, you can even say that maybe if they didn't exist at all, they wouldn't have been killed, but things were not as simple as that, it turned out that that man, the criminal, Ayish, had gained the support of the last Pasha of the city, that's the mayor, who was relieved of his duty by the Sultan, and used the Jews to ram the new Pasha, but the Jews, who were helpless and defenseless, were the ones who suffered, their attempt to build outside the Juderia encountered more and more difficulties, and it was the great French representative who said to the Arabs, that the Jews, with their natural procreation should stay where they are, and they are only guests on the land of the Arabs, it's not that all the Arabs accepted these ideas, but these problems pushed me to lookfor work in Brazil, I would leave for two or three years every time, and then return to my family, your father and the rest of the kids for a few months as you know, besides, there was great poverty and no work opportunities here, the killings went on and peoplefeared going out.

  Write it, write it down, you're going to forget it later, hear what I'm telling you, you forget things like that quick, and I know that it doesn't really interest you, but it will interest your grandson, yes, when all the Jews will leave Tetouan not so long from now, when the Spaniards leave, and they will leave in ten or twenty years, and maybe thenthere will finally be a state of Israel, then everybody will go, so write it down for your grandson. What happened later was that the killings continued and there were twenty five dead in one month, and the Jews simply feared getting out of their homes to work their fields, and their already bad financial situation just kept getting worse, in addition, Jews movement in the region was restricted and they were forbidden to get out through Bab Ambakar, which was the most important gate leading to their lands, this made them get even poorer, all these houses you see here, the house you live in, didn’t exist, the streets were muddy, and the situation in Alliance, the school you will go to, which was the hope for our future, suffered an economic crisis as well, a crisis that will last, but there was no one to support it and the students were too poor to pay their tuition then, I'm not sure if things got complicated, as you may say, but it worked in our favor, because this Ayish made a mistake and killed eight Arabs, or maybe it wasn't a mistake, he just wanted to paralyze life in Tetouan, they say that three policemen saw them on the way to commit a crime once and didn't even stop them, when they were asked why the policemen said "they didn't tell us to arrest them so we didn't arrest them", Mois Azulay, who got wounded, asked the French for help, claiming he is their representative in Tetouan and they need to protect him, but the French, being French, discarded this, claiming his role there had ended long ago, and they owe him nothing, that was the greatest killing that Rabbi Yitzhak Benwalid remembered, he died two years later at the age of a hundred or more, after the killings of 1790, and as if all this wasn’t enough, the cholera was back, it was a pleasant winter, a hot winter even, you know winters here are usually convenient, but that was a winter hardly noticed, and the cholera hit dozens of Jews, it may have been the largest community here, seven thousand Jews, that was just before the big immigrations, to Argentina, to Algiers, to Oran, to Spain, to Venezuela mainly, and to Brazil too, to anyplace that offered work, and on Sunday, a week before Hanukah precisely, the Jews went to bury those who died of the cholera on Saturday, as they usually did, when Ayish and Lashen came and killed ten Jews at the cemetery, that was too much on any scale, later my cousin Jacob Serfati was killed too, and my brother Moshe Benzimra was hurt in one of these encounters, but luckily he wasn’t hurt severely and managed to escape, because they learned to ride in convoys, a few steps from one another, people came and went, drove to Tangier and talked, and it was just before Passover when the sultan sent some troops to kill Ayish, after someone suggested to put a big bounty on his head, but specially just after he killed ten more Arabs, and that, my son, was the hardest winter of our lives here, up until that big cholera year when as much as half of the city's population had died, but I'll tell you about that tomorrow, I am very tired today, I'm almost a hundred years old and at this age you get a little tired, and you will write the things I tell you, because I really do ask myself, after I die, who will remember all this, who will remember everything I remember, what will happen to my memories when I die, Mimon, Mimonsito, what will happen to the memories, what will happen to all the things that happened in Tetouan, and who will be interested in remembering them...

  2

  - What's it going to be like over there mom?

  - Everybody will be like youover there, all Jews, no one will throw stones at you.

  - And what language will they speak.

  - They will speak Hebrew, not the biblical Hebrew but the Hebrew you learn with
Monsieur Cohen on Fridays, spoken Hebrew, common Hebrew.

  - And in school?

  - Hebrew as well, you'll learn it very quickly, you'll be a good student just like you are here.

  - When will we go, before or after the Bar-Mitzvah

  - We will go soon, you need to decide if you want to have your Bar-Mitzvah before or after we go.

  - Before, with all my friends, it will be a farewell party, but they won't know, it's a secret, a secret farewell party.

  - O.K., whatever you choose, we'll talk about it in two months.

  - Mom, I'm afraid, I'm afraid of going there.

  - It's our land, son, it will be a bit hard but you will be much better off there than you are here.

  Tetouan 1860

  Wait, wait a minute, don't go yet, I may be tired, but tomorrow I might be neither tired nor alive, you know Mimon, at my age you never know for certain if you are going to wake up the next morning or not, even though my father and my grandfather lived to be more than a hundred years old, my grandmother's mom too, who told me even before the winter of 1860 when the Spaniards came, how she awaits the day we will all go back to Seville, here, she said, here is the key we took from home, from the Seville Juderia, in the Jewish region, she used to describe the size of the house, I don't really remember much of this anymore, that is why I'm telling you to write everything down, you think you would remember, but eventually you don’t, you forget the most important things. Here we are in Tetouan, and it's the closest place to Spain Jews settled in, those were probably the most optimistic Jews that left Spain, this city was built in 1942 right after the expulsion, we are merely twenty kilometers from Ceuta, and thirty from Algeciras, and a few hundreds more from Seville, that’s our city, and now you see what's happening, we are really going back to Spain, Here are all the Benzaquens, and the Azulay family, they are in Malaga, and the Botbol are in Madrid, and also most of the Hatchwells and the Benatars, we are simply going back to Spain, because it's our country, don’t forget, don’t you ever forget, that is where our blood runs, that is where our veins to the heart go, the mother of my grandmother, Sultana Toledano, she told me that her family never believed in Shabtai Tzvi, and that just before the coming of the Messiah, and before Jerusalem, we will go back to Spain, but there were people in Tetouan that did believe in this false Messiah, she was a better prophet than all of the Rabbis and Cabbalists. And then, in the winter of 1860, the Spaniards came and we talked Haketia with them, they were stunned, here we stood, a whole neighborhood, in the isolated Juderia of Tetouan, speaking three hundred year old Spanish with them. And we were the ones waiting for them, they didn’t wait for us, some of them tried to get us to convert to Christianity, by offering us money and making promises, some of them even succeeded in that, some were anti-Semitic by memory, since they have never seen a Jew in their life, but all this was nothing, because, they simply looked just like us, physically, I won't forget how I saw them as my relatives, their faces, and if there is such a thing as a Jewish nose, they had it, and since then I keep saying that Spaniards are Jewish descendants, in all of them, or in most of them at least, runs Jewish blood, especially in the rich ones, because the rich Jews were easier to convert at the start of the Spanish Inquisition, they were already close to the Christians and the Aristocracy, and in that winter son, it snowed, what were the skies weeping about, it snowed on the day the Spaniards entered Tetouan, what a remarkable thing, it only snowed twice here in my lifetime, and on that year of all years, I remember one of the soldiers sat next to me on our entrance stairs, and it seemed like he was speaking strange kind of Spanish, but I could understand every word, and he said he is talking to me because I'm still a child, and he can only say these things to a child, because no one would believe me, and I never told it to no one, I kept it to myself, and he said: