A Muslim country that honours its Jewish heritage

Leaving the tiny synagogue of Rabbi Chaim Pinto in the Moroccan town of Essaouira, Melbourne Jewish educator Paul Forgasz bumped his head on a low beam.

When he sat down to nurse the bruise, a Muslim woman in traditional dress approached and placed her hand on his head, giving him a Jewish blessing to heal through the merit of the righteousness of the long-dead rabbi.

It was a quintessentially Moroccan moment.

The woman at the Pinto synagogue is part of a Muslim family who have cared for the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery for generations. She is just one example of a long tradition of close relationships and respectful coexistence that seem almost idyllic in the current global climate of interfaith tension.

I recently joined a tour led by Forgasz exploring Morocco’s Jewish history. It was a fascinating and remarkably uplifting experience.

Morocco offers what Arthur Miller called “a view from the bridge”. It is a place where East meets West, Arab meets Amazigh, Jew meets Muslim, the baguette meets the tagine, and the stork meets the satellite dish.

In the old city of Marrakech, a door is marked with both the scar of a mezuzah and shape of a hamsa, which Muslims call the Hand of Fatima. The double signifiers are evidence of a house where Muslims and Jews lived together.

The two communities lived peaceably – not always, but often – for about 1700 years. Muslim rule did not offer equality until very recently but it gave Jews far more protection and freedom than they experienced in Christian Europe.