A Moroccan Medina during Ramadan

A Moroccan Medina during Ramadan

A Moroccan Medina during Ramadan

Casablanca, Morocco—“Eat the Harira, eat while its’ hot. Don’t be ashamed,” the host insisted, repeating this polite order three more times. Harrow can be a thick soup of tomatoes, chickpeas, meat as well as spices that Moroccan Muslims traditionally eat within the holy month of Ramadan at that time after they break the rapid.

Only about this night, the host and cook of this Ramadan meal were obviously a Jewish woman, Suzanne Abittan, who invited Muslim and Jewish friends and neighbors to her home in the city center of Casablanca, two floors above a synagogue.

Twelve people sat around a table laden with dates, traditional Moroccan pancakes, and sweets: men as well as three men men—five of them Muslims and seven Jews.

“For generations Muslims and Jews grew up together in Morocco, we are siblings and even shared even the same mother’s milk,” Abittan said within a loud and robust voice, balancing a tray with hard boiled eggs and cut cucumbers as she walked in the kitchen into the lounge.

The 59-year-old spent some time working for quite some time as being a community outreach aide, helping poor families to gain access to education for their children. “Jews and Muslims,” she said, “we don’t change lives.“

But as the dinner symbolized a tolerance that has existed in this corner of the Maghreb for hundreds of years, some Moroccans also concern yourself with the effects of the Arab Spring inside their neighboring countries.

“All these countries are starting to be chaos, the radicalization is increasing,“said Souad Fetouak, who works by the secretary of state for interior and is a pal of Abittan. Together they've got created an association for ability to tolerate compile Muslims, Jews and Christians in Casablanca.