Skip to main content

Passover Professionals

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Muslim Custodians of Jewish Spaces in Morocco

Part of the book series: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion ((CAR))

  • 226 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter discusses the celebration of Passover in 2005 and 2006 in which rural Moroccan Muslim guests at my seder took over the evening because my customs were not what they remembered. I use these examples to think about the malleability of tradition, as well as the differing goals of performance. I tried to fulfill a religious obligation and cement friendships in my new home. My guests were trying to recreate and stabilize their memories of Judeo-Amazigh culture. That we all failed in our goals speaks to the perpetually creative nature of performance, and that it is incapable of re-creating.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1990. “The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power through Bedouin Women.” American Ethnologist 17 (1): 41–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2006. “Writing Against Culture.” In Recapturing Anthropology, ed. Richard Fox, 137–62. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2008. Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Richard (ed.). 1992. Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications-Centered Handbook. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, Catherine. 1998. “Performance.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark Taylor, 205–24. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bilu, Yoram. 2010. The Saints’ Impresarios: Dreamers, Healers, and Holy Men in Israel’s Urban Periphery. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Briggs, Charles L. 1988. Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connerton, Paul. 2012. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gade, Anna. 2004. Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion, and the Recited Qurʼān in Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, Arthur and Joan Kleinman. 1994. “How Bodies Remember: Social Memory and Bodily Experience of Criticism, Resistance, and Delegitimation Following China’s Cultural Revolution.” New Literary History 25 (3): 707–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orsi, Robert. 1997. “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion.” In Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice, ed. David Hall, 10. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orsi, Robert. 2005. Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schroeter, Daniel. 1989. “Trade as a Mediator in Muslim-Jewish Relations: Southwestern Morocco in the Nineteenth Century.” In Jews Among Arabs: Contacts and Boundaries, ed. Mark Cohen and Abraham Udovitch. Princeton: Darwin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schroeter, Daniel. 2002. The Sultan’s Jew: Morocco and the Sephardi World. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schroeter, Daniel. 2008. “The Shifting Boundaries of Moroccan-Jewish Identities.” Jewish Social Studies 15 (1): 145–64 (New Series).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shokeid, Moshe. 1996. “Jewish Existence in a Berber Environment.” In Jews Among Muslims: Communities in the Precolonial Middle East, ed. Shlomo Deshen and Walter Zenner. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Driver, C.T.P. (2018). Passover Professionals. In: Muslim Custodians of Jewish Spaces in Morocco. Contemporary Anthropology of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78786-2_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78786-2_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78785-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78786-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics