Ancient Roots: Moroccan Jew walks to the door of a synagogue in the northern city of Fez. A museum devoted to the country?s Jewish culture has reopened in Casablanca after renovations. Image by Getty Images

Moroccan nationalists protested the opening of an exhibition on Moroccan Jews in Tangier.

At least 150 people gathered Feb. 18 in front of the venue where the Spanish government’s cultural Cervantes Institute opened an exhibition entitled “The Spanish Jews in Morocco and their Diasporas,” the Spanish news agency EFE reported.

The protest in the northern Moroccan city was organized by the Coordination Committee for Political Forces for Palestine. Protesters chanted insults aimed at Andre Azoulay, a well-known Moroccan Jew and advisor to King Mohammed VI, according to EFE.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The protesters displayed flags equating the Israeli Star of David with a swastika. Some of the protesters posed for photographers while trampling that flag as well as Israeli flags.

Signs denounced the exhibition as normalization of ties between Morocco and Israel.

Cecilia Fernandez Suzor, the director of the Cervantes Institute, told EFE that the same exhibition opened recently in Tetuan without incident, but that hardliners had organized an online campaign ahead of the opening in Tangier.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount