Moroccan Nationalists Protest Exhibit on Sephardic Jews in Tangier
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.
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.
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