(JTA) — King Mohammed VI of Morocco attended the rededication of the Ettedgui Synagogue in Casablanca. The synagogue and the adjacent El Mellah Museum, which retraces Jewish history in Morocco, were reopened Friday. They were restored as part of the second phase of a government program aimed at rehabilitating Casablanca’s old city. A government grant of…
(JTA) — King Mohammed VI of Morocco thanked a Jewish composer from Casablanca who had written a song in the monarch’s honor. Albert Cohen, a novelist, composer and singer, earlier this week shared on Facebook a copy of the letter he received from the king for a poem entitled “Lay off my King” that Cohen…
It was bound to be a bizarre experience for me. Instead of rolling through my modest Brooklyn neighborhood, I was going to the fancy Pierre Hotel to sit in a room full of New York City’s elite. If you are not accustomed to the rigors of society life, a tableau of rich folk dolled up for a night out is both intimidating and comic. The fact that the reception on the evening of December 13 was being given by the American Sephardic Foundation in honor of King Mohammed VI of Morocco only added layers to the strangeness of my situation.