Dozens of rabbinic families affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement gathered in Casablanca, Morocco, last week for a conference aimed at Chabad leaders serving small Jewish communities across Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
They came from 40 different countries, some making the short hop from mainland Spain or its Canary Islands, others coming from as far as Zambia.
“A criteria to come to participate in this conference was to come from a community where you’ve had to schlep kosher food in a suitcase,” Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, a Chabad rabbi based in Istanbul and the director of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, joked to Religion News Service.
The three-day event in the medieval city of Fez began on 16 May and saw around 60 Chabad rabbis and their families, totaling about 200 people from 40 countries across the MENA and Europe.
The hosting of the event, which also marked the 73rd anniversary of the launch of the Chabad’s emissary project in the North African kingdom was also symbolic in once being home to the 12th century Jewish physician and scholar Maimonides, considered one of the greatest Torah scholars of Islamic Spain.
Attendees were there to celebrate the conclusion of the last chapter of Maimonides’s magnum opus, Mishneh Torah, whose study cycle had been completed around the world in recent weeks.
Historic Conference in Morocco Draws Rabbis From Africa, Middle East, Europe
Emissaries from 40 countries gatherhttps://t.co/GfphFPSTve pic.twitter.com/uLzqTVWurH— Chabad.org (@Chabad) May 17, 2023
According to a press release, the conference aimed to strengthen “Jewish life, awareness and practice in Muslim-majority countries, as well as those with relatively small Jewish populations, and celebrates the renaissance of Jewish life in these regions.”
Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, director of Chabad of Turkiye in Istanbul and chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, was quoted on the movement’s website as saying: “Rabbis coming together in a Muslim country for the purpose of strengthening Jewish life is an important indication of the future of Jewish life in the region.”
Rabbi Levi Duchman, who came to the conference from the UAE, told Religion News Service (RNS) that the Jewish reality he helped create in the Gulf state can be replicated across the wider region by many of the other rabbis at the conference. Both the UAE and Morocco were among the four Arab countries that signed the Abraham Accords normalisation agreement with Israel in 2020, which led to a significant increase in Jewish tourism to both Muslim-majority countries.
The conference was hosted by Moroccan-born Rabbi Levi Banon and his U.S.-born wife, Chana, who have served as emissaries at Chabad-Lubavitch of Morocco since 2009, when Mrs. Raizel Raskin, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Morocco, appointed them to lead the next generation of Moroccan Jewry.
Throughout the three-day conference, the emissaries discussed the opportunities and challenges of serving in communities with limited access to Jewish services, from kosher food to mikvahs to Jewish schools.
The rabbis and their families were welcomed to the conference by Rabbi David Banon of Montreal, a prominent rabbi of the Moroccan Jewish Diaspora, who recited the traditional blessing for the nation’s monarch, King Mohammed VI.
The conference included presentations and meeting with Serge Bardugo, president of Morocco’s Jewish communities, in addition to members of Morocco’s rabbinical court.
The last decade has seen Chabad’s presence expand across the general region, with centers being established in Angola, the Canary Islands, Ghana, Iceland, Ivory Coast, Malta, Montenegro, Rwanda, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates and Zambia.
“Choosing Morocco as the location of this year’s conference highlights Chabad’s ongoing commitment to Jewish life in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in communities with smaller Jewish populations” says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “It is thanks to the vision of the Rebbe that Chabad is the most vibrant Jewish movement today, with the dedicated emissaries who give up so much of themselves to benefit others.”
Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Istanbul, Turkey, rabbi of Istanbul’s Ashkenazic community and chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, just returned from a visit to Djerba, Tunisia. He traveled there immediately after the attack on the Djerba Jewish community on Lag BaOmer, one of the few rabbis to visit on the ground and strengthen the community. He said that “rabbis coming together in a Muslim country for the purpose of strengthening Jewish life is an important indication of the future of Jewish life in the region.”
