“I Live in Haifa [because] it Reminds Me of Casablanca”: From Morocco to France and Israel, Twentieth-Century Jewish Diasporic Trajectories

This lecture is derived from my doctoral research which examines the identity formation among the second and third generation of Moroccan Jewish immigrants in France and Israel. While this study focuses on the family from a micro-scale, its guiding question seeks to explore the ways in which “moroccanness” is perceived and expressed in two different diasporas. In collecting data, I employ mainly ethnographic methods which unfold through participant observation and in-depth interviews. In this lecture, I will introduce a selection of quotes collected from the fieldwork carried out in various cities that stretch from Beersheva, Haifa, Netanya, and Jerusalem in Israel to Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, and Paris in France. The lecture will generate a discussion on diasporicity, identity, nationalism, religiosity, and the ever-changing modes of negotiating and performing them.