Tourism, Charity, and Profit:
The Movement of Money in Moroccan
Jewish Pilgrimage
Oren Kosansky
Lawrence University
. Prologue
In 1986, the Council of the Jewish Communities of Morocco (CJCM) organized
a "national" Jewish pilgrimage to the shrine of Rebbi Yahia Lakhadar.
The event corresponded with celebrations that are held during the springtime
Jewish festival known as Lag b'Omer when the death of Rebbi Shimon Bar
Yohai is commemorated. Although Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai lived, died, and
was buried in the Holy Land, annual pilgrimages in his honor are directed towards
the tombs of several Moroccan saints.1
Partly in recognition of the centralization
of Morocco's remaining Jewish population in urban areas, the
shrine selected for the national pilgrimage in 1986 was located near the village
of Ben Ahmed, an hour's drive from the country's largest city, Casablanca.
The CJCM also promoted the pilgrimage as part of an eight-day "tourist
circuit" developed to attract Jews from the Moroccan diaspora. Through a network
of ethnic associations, the CJCM sent glossy brochures written in French
to e'migre's in France, Canada, and Israel. Recipients of the brochure were addressed
as follows:
If your employment and your means permit. ... If you are enchanted by Jewish
events, especially those celebrated by a warm, authentic, and Mediterranean community.
... If your origins are Moroccan or if your parents or grandparents lived
in Morocco. ... If a blue sky. picturesque countryside, the colors of true nature,
and spontaneous hospitality tempt you, don't hesitate! Come celebrate the pilgrimage
in honor of Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai. The tourist circuit associated with
these events will reintroduce you to, or acquaint you with, the Rif and the Atlas
[mountain ranges], the imperial cities rich with history, ancient and modern Morocco
where for nearly two thousand years our community has existed and produced
many eminent rabbis.
Scanning the brochure, potential pilgrims would find the evocative imagery of
the text reproduced in the accompanying photographs that exploit a visual vocabulary
drawn from the Moroccan tourist industry. Beyond the cover of the
Cultural Anthropology 17(3):3S9-4OO. Copyright © 2002. American Anthropological Association.
359
360 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
brochure, on which a picture of an elaborate tomb is featured, color photographs
of the High Atlas Mountains, medieval urban architecture, and traditional
Moroccan tile work depict a vacation destination as much as a pilgrimage
itinerary. The tourist circuit would combine leisurely travel through
picturesque Morocco with visits to the shrines of four other saints Prospecthe
pilgrims are assured that hotel accommodations, travel within the country, and
dining arrangements are included in the package.
The final two pages of the brochure include photographs of Rebbi Yahia
Lakhadar's shrine complex, a short biography of the saint, and an icon of
Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai. In the text, the local saint emerges as a man of great
faith, religious knowledge, and divine spirit. His capacity to perform miracles
and grant divine favor—the very power that continues to draw many pilgrims
today—is conspicuously ignored in the advertisement. The saint is rendered,
like Morocco itself, as a nostalgic attraction easily accessible in an age of mass
transportation. Potential pilgrims are hailed: "If, like us, you consider it necessary
to perpetuate the memory of the venerated masters of Judaism, take the
airplane; it's so easy, fast, and pleasant."
The pilgrimage to the shrine of Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan peaks with the
auction of candles sold in the name of saints. Speaking in Moroccan JudeoArabic,
the auctioneer draws the crowd into the evening's activities:
This night, how many people wait for it?
And how many people across the world suffer just to attend this time of faith'7
On this night we must make a festive occasion and be happy!
This is a great night!
We must sit and be happy and sing!
And the zekhut [power] of the saint?
Those who came for something, he will achieve it for them. Amen!
He removes from you bad things. Amen!
He removes that which has gone bad for you, and illness!
He gives you health! Amen!
Rebbi Amram! You know his great and wondrous deeds! Amen!
And whoever came for something, Rebbi Amram and God make it happen for them.
Amen!
As the bidding for the first candle proceeds, tensions mount. The auctioneer
displays his skills at diffusing antagonism while provoking competition.
He explains that the money collected through the auction is considered charity
to be used for the benefit of the shrine and the community it serves. Following
the auctioneer's lead, the congregation joins in rounds of song that emphasi/c
communal sentiment:
May his [the saint's| power be with us.
With us and Israel, our brothers.
Praise the Lord for He is good.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 361
But the auctioneer also encourages bidding by emphasizing the value of money
given by each individual:
I remind you that what each of you has given,
That is what the saint owes you.
As the bidding on the most expensive candles reaches a climax, and as
raises are slower to come, an excited silence comes over the crowd. After the
last call is made, the winner humbly accepts his candle and returns to his seat
while pilgrims talk of his deed and the price paid. Too much talk, however, is
garish. There is an ideal that charity be given anonymously, so the reputation
of bidders is established quietly; yet not so quietly as to prevent even a newcomer
like myself from quickly learning who to watch at candle auctions.
' Introduction
The recent transformation of communal pilgrimages to the shrines of Moroccan
Jewish saints, events known as hillulot (sing, hillulah),2
into transnational
tourist attractions has highlighted a divide between two relatively
autonomous spheres of exchange. One is determined by the tourist economy of
pilgrimage; the other is established in the ritual economy of pilgrimage. Each
form of exchange, in turn, is associated with different categories of money: expenditures
(Fr. depenses) in the first case and charity (Judeo-Arabic sedaqa) in
the second. Although in practice these spheres of exchange and categories of
money bleed into each other, since the late 1970s the transnational tourist
economy of pilgrimage has assumed heightened importance as airfare, rental
cars, and hotel rooms have been increasingly figured into the budgets of pilgrims,
many of whom have emigrated from Morocco.
The transformation of pilgrimages into transnational tourist attractions
represents one obvious point of articulation between the global economy and
local ritual practices.3
This articulation has been recognized by both the Moroccan
State and the resident Jewish community who have combined efforts in
the promotion of Jewish pilgrimages as transnational events with a significant
economic payoff. As illustrated by the advertisement introduced at the start of
this article, the promotion of hillulot as tourist events has been predominantly
directed at Moroccan Jewish Emigre's living for the most part in France, Canada,
and Israel.
The Moroccan Jewish diaspora and its embodiment in ephemerally constituted
communities of pilgrims can be characterized as transnational because it
is situated at the dynamic intersection between global displacement from a
homeland and the construction of a deterritorialized community that, in demographic
actuality and cultural .imagination, transcends the confines of particular
nation-states (cf. Appadurai 1991:193). Moroccan Jewish identity is intimately
tied to nostalgic images of place, society, and country rooted in a North
African national geography. As one might expect, these are precisely the images
that are exploited in the Moroccan promotion of hillulot. Rather than motivating a
362 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
nationalist desire to repatriate to a Moroccan homeland, however, such nostalgic
images have been implicated in the emergence of a transnational Moroccan
Jewish identity that self-consciously transcends international borders.4
"Moroccan."
in this context, refers less to national or cartographic boundaries than
to forms of mobile identity and globalized community. Hillulot, in this context,
are transnational not merely because they draw adherents from a variety of nation-states,
but more significantly because the communities they create are affectively
and symbolically constituted without necessary reference to the national
boundaries that are crossed on pilgrimage.5
The commodification of hillulot as part of the Moroccan tourist economy
has ironically relied on the transformation of Moroccan emigres into tourists in
their own homeland. Through this transformation, the money spent by touristpilgrims
has become valued as an infusion of foreign currency into local Moroccan
coffers and as a contribution to the national GNP. In the first half of this
article, I trace the unapologetic economic and political exploitation of hillulot
as tourist commodities. Such exploitation depends both on the vitality of transnational
Moroccan Jewish identity, itself reliant on polyvalent expressions of
nostalgia, and on the capacity of dispersed Moroccan Jews to serve as conduits
for the repatriation of money, if not of people. In this regard, the transnationalization
of hillulot refers also to the deterritorialization of the Moroccan Jewish
communal treasury, which is popularly understood to be largely concentrated
in the capitalist interests of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Moroccan
Jewish diaspora.
If contemporary hillulot, commodified as attractions, mark a convergence
of pilgrimage and tourism, they also situate capitalist profit within a ritual
economy that has been erased from glossy promotions. Hillulot are sites of
commodification, not only as the result of tactical marketing, but also through
the practices by which pilgrimages emerge as events of sacred devotion. piet\.
and faith. Specifically, the transformation of pilgrimages into tourist events
has not extinguished an alternative logic of exchange that persists in rituals of
charity. Charity refers both to money given directly to poor pilgrims as well as
to money given to saints and accepted by the managerial bodies of shrines. In
the second half of this article, I demonstrate that charity money is valued according
to practical ideologies of ritual exchange in ways that are not directly
determined by the commodification of hillulot as tourist events. Nor. however,
does pilgrimage charity represent a simple counterpoint to hierarchies of
wealth, to self-interested exchange, or to capitalist profit. Rather, rituals of
charity are constituted by performances of wealth and honor, relationships of
self-interested calculation, and sacred strategies of interpreting and inviting
capitalist profit in the transnational economy.
In focusing on charity as a form of self-interested exchange that can represent
capitalist profit, my argument is in line with approaches to gift exchange
as a competitive and economic practice (Appadurai 1986: Bourdieu 1970.
1977; Mauss 1990). The following account of Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage
charity extends and articulates several critiques of facile oppositions between
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 363
altruism and hierarchy, generosity and self-interest, charity and profit (Parry
and Bloch 1989). While pilgrimages constitute intimate communities of fraternal
pilgrims, hierarchies of wealth and honor are negotiated and performed in
public rituals of charity (cf. Godelier 1999:13; Hermann 1997:992). In binary
terms, charitable exchanges enact and reproduce a distinction between the
wealthy and the poor. At a more discriminating level, epitomized by the public
auction of candles, the wealthiest pilgrims compete among themselves for
honor (Appadurai 1986; Bourdieu 1970, 1977).
All forms of pilgrimage charity, however, are also mediated by saints. Insofar
as charitable giving constitutes a form of exchange between donors and
saints, pilgrims who give at the shrines can expect divine recompense. Although
this recompense may take a variety of forms (e.g., health, marriage, fertility,
protection from harm, the return of lost items, and other favors commonly
associated with saintly intercession [Hawley 1987]), the largest sums of
money given are often expected to be returned in kind. For the wealthiest pilgrims,
whose income derives from transnational manufacturing and commerce,
money directed towards saints is renewed through the vicissitudes of
the global market. Especially during the candle auction, profit is transformed
into, and recognized as, saintly restitution.
Locating Pilgrimage Exchange
The ethnographic space of this article encompasses those shrines, seven in
all, which support the largest transnational pilgrimages in Jewish Morocco (see
Figure I).6
Of the over two dozen annual hillulot celebrated today, approximately
one quarter have remained or emerged as focal pilgrimages that attract
a significant number of devotees from throughout Morocco and the Moroccan
Jewish diaspora. Although a hillulah usually occurs on a designated date,
devotees often remain at the shrine for several days. Although one date on the
Jewish festival calendar (Lag b'Omer) commands pilgrimages to several
shrines, major hillulot occur throughout the year. In this dynamic cycle of pilgrimages,
the symbolic space of hillulot is not limited to a single event or
shrine. Poems, songs, stories, and icons link various saints and shrines in unified
narratives, interwoven miraculous plots, and pictorial montages in which
multiple saints appear. Even though pilgrimages are directed to the shrines of
particular saints, numerous holy men and holy places are integrated into most
pilgrimage rituals.7
Evidence of Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage, and more broadly of the veneration
of deceased holy men known as saddiqim (saints, sing, saddiq). extends
back to at least the 18th century (Romanelli 1989).8
The growth of communal
pilgrimages on the anniversary of a saint's death appears to have accelerated
during the late 19th century and through the period of the French protectorate
(1912-56).9
French colonial ethnographers observed Jewish pilgrimage predominantly
as evidence of Jewish-Muslim mystical syncretism, which also incorporated
vestiges of ancient Berber "paganism" (Voinot 1948). Colonial representations
of Jewish pilgrimage emphasized the similarities between Muslim
364 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
ATLANTIC OCEAN *Ouezzane
'Sale
'•Casablanca
1
•Safi
f* Essaouira
MOROCCO
• Marrakech
• Rissani f
J
• Taroudant
ALGERIA
Saint / Shrine Location Date / Season of Hillulah
1. Rebbi Yahia Lakhdar Region of Ben Ahmed Lag b'Omer / Spring
2. Rebbi Abraham Aouriouir Region of Settat Lag b'Omer / Spring
3. Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan Region of Ouezzane Lag b'Omer / Spring*
4. Ouled Ben Zmirou Safi August / Summer
5. Rebbi Haim Pinto Essaouira 26Elul/Fall
6. Rebbi David Ben Barukh Region of Taroudant 3 Tevet / Winter
7. David U-Moshe Agouim lHeshvan/Fall
Figure 1
"The hillulah of Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan is celebrated three times each year.
Although the Pilgrimage on Lag b'Omer attracts the largest number of pilgrims,
smaller celebrations are also held on 15 Ab (Summer) and 1 Elul (Fall).
and Jewish ideologies of saintly intercession and focused on the veneration of
common saints by members of both faiths (e.g., Goulven 1927:91-98). For
some Jewish modernist reformers, saint pilgrimage became an exemplar of
those Moroccan superstitious practices that violated both Jewish orthodoxy
and French modernity.10
For the most part, colonial period accounts of pilgrimage,
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 365
«
written by both French ethnographers and Moroccan-Jewish reformers, paid
little attention to such material matters as money and exchange.
Charitable giving at pilgrimages was recognized by some colonial-era observers,
but mostly as further proof of the irrationality of saint veneration. As
the administration of the Jewish community of Morocco became increasingly
centralized and bureaucratized during the colonial period (see Bensimon-Oonath
1968), Jewish reformers hoped that rationalized mechanisms of philanthropy
would replace previous forms of charitable redistribution (Abbou 1946). The
poor at pilgrimages were represented as beggars who would be better served by
money funneled through newly created social service institutions. Donors of
charity were cast as superstitious dupes who believed that money given at
shrines would lubricate any intercession sought from the saint." Beyond
these brief glosses, the economy of hillulot disappeared in colonial-era repre-
sentations.
Postcolonial ethnography has likewise marginalized economic aspects of
pilgrimage in Jewish Morocco. While patterns of charity and exchange have
been explored by researchers of Moroccan Muslim pilgrimage (Crapanzano
1973; Eickelman 1976; Reysoo 1991), only limited attention has been paid to
comparable Jewish practices (Ben-Ami 1998:93-102), despite a growing anthropological
literature on saint veneration among North African Jews (e.g.,
Ben-Ami 1981; Bilu 1987; Bilu and Ben-Ari 1992; Deshen and Shokeid 1974:
Goldberg 1990, 1992; Levy 1991, 1997; Myerhoff 1993; Stillman 1982; Weingrod
1990a, 1990b). Although this lacuna is consistent with colonial-era representations
of pilgrimage, I think that the scant treatment of the material aspects
of hillulot refers, at least in part, to the positive analytical concerns that have
dominated the contemporary ethnography of Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage.12
In
general, these studies have emphasized the ways in which saint pilgrimages
function in the politics of national and ethnic identity among Moroccan-Israelis.
In contrast, I am interested with Moroccan hillulot as they emerge in the
context of a transnational Jewish diaspora that takes Morocco, and not Israel,
as its center.13
The transnational promotion of pilgrimages by the resident Moroccan
Jewish community has relied on tropes of tourism and nostalgia for a
North African homeland. I argue that these developments indicate an exploitation
of the Moroccan Jewish diaspora in the context of broader Moroccan national
strategies of inviting foreign capital into the country and increasing tourist
revenues.
A second trend in the study of North African Jewish pilgrimage has been
to follow Victor Turner (1974; Turner and Turner 1978) in focusing on communitas
in the pilgrimage process. Hillulot, for example, have been observed
as ritual episodes in which quotidian social hierarchies of gender, age, and
wealth recede (Goldberg 1983s 1990; Weingrod 1990b). Other studies have
highlighted the functions of saint pilgrimage in producing communal sentiment,
cohesion, and identity among transplanted North African Jews (Cernea
1988; Deshen and Shokeid 1974; Weingrod 1990b). These authors argue convincingly
that pilgrimages to the shrines of saddiqim in Israel and North America
366 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
have been instrumental in the transformation of immigrant collectives into ethnic
communities.14
While a communitas approach to pilgrimage leads to certain
insights, an equally serious attention to the social hierarchies enacted and
reproduced at hillulot is due.15
Rituals of pilgrimage charity, which represent
and rejuvenate hierarchies of honor and wealth, invite such attention.
Pilgrimage and Transnational Tourism
The emergence of national pilgrimages in the late 1970s and early 1980s
corresponded with a more general renaissance of public Jewish activitx in Morocco.
From a population peak of nearly 300,000 in the first part of the 20th
century, the Jewish community of Morocco had declined to less than 30,000 by
the 1970s. During this period, the vast majority of Moroccan Jews emigrated to
Israel (Bensimon 1980), with significant numbers also relocating to France and
Canada (Lasry and Tapia 1989). By the mid-1990s, less than 10,000 Jews remained
in Morocco, with no city outside Casablanca retaining a Jewish community
numbering more than a few hundred.16
During several decades of Jewish uncertainty and emigration that followed
Moroccan independence in 1956 and in a regional climate of Arab nationalism,
hillulot dwindled in number and size. Jewish pilgrimages were revitalized
as transnational events partly as a consequence of the renewed
confidence with which the CJCM, based in Casablanca, reasserted itself as the
central administrative body of the Jewish community.17
As part of this reawakening,
the CJCM became instrumental in managing shrine revenues and promoting
hillulot in Morocco and abroad. In the colonial era, several short-lived
attempts had been made to centralize the administration of hillulot (Ben-Ami
1998:125-130), but only since 1979 have all pilgrimages been continuously
organized under the formal authority of the CJCM.18
In the early 1980s, the
CJCM began producing brochures for international distribution and continued
to do so through the mid-1990s.
Beyond newly emergent national pilgrimages, such as the one to Rebbi
Yahia Lakhadar, previously well-established hillulot situated throughout the
country have been transformed from local and regional pilgrimages into national
and transnational ones. During the colonial period, for example, the hillulah
at the shrine of Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan attracted up to 15.000 pilgrims
(Union Marocaine 1932:1). The tombs of Rebbi David Ben Barukh and Rebbi
Haim Pinto were also significant regional pilgrimage sites administered by
members of the respective saints' lineages and their associates. In contrast, the
shrine of Ouled Ben Zmirou in Safi has not had a continuous tradition of largescale
pilgrimage during the 20th century. In the early 1990s, after years of relative
abandonment, a wealthy contractor from Casablanca spearheaded efforts
to reconstruct the shrine and revive the hillulah. It has been through a combination
of initiatives by the CJCM. shrine committees, saintly lineages, and motivated
individuals that certain sites have emerged as transnational pilgrimage
destinations. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when concerted efforts to revitalize
shrines were initiated, the hillulot of Yahia Lakhadar. Amram Ben Diwan.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 367
*
and David Ben Barukh were attracting over 1,000 pilgrims, with several hundred
of them coming from the Moroccan Jewish diaspora (Le Matin du Sahara
etdu Maghreb 1979, 1980, 1986a). The major hillulot I attended between 1995
and 1997 regularly attracted several hundred pilgrims, a significant number of
them coming from abroad.19
In order to attract pilgrims, the CJCM and shrine committees have relied
upon networks of ethnic community organizations throughout the Moroccan
Jewish diaspora.20
In 1996, for example, brochures advertising the hillulah of
Ouled Ben Zmirou were sent to France, Canada, the United States, and Israel.
Potential pilgrims outside Morocco were able to obtain information and make
reservations for travel and hotel accommodations from local committees devoted
to supporting the shrine and its pilgrimage. The pilgrimage to honor
Rebbi Haim Pinto is embedded in a different kind of transnational network.
The shrine, located in the coastal city of Essaouira, is dedicated to the patriarch
of a saintly lineage whose living descendent is considered by some to be a holy
figure himself. The current bearer of the saintly mantle, Rebbi David Pinto, has
built a transnational organization, Hevrat Pinto, comprised of a network of religious
schools and institutions catering predominantly to North African Jews
in such places as Paris, Los Angeles, Ashdod (Israel), and Montreal. Hevrat
Pinto is also involved in the administration and promotion of the hillulah in Essaouira.
The attendance of Rebbi David Pinto, a resident of France, at the hillulah
is a major attraction that draws pilgrims from throughout the Moroccan
Jewish diaspora.
The promotion of hillulot by Moroccan Jewish organizations such as the
CJCM and Hevrat Pinto illustrate the most structured channels though which
pilgrimages have become transnationalized. At one level, this development has
been a response to the demographic transformation of Moroccan Jewry into a
diasporic population. At another level, however, the transnationalization of
hillulot corresponds with developments in Moroccan diplomacy and economy
that have made the growth of Jewish and, more recently, Israeli tourism in the
country both possible and desirable.
Pilgrimage, Nostalgia, and Jewish Tourism
The revitalization of hillulot in the late 1970s dovetailed with increased
attention, by both the Moroccan government and the resident Jewish community,
to the potential of Jewish tourism in Morocco. Beginning in the 1980s, as
tourism grew as an important sphere of the national economy and the Moroccan
government began a rapprochement with Israel (see Tessler 1988), Moroccan
Jewish Emigre's started visiting their country of origin in increasing numbers.
Since Moroccan independence, Moroccan Jews living in Europe and
North America have been granted entry visas to their native country. The vast
majority of Moroccan Jewish Emigre's live in Israel, however, and only with the
political warming between Morocco and Israel over the past two decades has
travel between the two countries become relatively unencumbered. During the
368 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
mid-1990s, with the establishment of formal diplomatic ties with Israel, Morocco
opened its doors to Israeli tourists.21
The Moroccan Ministry of Tourism has not ignored the growing pool of
Moroccan Jewish emigres as potential tourists. Hillulot, in particular, have
been recognized as gateway attractions that represent the goal of expanded
Jewish tourism in Morocco. As early as 1986, the Moroccan minister of tourism
held an official reception for a delegation of Moroccan Jewish pilgrims
who had returned from Paris for the hillulah of Rebbi Yahia Lakhadar (Le
Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb 1986b). By 1993, a Moroccan Jewish businessman.
Serge Berdugo, had become the Moroccan minister of tourism. Not
since the first postcolonial government in 1956 had there been a Jewish ministerial
appointment in Morocco.22
Berdugo's nomination confirmed the importance
of the Jewish diaspora in Morocco's tourist economy. Berdugo, in fact,
was also secretary general of a transnational organization, the Global Assembly
of Moroccan Judaism (GAMJ). According to its constitution, the GAMJ
advances the goal of assuring "the permanence of a historical, religious, and
cultural Judeo-Moroccan heritage in Morocco," while also maintaining and
developing "sentiments of attachment and solidarity towards Morocco from all
the Jewish communities throughout the world." Given this organizational affiliation,
Berdugo's appointment registered a tacit recognition that the nostalgia
cultivated by the GAMJ could be exploited for the benefit of Morocco's
growing tourist industry.
That hillulot provide a crucial object of Moroccan Jewish nostalgia was
recognized by the GAMJ in its earliest efforts. In 1986. two years after its creation,
the GAMJ compiled a brochure that paraded Moroccan press coverage of
the national hillulah at Ben Ahmed. As illustrated by the promotional materials
distributed for that hillulah (as described in the prologue), the organizers of hillulot
have also recognized and cultivated nostalgia as a motivational force behind
individual decisions to return to Morocco on pilgrimage. Such nostalgia.
to be sure, is not merely manufactured by the ministry of tourism nor is it entirely
fabricated through strategic advertising. Pilgrimages and shrines are situated
at the intersection of several practical ideologies that attract Moroccan
Jews to their natal homeland.
Many pilgrims, for example, value personal and biographical relationships
that attach them to specific saints. One man 1 met at the hillulah of R.
David Ben Barukh had returned from Montreal in order to reconnect with the
saint to whom his mother had prayed for a successful pregnancy and after
whom he had been named. Pilgrims who return to Morocco in order to acknowledge
their indebtedness to saints manifest nostalgia for shrines from which
they feel themselves distanced. The identity between saints and shrines, upon
which such pilgrimage nostalgia rests, is registered in the linguistic practice of
referring to shrines by the names of saints (e.g.. "1 am making pilgrimage to
[the shrine of] R. David Ben Barukh"). Shrines are also situated in the context
of place-based nostalgia that refers to sentimental attachments to the land (Ar.
bled). Pilgrims raised in the vicinity of specific shrines, for example, return
TOURISM. CHARITY. AM) PROF II IN MOROCCO 369
with their families so that foreign-raised children and grandchildren can experience
an ancestral landscape. Returning pilgrims often range beyond the confines
of the shrine complex to visit natal villages, walk the surrounding countryside,
or meander through once familiar city streets and reminisce with locals
who have remained. At the hillulah of R. David Ben Barukh. one elderls
woman, who split her time between Paris and Casablanca, led a famih trek to
her natal village, located some two kilometers from the shrine. She found the
house in which she was born, spoke with local Muslims about past acquaintances,
and insisted that her grandchildren (themselves residents of Paris) drink
from the spring that runs through the village.
Such nostalgia for natal and ancestral territory conforms with pervasive
sentiments of Moroccan identity that extend beyond the Jewish population (ct
Geertz et al. 1979:7). Pilgrimage nostalgia is partly an expression of more general
Moroccan modes of local identity that have been shaken, and subsequently
reinforced, by the disruptions of emigration. The promotional brochure for the
national hillulah in 1986. as excerpted at the beginning of this article, is
pitched towards, and consequently contributes to. the creation of such territorial
nostalgia. The imagery of "a blue sky, picturesque countryside, the colors
of true nature, and social hospitality" invoked by the brochure captures the
same litany of nostalgic longings that returning pilgrims express for the geographic,
climatic, and social landscape of their ancestral homeland. If such
nostalgia is rooted in Moroccan identification with natal territory, it is elaborated
in relationship to the contrasting environments of transnational and urban
dislocation. 1 heard pilgrims, for example, speak of dreary Parisian skies,
snowy Montreal winters, and the anonymity of Israeli urban life as counterpoints
to the life which was left behind in Morocco.
The desire of pilgrims to reconnect with saints and vicinities reflects a
dialectic between sentimental attachment and the experience of dislocation.
While such forms of nostalgia may be implicated in the motivations of Moroccan
Jewish pilgrims returning from abroad, they are equally salient for resident
Moroccan Jews, the vast majority of whom no longer live in their ancestral territories.
Casablanca, no less than Washington. D.C.. or Tel Aviv, serves as a
crucible for urbanized Moroccan Jews who trace their roots to elsewhere in the
Moroccan hinterland. The transnational parameters of hillulot. however, also
introduce new dimensions of nostalgia in which a Moroccan homeland
emerges as an object of sacred longing. As a Jewish practice, transnational hillulot
index a nostalgia born of exile (Heb. galut) from a national homeland in
Israel. A sacred model of dispersion and nostalgia, in which the land of Israel
serves as the center of a universal Jewish diaspora, is elaborated in canonical
Jewish ideology and expressed in Moroccan synagogue and festival liturgy.
While the ritualized longing to.return to a homeland (in Israel) fostered Moroccan
emigration in the 20th centun (Malka 1978). it also provides a sanctifying
diagram of contemporary migration from a homeland (in Morocco). The substitution
of Morocco for Israel as a sacred Jewish homeland at the center of a
global diaspora is accomplished in a range of discourses and practices, including
370 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
«
those of saint pilgrimage. I heard pilgrims, for example, compare hillulot with
the biblical pilgrimages (Heb. regalim) to the Temple in Jerusalem. The status
of Rebbi Shimon B. Yohai as the object of hillulot at Moroccan shrines further
conflates Moroccan pilgrimage destinations with the saint's actual shrine in
the Holy Land.
The sentimental force of nostalgia for a Moroccan homeland thus draws
ideological power from universal Jewish familiarity with tropes of diaspora,
homeland, and return. That pilgrimages and shrines are central sites in the
transposition of classical Jewish longings for Israel into more parochial—
though still sacred—Jewish nostalgia for Morocco, is recognized and reinforced
in the 1986 hillulah brochure. The characterization of Morocco as a
place "where for nearly two thousand years our community has existed and
produced many eminent rabbis," is telling in this regard. For Moroccan Jews,
the same two thousand years also refers to the duration of a Jewish diaspora
that began with destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the beginning
of the Common Era. As I was informed on pilgrimage and elsewhere, the
destruction of the Second Temple marked the end of Jewish cultic sovereignty
and national presence in Palestine as well as the beginning of Jewish history in
Morocco. That Morocco would take the place of Palestine as the center of Jewish
sacred life during the ensuing period is suggested in the brochure's reference
to Morocco's "many eminent rabbis." This final claim indexes direct
comparisons between Moroccan rabbinic (cum hagiographic) personalities and
those who lived and died in the Holy Land. Moroccan hagiographic rabbis, in
short, are often identified biographically as emissaries from Palestine and as
the equals or betters of their contemporaries in the Holy Land. The language of
the hillulah brochure thus exploits and establishes a nexus of signifiers (e.g..
"two thousand years," "eminent rabbis") that effect the transposition of Jewish
nostalgia for a Palestinian homeland into longing for a Moroccan one.
If Moroccan Jewish nostalgia is continuous with pervasive modalities of
Moroccan identity and Jewish exile, such nostalgia has also been mediated by
the concrete experiences and social conditions of 20th-century emigration.
Given the multiplicity of destinations and the heterogeneity of emigrant experiences,
the trauma of dislocation felt by Moroccan Jews in their adopted countries
cannot be reduced to a general formula. As Oriental Jews in Israel, North
African migrants in France, and francophone constituents of a historically Anglophone
Jewish community in Montreal, diasporic Moroccan Jews have variously,
though consistently, found themselves marginalized from the nested
Jewish and national communities which they have entered.23
From this perspective,
the Moroccan past need not represent a trouble-free paradise in order
to evoke a nostalgia for something that is absent in the present. If Moroccans
remember the social, economic, and political circumstances of their Moroccan
past with ambivalence (cf. Bilu and Levy 1996), they also return "home" in order
to selectively recall a social order in which Jews experienced a degree of
protection, autonomy, amicability, and even respect within Moroccan society.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 371
Pilgrimage magnifies many of the features of Jewish life that are idealized
in Moroccan Jewish memory. Hillulot are exclusively Jewish events from
which ordinary Muslims are almost entirely excluded. That exclusivity, moreover,
is enforced by the visible presence of the national soldiers who are regularly
assigned by the Moroccan government to police the boundaries of shrines
during pilgrimages. Far from representing the oppressive presence of a police
state, national soldiers are generally welcomed by pilgrims as evidence that the
Jewish community remains a protected minority, an integral constituent of the
Moroccan national patrimony, and an affectionately regarded beneficiary of
the King's munificent consideration. The formal visits of crown delegations,
during which government officials and community representatives exchange
pledges of protection and loyalty, attachment and affection, enact an idealized
Moroccan sociopolitical order in which Jews can be confident of their secure
position.
Conversely, pilgrims simultaneously recall the sociopolitical status of
Jews in the Moroccan past as characterized by subjugation, humiliation, and
disenfranchisement in the sequential contexts of the precolonial Sultanic regime
(pre-1912), the French colonial protectorate (1912-56), and the postcolonial
kingdom (post-1956). Pilgrimage nostalgia is not characterized by an unmitigated
glorification of Jewish life in the Moroccan past. Moroccan Jews, it
is worth emphasizing, are increasingly returning to their homeland as tourists
and pilgrims, not as repatriating subjects.24
Nostalgia, in this context, implies
not merely the condition of spatial and temporal distance, but also the desirability
of relegating much of the homeland past to memory. Pilgrimage tourism
permits a temporary, selective, and controlled evocation of a transcended past
that, while arousing nostalgic emotions, has been willfully left behind.
In this regard, the nostalgia of poverty is particularly significant in the pilgrimage
context. Moroccan Jews, both resident and expatriate, have at their
disposal memories of poverty that signify both economic limitations that have
been happily transcended and social conditions that have been sadly lost. In the
discourse of nostalgic memory, the cost of economic advancement is often cast
in terms of the dislocation of emigration, the alienation of fractured urban life,
and the lost familial and communal intimacy born of material interdependence.
For those who can afford to return to Morocco on pilgrimage ("If your employment
and your means permit . . . . " states the 1986 hillulah brochure), the trip
reconciles the social intimacy of poverty with the achievements of economic
advancement. At hillulot, the social intimacy of poverty is reexperienced in the
context of extended stays at densely populated, roughly constructed, and minimally
equipped shrine complexes. That hillulot attract the contemporary Moroccan
poor, as eminently visible pilgrims, further contributes to the signification
of hillulot as reenactments of a communal solidarity that issued from
collective poverty. Pilgrims returning to Morocco, however, incur inflated expenses
that attest to their relative economic success. Pilgrimage, among other
things, demonstrates one's ability to take an overseas vacation. Some hillulot
372 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
thus temporarily recreate the lost intimacy of poverty, while also enacting transcendence
over the economic limitations of the past.
Nostalgia is not the only disposition exploited in the marketing of hillulot,
and the Moroccan Jewish diaspora does not represent the only recognized clientele
for hillulah tourism. While the 1986 hillulah brochure predominantly
addresses Moroccan expatriates, it also seems to hail other potential customers.
These two readerships and the markets they represent are ambiguously recognized,
for example, in the claim: "The tourist circuit associated with these
events will reintroduce you to, or acquaint you with, the Rif and the Atlas, the
imperial cities rich with history, ancient and modern Morocco" (emphasis
added). While in this case any presumed unfamiliarity with the geographic territory
may refer primarily to second-generation Moroccans born abroad, the
imagery of the brochure indexes Western exoticism as much as diasporic nostalgia.
In fact, some of the brochure photographs reflect the visual commodification
of Morocco as an exotic tourist destination. A non-Moroccan Jewish clientele
also appears to be recognized in the promotional lure: If you are
enchanted by Jewish events, especially those celebrated by a warm, authentic,
and Mediterranean community . . ." (emphasis added). Here, Jewish tradition
and Mediterranean authenticity, rather than an autobiographic Moroccan past,
are cued as cultural attractions. That this message is directed at non-Moroccans
is further established by the contrastive use of the indefinite and impersonal
pronoun "a." as opposed to the ambiguously inclusive "our" (as in. ""our community
has existed . . ."). in reference to the Moroccan Jewish community.
Hillulot, then, have been promoted as objects of both nostalgic tourism for
Moroccans and exotic tourism for other European. Israeli, and North American
Jews. This double marketing has been facilitated by the fact that the same
rhetorics and images can dialogically refer to both "native" discourses of nostalgia
and "Western" discourses of exoticism. If Moroccan Jewish Emigres
long for their own "warm, authentic, and Mediterranean" youth, Jews of European
extraction have increasingly sought tourist encounters with non-Western
Jewish traditions in which warmth, authenticity, and pleasant climate are no
less appealing. Hillulot must also be considered in the context of the burgeoning
industry of international Jewish tourism, in which Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage
has been strategically situated.25
Between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, the Moroccan Ministry of
Tourism, in cooperation with CJCM. sponsored several visits of Jewish journalists
and travel agents from Canada, France, the United States, and Israel.
The first of such visits in 1978 was scheduled to coincide with the inaugural
"national" hillulah. which was held that year at the shrine of Rebbi Amram
Ben Diwan (Le Matin'Du Sahara 1978: 8). Several national hillulot in the
1980s were attended by similar coteries of Jewish journalists, whose reports
appeared in the Jewish press in Europe. North America, and Israel.26
In 1992. a
delegation of Anglo-American Jewish journalists participated in an eight-day
tour of Morocco sponsored by Royal Air Maroc and the Moroccan National
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 373
Tourist Office. A spate of travel articles appeared in the American Jewish press
that same year.27
Beyond Morocco, Jewish entrepreneurs and organizations seeking Jewish
clients, with or without roots in Morocco, have promoted tourism to the country.
In the United States, private travel agencies have offered tours with such
names as "Judaism in Morocco." In 1996, The American Jewish Historical Society
organized a "Jewish history tour of Morocco" that included visits to "the
major institutions of the Jewish community" in Casablanca. A 1997 tour to
Morocco sponsored by the United Jewish Appeal, an American Jewish philanthropic
organization, included the opportunity to "participate in the festive Hillula
[sic] of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai [sic]." In Israel, travel agencies organize
pilgrimage tours that coincide with major hillulah dates (Levy 1997). Now
Israelis of Moroccan origin arrive by the busload at shrines, many returning to
their country of birth for the first time since their emigration decades prior.
Political Dividends and Economic Revenues
The Moroccan state regulates, supports, and represents Jewish pilgrimages
in a variety of ways.28
Soldiers from the national army are stationed at
shrines where they protect the right of Jews to practice their cultural traditions.
Municipal governments furnish shrines with electricity, water, and logistical
services (such as traffic control on pilgrimage routes) free of charge. Representatives
of the crown make official visits to hillulot where they offer the
blessings of the king and in return receive pledges of loyalty proffered by representatives
of the Jewish community. State-run newspapers cover hillulot
with articles praising the Moroccan government for its religious tolerance,
stressing full acceptance of Jewish customs as part of the national patrimony,
and highlighting the international composition of the pilgrimage community.29
While the motivations behind state support and representation of hillulot
cannot be reduced to the economic significance of pilgrimages as transnational
tourist events (the assertion of state authority and the production of loyal subjects
are clearly at stake) neither can such significance be ignored. As Morocco
has attempted to attract investments from developed economies, its government
has been keen on presenting itself as a modern, liberal, and tolerant constitutional
monarchy, and thus, as having those characteristics that are supposed
to correspond with a stable environment for investment according to
institutions like the World Bank and the European Union (see Tessler 1988).
The tolerated and protected status of Jews, as the only indigenous non-Muslim religious
minority in Morocco, has become a popular banner of Morocco's commitment
to human rights, public freedoms, and equal opportunity. In the
speeches delivered by government officials at pilgrimages and in the national
press, hillulot have become a showcase of Morocco's tolerance of its Jewish
minority.
There are also direct economic benefits derived from pilgrimage tourism
for the resident Moroccan Jewish community and for local Moroccan economies.
The Jewish community in Morocco has increasingly relied on contributions
374 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
from abroad to fund its many services and projects.30
In 1996, the official
speech given by the representative of CJCM at the hillulah of Ouled Ben Zmirou
included the following words:
Through the restoration of our holy places [saint shrines], the year 1993 marked a
cultural renaissance for the Jewish community of Morocco. Two other projects
have been organized and are being realized: one regarding the restoration of ancient
synagogues in Fez, Meknes, Essaouira, Tetuan and Tangier, the other concerning
our cemeteries. Especially with the aid of our coreligionists living abroad,
we hope to follow our program of rehabilitating our ancient cemeteries that are
more and more frequently being visited by the descendants of those buried therein.
Our visitors from abroad, in fact, attach great sentimental importance to this effort.
This year we expect to open a Museum of the Patrimony of Moroccan Judaism
in Casablanca. Our community is fully aware of its privilege despite its current
geographic dispersion. Its sons who live in Morocco or elsewhere in the world remain
attached to their country of origin. We must all be involved in developing in
them and their children, who continue to demonstrate their national loyalty, the
memory of a country that has always known peace, [emphasis added]
Pilgrimages, as I shall develop more fully below, are typically occasions for
charitable giving. In this case, the projects for which donations were solicited—the
restoration of historical synagogues, the maintenance of cemeteries,
and the construction of museums—respond to the transformation of Moroccan
Jewry into a diasporic community whose relationship with Morocco can be
represented through a rhetoric of attachment, sentiment, and memory. Hillulot
provide an opportunity for the CJCM to raise funds for its local projects, especially
those that respond to the nostalgia of pilgrims returning from abroad.
Hillulot are also an economic boon to the localities in which shrines are
found. Those pilgrimages that take place in urban settings, for example in the
cities of Essaouira or Safi, now rely on four-star hotels and local caterers. Pilgrims
returning from abroad make use of the national airline, regional airports,
rental-car agencies, chartered buses, and taxi services. While at hillulot, pilgrims
take the opportunity to shop for mementos and gifts in the local shops of
these picturesque seaside cities. For rural pilgrimages, local drivers who can
navigate dirt roads in their four-wheel-drive jeeps and trucks provide transportation
to and from shrines. In these remote areas, vendors set up temporary
markets in order to sell food, basic necessities, and traditional crafts to tourist-
pilgrims.
Vendors who install their makeshift bazaars to sell Moroccan handicrafts
are especially cognizant of the foreign origins of their clientele, or at least the
foreign origin of their money, and try to sell their wares at tourist prices. Pilgrims,
in turn, attempt to establish their native identity, for example by speaking
Moroccan Arabic and noting their place of birth, in order to show that they
cannot be fooled into paying prices they consider too high. Rural pilgrimages
also are likely to involve the slaughter of livestock (turkeys, sheep, cows, goats,
etc.) for ritual and nutritional purposes. Local vendors catering to pilgrims may
sell their entire stock in a day. Dealing with Jewish pilgrims is particularly
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 375
»
attractive because, if a slaughtered beast is found to be ritually impure (i.e., not
kosher), the carcass may be resold to the vendor at half price or even returned
without charge as an act of charity given in the name of the saint.31
Ritual Exchange and the Moral Economy of Pilgrimage
Thus sacrifice shows itself in a dual light; it is a useful act and it is an obligation.
Disinterestedness is mingled with self-interest. That is why it has so frequently been
conceived of as a form of contract. Fundamentally there is perhaps no sacrifice that
has not some contractual element. The two parties present exchange their services
and each gets his due.
—Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions, 1964
Alms are the fruits of a moral notion of the gift and of fortune on the one hand, and
of a notion of sacrifice, on the other.
—Marcel Mauss, The Gift, 1990
Ziyara meqbula. (May your pilgrimage be accepted)
—Hillulah greeting
The value of money spent on pilgrimage is not only determined by its capacity
to buy transportation, lodging, or souvenirs. Pilgrims engage in a variety
of exchanges involving money and other goods that exist outside the tourist
economy and beyond local marketplaces. In ritual relationships of charitable
exchange, pilgrims enact hierarchies of wealth while also attempting to acquire
a form of sacred capital that both justifies and reproduces entrepreneurial
profit. Pierre Bourdieu's (1970, 1977) discussion of honor, as a system of exchange
in which social prestige and power are determined largely by ones
ability to inflate the value of countergifts, provides an instructive orientation to
charity at hillulot. At one level, rituals of pilgrimage charity discriminate between
the wealthy who can give and the poor who are only able to receive. At
another level, in rituals from which the poor are excluded, the wealthiest pilgrims
compete among themselves for both honor and sacred capital. During
the public auction of candles sold in the name of saints, the wealthiest pilgrims
exchange gifts and countergifts. taking the form of bids and counterbids. in a
competition over ritual prestige. Ultimately, bidding also establishes relationships
between bidders and saints who mediate sacred capital in the form of
saintly indebtedness that is restituted as worldly profit.
From Bourdieu (1977), I also take an appreciation of the importance of
tempo in this cycle of gifts and countergifts. On one hand, exchanges among
Moroccan Jewish pilgrims are condensed within the hillulah. The condensation
of exchanges between pilgrims takes on particular .significance in the diasporic
context of Moroccan Jewry. The pilgrimage community is temporary and
refers to no ongoing, localized network of social relationships from which
debts can be readily repaid or countergifts offered. Auctions, in particular, constitute
a ritual game of honor in which the moves are compressed into an evening's
376 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
activity that culminates in relative closure. On the other hand, since charitable
giving is mediated by the expectation of saintly recompense, exchanges between
pilgrims and saints entail a deferral to an indeterminate future. As a form
of exchange among pilgrims, charity is ritually resolved during the course ot
hillulot. As a form of exchange between pilgrims and saints, charity represents
ongoing relationships that extend beyond the ritual event.
The deferral of saintly restitution into the future might seem to resonate
with Bourdieu's argument that the extended interval between gift and countergift
can contribute to "the sincere fiction of disinterested exchange" (1977:
171). The deferral of the countergift, which pilgrimage charity calls forth, does
not, however, refer most saliently to a dissimulation of instrumentality, as
Bourdieu and others have argued (Smart 1993). While pilgrimage charity is
often portrayed in public discourse as the enactment of sacred obligation, a native
ideology of disinterested charity coexists with an equally public recognition
that charitable gifts engage saints in reciprocal relationships of exchange.
Charity given at pilgrimage is supposed to be returned by the saint in the form
of wealth, health, good fortune, or other conventional benefits.32
Especially for
the largest donors, charitable gifts are expected to be returned as entrepreneurial
profits. Capitalist and sacred economies are thus integrated into a single
system of exchange in which saints are key players.
Charity, Community, and Sacred Restitution
Pilgrims invoke the universal Jewish concepts of klal yisrael. uhat might
be translated as divinely ordained Jewish communitas. and sedaqa, the religious
obligation to give charity, to represent acts of giving as disinterested practices
of Jewish piety. Pilgrims commonly assert that the poor are necessary
constituents of the hillulah community, which represents a collective that transcends
class difference and enacts communal generosity. Charity to the poor
takes a variety of forms. Ritual meals (Heb. se'udot. sing, sc'udah). often eaten
on or around the saint's tomb, are prepared by women of modest means and
distributed to the community of pilgrims. Although all are enjoined to partake
of these communal meals, the food is consumed predominantly by the poor
The poor also receive gifts of clothing, often in the form of traditional garb.
Money, especially, is given directly to dispossessed pilgrims who often solicit
donations.
Charity, however, extends beyond direct gifts to the poor. In its most general
sense, charity can refer to virtually all forms of pilgrimage expenditure.
Thus, any money directed towards pilgrimages, shrines, or the general expenses
of the hillulah event can be interpreted as a form of charity. Even the
mundane expenses of.tourism, insofar as they facilitate the pilgrimage experience,
can be incorporated into the moral calculus of charitable money. Charity,
in this extended sense, refers to all money and goods given "in the name of the
saint" (as in direct donations to the poor) or given "to the saint." At hillulot.
money given "to the saint," often through the purchase of candles, is collected
by representatives of the committee responsible for the shrine and pilgrimage.
TOURISM. CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 377
»
In the past, this money was used mainly for the maintenance of the shrine, for
the expenses of the hillulah (utilities, security, communal meals, accommodations,
musical entertainment, etc.), and for local distributions to the poor (BenAmi
1998:125-129). Today, some of the saint's money is tunneled into the
general budget of the CJCM. Though there are debates between local pilgrimage
committees or saintly descendants and CJCM over the control of the shrine
income, pilgrims generally concur that in any case their donations should benefit
some charitable cause, be it the saint's glorification, the community's welfare,
the hillulah event, or the poor.33
A counterdiscourse represents these numerous acts of giving as self-interested
tactics rather than as distributive relationships of generosity. Some pilgrims
who take a critical view of pilgrimage charity regard public displays of
charity as ostentatious attempts to garner prestige based on wealth. For such
critics, the true communitarian ethos of pilgrimage in the past has been corrupted
by an egoistic and materialistic present. Expectations of sacred recompense,
likewise, are seen by some as contaminating the purity of disinterested
giving. Most pilgrims, however, recognize the remunerative benefits of charitable
giving as an authentic and moral aspect of the pilgrimage experience.
Honoring saints with money confirms the piety of the donor, while saintly restitution
is testament to the role of sacred power in determining worldly for-
tunes.
The importance of divine favor in establishing material fortune is deeply
embedded within Moroccan Jewish ideology. The local Arabic distinction between
mundane profit (rebh) and holy recompense {rezq) mark two points in a
continuum of worldly gain. If rebh ideally refers to profit derived through industrious
work and rezq refers to a gift from God, the two ideals converge in
the meaning of baraka (lit. "blessing") as a central idiom of wealth in Morocco
(see Westermarck 1926). Baraka, used in reference to an individual's riches,
encompasses a recognition of the importance of divine favor in all human fortune.
The Hebrew parnasa, or livelihood, as it is used in the context of hillulot.
refers to the same combination of practical work and sacred assistance necessary
to material well-being. Honoring saints through pilgrimage is one means
of attracting parnasa tova (a bountiful or, more literally, good livelihood).
Supplementing pilgrimage with charity, as one pilgrim explained to me. is a
way of guaranteeing such good fortune.
Money given as charity is often called baraka in Arabic or zekhut in Hebrew,
terms referring to the blessedness and power of saints. Zekhut refers to
the meritorious life and deeds of saints, but in this context it implies the supernatural
power of the saint that is accessible to pilgrims. Thus, for example, a
poor man or woman might ask for money with the request: " 'Atini shi baraka"
(give me some blessings) or " 'atini shi zekhut" (give me some merit/ power).
To ask for blessings or merit/power in this sense carries a double meaning that
encapsulates the nature of charitable exchange. On the one hand, the possession
of wealth to be given as charity is considered a blessing, dependent on divine
will and saintly intercession. In this sense, the money given as charity is
378 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
«
the result of past favor proffered by the saint and by God. On the other hand,
charity represents thefuture money donors will receive as reward for their gen-
erosity.
The principle that whatever is given at pilgrimage will be returned
through the favor of the saint is inscribed in anecdotes, poetry, and other forms
of public discourse at pilgrimages.34
Once at the hillulah of Rebbi Amram Ben
Diwan, to take a single example, 1 found myself purchasing a candle whose
price was higher than I had expected. Although the candle was well within my
budget. I registered surprise as 1 paid its price of 100 dirhams (approximately
US$9). The vendor, a member of the pilgrimage committee, noted my response
and took pity on what he considered to be a hardship on my part. My status as a
"student," poor by conventional definition, lent plausibility to his interpretation
of my predicament. Later in the day, as we walked the grounds of the
cemetery, the man consoled me with a story about the time he had given a substantial
amount of money to the saint only to find later that the very same sum
had miraculously appeared beneath the rear seat of his automobile. That e\ening,
I found a 100-dirham bill crumpled in my pocket.
Although this episode lays bare the simple expectation of recompense inherent
in giving charity at pilgrimage, charitable exchanges are not necessanU
of this type: They may not be calculated with such precision; the gift is not necessarily
returned in kind; and the interval before saintly recompense is generally
longer. My own marginality in the pilgrimage (as a student, researcher,
foreigner, and potential skeptic) may have conditioned the way this particular
exchange unfolded. Yet, the tension between the disinterested gift and the return
it calls forth, that is, the dialectic between charity and exchange, is evident
in the concrete relations between the entire assortment of receivers and givers
at pilgrimages.
Charity and the Ritual Poor
Beneath the idealized collective of klal yisrael. pilgrims can be divided initially
into two categories: those who receive and those who give.35
1 have already
mentioned the participation of the poor" at pilgrimage and their status
as such requires further elaboration. The combined presence of rich and poor
together at hillulot is often celebrated by pilgrims as evidence of Jewish unity
and mutual welfare. The poor exist not only as a class of economically disadvantaged
individuals but also as a ritual category that defines a certain kind of
pilgrim. What might be called the ritual poor are only infrequently referred to
with the French term pauvrcs. with its class connotations, or with the Hebrew
term hiluk, which emphasizes their legal and customary right to funds from the
Jewish communal treasury.36
At pilgrimages, the Arabic term drawesh (sing.
denvish). which in Morocco can connote holy mystical asceticism, is commonly
used to refer to the ritual poor.
The drawesh comprise a distinct social group at pilgrimages. At rural
shrines (e.g.. Rebbi David Ben Barukh and Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan). where
pilgrims stay in roughly hewn plaster and concrete rooms, the drawesh are
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 379
»
housed in relatively segregated clusters, often in the most dilapidated accommodations.
At urban pilgrimages (e.g., Rebbi Haim Pinto and Ouled Ben Zmirou),
where hotel rates are well beyond the means of the poor, the few rooms
available at the shrines are reserved for the exclusive use of the drawesh. During
the course of hillulot, the poor are visible in their tattered, traditional Moroccan
clothing, which, as many remark, resembles the costume once worn by
living saints. The poor spend most of their time in close proximity to the tomb
where they encounter arriving pilgrims. Many of the poor are also considered
crazy (Ar. mejdub) and are sought out for their fantastic conversations: one is a
confidante of the Moroccan king, another traveled to Israel in the blink of an
eye. Such personae resonate with Moroccan images of spiritual adepts (Ar.
sufis) whose "craziness" is a sign of mystical power. Some of the drawesh are
said to have saintly ancestry themselves. In these ways, the poor are identified
with the saints, who are often portrayed as having had little concern for
worldly fortune. Partly based on this close identification, the poor are defined
largely through their role as recipients of charity; giving to the drawesh is considered
a form of "giving to the saint."37
In return for money given, the poor often recite petitionary prayers on behalf
of donors. Most sought are blessings by mejdub and aged drawesh, who
are considered particularly effective intercessors between supplicants and
saints. Petitionary prayers are derived from the daily Hebrew prayer liturgy
(thereby indexing Jewish textual authority) and are tailored to the specific circumstances
of the pilgrim. The standard introductory invocation is often recited
in Hebrew whereas specific requests (for health, wealth, marriage, fertility,
etc.) are spoken in colloquial Arabic.38
At the pilgrimage to Rebbi Amram
Ben Diwan, a young man returning to Morocco from Israel sought out the eldest
derwish and asked for a blessing of parnasa (livelihood) in exchange for a
small contribution:
Derwish: May the One [i.e., God] who blessed our fathers
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David and Solomon, Moses and Aaron
May He bless—
Pilgrim: Gad Ben Moshe Ohayon.
Derwish: Gad Ben Moshe Ohayon.
May our Master save him.
And may the torah and saddiqim
Be with him in his house and on the road.
Him and his family.
May a doctor never enter his house.
Give him health and protect him from the evil eye.
Pilgrim: And parnasa [livelihood or wealth].
Derwish: May the evil eye never find him.
And give him the cure [that he needs].
And a long life and may great fortune (rezqj be granted
By the power (zekhutj of the torah and the saddiqim.
May it be His will, Amen.
380 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The recompense (parnasa, rezq) invoked in this prayer is to be granted by a
web of sacred forces—God, the biblical forefathers, the torah, and the saints—
which together constitute the realm of zekhut or sacred power accessible to the
pilgrim. Just as saints function as intercessors between pilgrims and God, the
poor momentarily assume the role of intercessors between donors and saints.39
Whether given in cash or distributed as food, wealth donated by pilgrims
enters an economy of sacred recompense in which the charitable gift is transformed
into the initiating act of an extended relationship with the saint. The
poor are thus positioned as the quintessential human recipients of money given
in the name of the saint. In this position, the poor are merely conduits of exchange
between donors and saddiqim. As such, it is essential that the charity of
donors not be remunerated immediately, for this would end the eircuit of exchanges
which donors seek to continue in the sacred sphere.
The position of the poor as conduits of sacred exchange is made clear h\
the ambivalent stance taken towards drawesh who attempt to supplement their
pilgrimage income by vending small items. The visible presence of the solicitous
poor is accepted, indeed welcomed, by all but the most selt-tashioned
modernist critics who would prefer "charity" to be bureaucratized by the
CJCM. As I have mentioned, the poor are at once emblems of Jewish communitas
and necessary for sacred exchange. Some of the poor, however, also engage
in petty trade, selling such things as toiletries, costume jewelry, key
chains engraved with saintly icons, cassettes of hagiographic poetry, and other
pilgrimage mementos (see Figure 2). Their stock contains both practical
amenities, such as razors and soap, and ritual paraphernalia, such as small plastic
hands, common symbols of good fortune in Morocco. People often buy
these hands, along with an array of other Jewish ritual items, in order to place
them on the saint's tomb where they are transformed into charms of good fortune
to be either distributed to friends and relatives who could not make the
journey or kept by pilgrims themselves.
Derwish vendors are commonly criticized by pilgrims for introducing the
materiality of commercial exchange into the space of sacred charity. Unlike the
sellers in temporary markets located at the periphery of the shrine, the derwish
often display their wares directly adjacent to the saint's tomb.40
The money
that passes hands in such transactions assumes certain qualities of charity:
many of the items purchased are related to pilgrimage activities: the price paid
clearly exceeds the monetary value of the trinkets: and any "profits" benefit the
poor. But since the purchase has an element of market exchange, as an immediate
transaction of goods.for money, the "donor" lays no claim to remuneration
from the saint. What some pilgrims express as a grievance against the nickeland-dime
attempts of the poor to earn money can be interpreted as hesitancy on
the part of the former to deal with the drawesh in eases where the deferral of a
debt to the saint is endangered.
T O U R I S M . C H A R I T Y , \ S \ ) P R O M I IN M< )}«>(<<>
\ derwish \endor
Figure 2
costume jcwclr\ and Inexpensive tokens during a hillulah.
Candle Money
The antagonism towards derwtsh vendors is most evident in cases when
the items being bought and sold are candles I .indies are a common element ol
Jewish rituals they are lit to initiate and conclude the weekly Sabbath festival
and durint: annual hoi) days dispersed throughout the year, Candles also tune
tion in a nexus ot metaphors that unite samts Holy Scriptures and (md all of
which are portrayed as tire and flame in pilunmage talk and iconography
Flames also tigure into the ha 10 raphy ot saints who are otten depicted as
studying sacred texts by candlelight late into the night. The Jewish tradition of
382 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
lighting memorial candles for the deceased further contributes to the significance
of the candles in the context of the hillulah.
Virtually all pilgrims purchase candles of some sort during hillulot. Most
common are the least expensive: small, white candles sold in packets of six or
eight at a price of 5 dirhams (approx. US$0.75). These candles are generally
burned for the saints in furnaces that adjoin their respective tombs. Like other
pilgrimage tokens, some candles are made "to visit" the saint; they are left to
rest on the tomb and then collected by pilgrims after the hillulah. The importance
of lighting the candles at hillulot or using them in other ritual contexts
throughout the year, however, does not exhaust their significance. Just as important
is the act of purchasing the candles while on pilgrimage. On the one
hand, it is essential that the candles be bought at the shrine. Thus, although the
price of candles at shrines is inflated over the market rate, pilgrims rarely arrive
at hillulot having previously bought lower-priced equivalents. On the
other hand, one's own money must be expended on the purchase. Once, for example,
I agreed to buy several packets of candles for a man who was unable to
make the pilgrimage to the hillulah of Rebbi David Ben Barukh. I suggested
that he repay me for the candles upon my return, but he insisted on giving me
the money for the purchase in advance. It was important, he explained, that his
money buy the candles.
Although candles have a monetary value, they appear to function as gifts
more than as commodities: The purchase price of ritual candles is not determined
through market competition; candles cannot be resold for a profit: and
their use-value is limited to the ritual sphere. The majority of candles are
bought at shrines and burned immediately upon purchase. Money used to buy
candles is unambiguously considered charity to be distributed for the benefit of
the .shrine, the community, and the poor. In contrast with marketing and petty
vending, the traffic in candles participates unambiguously in the ritual economy
of exchange. For these reasons, any hint that candle sellers are motivated
by immediate profit threatens to recast candle transactions as mundane trade. It
is not surprising, then, that individual entrepreneurs are prohibited from selling
candles, partly to ensure that candle money goes to the shrine and partly to allay
suspicion of personal profit mongering.
At pilgrimages, the sale of candles is monopolized by the organizing committee
and the CJCM. The CJCM has couched its control of candle income as a
strategy of promoting the efficiency and rationalization of communal welfare.
Local committees, sometimes at odds with the CJCM, claim that candle money
must honor the saint directly (for example by being used exclusively for
shrines and pilgrimage costs) without multiple levels of bureaucratic mediation
and redistribution to the community and its needy. In either case, community
bodies rather than individuals lay claim to the sale of candles. Although
the task of selling packets of candles is sometimes delegated to individual
drawesh, the revenues are collected and distributed by the official authorities
of the hillulot. In thi.s way, the poor mediate the circuit of sacred exchange
without assuming an entrepreneurial role as independent vendors of candles.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 383
At several of the hillulot I attended, however, drawesh attempted to sell
candles independently. When this happened one year at the hillulah of Rebbi
Amram Ben Diwan, public outcry on the part of pilgrims (fellow drawesh
among them) precipitated a swift reaction from CJCM representatives. The ensuing
confrontations between community officials and the offending vendor
occurred in public, near the saint's tomb where the derwish had installed himself.
With great passion and display, befitting his role as mejdub, the derwish
claimed his rights to pilgrimage income (i.e., charity) while attempting to resist
the control of the authorities. With calm forbearance, pilgrimage officials confiscated
candles and terminated independent sales.
Modernist pilgrims who would prefer that charitable giving be impersonal
and rationalized, along with CJCM officials charged with the task of overseeing
hillulah income, were equally affronted by independent candle vendors and
the traditional forms of communal welfare they represented.41
At stake for
most pilgrims, however, was also the cultural logic of ritual exchange in which
money used to purchase candles must unambiguously go to saints. Unlike
other forms of charitable money, which can be directed to individual drawesh.
candle-money must enter the shrine treasury. Since the immediate transaction
of material items is involved, any mediation by independent vendors threatens
to transform the ritual exchange into a commercial one.
Candle Auctions as Tournaments of Value
Tournaments of value are complex periodic events that are removed in some culturally
well-defined way from the routines of economic life. Participation in them is
likely to be both a privilege of those in power and an instrument of status contests
between them. The currency of such tournaments is also likely to be set apart
through well understood cultural diacritics. Finally, what is at issue in such tournaments
is notjust status, rank, fame, or reputation of actors but the disposition of the
central tokens of value in the society in question. Finally, though such tournaments
of value occur in special times and places, their forms and outcomes are always consequential
for the more mundane realities of power and value in ordinary life.
—Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things. 1986
Apart from the readily available small candles purchased in packets, more
expensive ones are sold in circumscribed contexts. At the hillulot of Rebbi
David Ben Barukh and Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan. larger candles are occasionally
sold around the saint's tomb at prices ranging from one hundred to several
thousand dirhams (see Figure 3). These candles may be wrapped in decorative
ribbons and secured in cardboard boxes that are inscribed with the saint's
name, his icon, and some verses of honorific poetry. Such candles are unlikely
to be burned at the pilgrimage. Rather, purchasers often keep them as charms
of good fortune, embodiments pf saintly presence, and evidence of a good deed
done.
Whereas the least-expensive or moderately priced candles are sold for
fixed amounts, the most expensive ones are auctioned. Candle auctions generally
take place on the eve of the hillulah date at an event that punctuates the
3X4 Cl I 1URAL ANTHROPOI OGY
Figure 3
Moderately priced candles being sold bv the tomb of the saint.
most inten.se period of the pilgrimage experience. Although the entirety of the
pilgrimage period can be referred to as the hillulah, in its most specific usu'A1
the term refers to the auction. During the proceedings, biddine is interspersed
with the spontaneous chanting of honorific poetry. Moroccan and Israeli music
performed by professional bands, hagiographic lore recounted h\ the auctioneer,
and rounds of food and drink bought with funds from the shrine treasury.
These activities last several hours and ideally culminate at midnight, when pilgrims
move in a processional to the saint's tomb. It is at this time that pilgrims
most intensely feel the saint's presence at the shnnc.
The auction designates a certain category of person as wealth) b\ distinguishing
those who can actively participate in the even! (cf. Baudrillard
1981). !
At some shrines (c g Rebbi David Ben Barukh and Rebbi Haim
Pinto), auctions arc held in synagogues within the cerneter) grounds (sec figure
4). In such cases, women are segregated from men behind a ritual barrier
(Heb. mehitzah). which serves an identical function during regular prayo sen
ices. At auctions held outdoors (c g Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan) or in newh
constructed reception halls (« i: Ouled Ben Zmiiou). men and women ma\ be
seated together, though only the former participate in the bidding. In most
cases the drawesh are either sitting in the far recesses of the auction arena or
not attending at all. In contrast, those who make the largest bids tend to cluster
TOl/RISM. CHARITV AND PROMT IN MOROCCO 3S5
•
near the center of activit\ in close proximity to the auctioneer. Of all the social
performances at pilgrimage, the auction is characterized b\ the most blatant
disp a\s of hierarchy that divide the community.
Those who participate in the auction constitute a distincti\e group whose
membership is restricted and detined at a variet) of levels. Participation is restricted
to men with the resources to make bids, which may begin as high as
several thousand dirhams This inlormal restriction relies on the localh respected
Jewish tenet that it is foolhardy and immoral to give beyond one s
means. Successful bids that remain unpaid are considered a moral liabilh}
comparable to an unfulfilled promise or \ ou and place the debtor in a position
worse than it he had not bid at all. Converseh, all rightful bidders slake a claim
to sainth favof As an increase of a previous bid, and thus as an augmentation
of the final price, even unsuccessful bids are considered acts of charitv More
over, participants who are unsuccessful in earlier rounds are often abl to buv
Hgure 4
t andle auction being conducted in the men's section of a shrine synagogue The cabinet
(Heb. Hakhal) in the background houses torah scrolls.
386 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
candles as the auction progresses and as winning bids depreciate. Whether successful
or not, participants recognize each other as what Bourdieu has called
"peers in honor"—those worthy of being challenged and in a position to riposte
(1970:197).
Bidders establish themselves as worthy of participation but not all can
win. Each bid is meritorious, but winning bids are most desired. The auction
thus discriminates among wealthy bidders who seek ritual domination over
their competitors. As bidders vie to honor the saint and to commit themselves
to charitable giving, they simultaneously challenge each other with increasing
displays of wealth. As an arena for staking reputations and dominating others,
however, the auction is an exception to what Bourdieu claims to be a ke\ element
of competitive gift giving, namely, the extended and strategic lapse of
time before which countergifts are returned (1977:1-15). In the case of
Bourdieu's Kabyle peasants, return gifts are calibrated with seasonal agricultural
and ceremonial demands in localized villages (1977:171-183). Apparently
disinterested expenditures of generosity and hospitality are reclaimed,
for example, in the form of work at labor-intensive harvest times (1977:179).
In contrast, the tempo of the candle auction, in which competitive bids are exchanged
in rapid succession, represents a strategic condensation of time. This
tempo is well suited to the diasporic context of pilgrimages that constitute transnational
communities of limited duration. For Moroccan Jewish pilgrims, the
exchange of bids is immediate. Obligations or debts between participants do
not extend beyond the hillulah.43
While successful bidders acquire renown and prestige, their status does
not entitle them directly to other men's labor or wealth. Even though the fraternity
of bidders is constituted by men who might do business with each other,
its members have relatively independent commercial interests. Included
among the regular winners are textile manufacturers living in France, wholesale
beverage dealers from the south of Morocco, and real estate developers in
Casablanca. The community of bidders, like the larger pilgrimage community,
is formed temporarily from a transnational population whose cultural affinities,
more than ongoing economic relationships, bring them together. Although
this diasporic community is increasingly imagining and reconstituting itself in
a variety of ways, and while social and economic networks do link points in the
Moroccan Jewish diaspora, the prestige of participating in the auction does not
necessarily create lasting economic relationships between people.
Bids, however, do not only establish relationships among participants in
the auction. Auction money is a gift of a double nature; it is at once directed at
men, whom the bidder is trying to defeat, and at the .saint, whom the bidder is
trying to obligate. The duality of auction money is epitomized in the final bid,
which would seem to place the winner in a precarious position. "To make a gift
so great that it cannot be reciprocated is also to dishonor oneself (Bourdieu
1970:204). The winning bid, however, is no more dishonorable than a gift of
charity to the poor; in both cases, where reciprocation between pilgrims ends,
exchange with saints begins. Giving to the poor in no way dishonors the donor.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 387
»
since the gift, and hence the challenge, is clearly directed to the saint. So too in
the auction, the challenge to reciprocate is ultimately leveled at the saint, even
though the bidding first entails an honorable challenge to fellow men.
Candle Auctions and the Ritual Production of Wealth
Charity money appears at once to be disinterested and instrumental, generous
and selfish. According to Bourdieu, this dual nature of gift giving can be
masked by the time elapsed between a gift and its return; in this interval, what
is given appears autonomous of the debt it entails (Bourdieu 1977:171). As
part of the sacred economy of pilgrimage, the return of candle money is deferred
into the extended future and the rapid tempo of bidding gives way to the
slower tempo of saintly recompense. This process, however, does not result in
a dissimulation of self-interest. The eventual recompense that pilgrimage charity
calls forth is not masked during candle auctions. To the contrary, expectations
of saintly remuneration are emphasized and self-interested motives are
encouraged.
Candles bought on auction are more closely related to saints and their sacred
power (zekhut) than those bought in small packets. Each candle is auctioned
in the name of a different saint, usually beginning with the holy man
buried at the local shrine. Whereas the common white candles are made of
wax, auctioned "candles" often take the form of oversized glass tumblers
(kisan, sing, kas) filled with oil. Participants bid to light the kisan, which recall
the memorial lamps to the dead hung in synagogues. Although those who buy
the honor of lighting an oil lamp usually receive a candle as well, some pilgrims
claim the kisan hearken to an authentic traditional past and represent the
saddiqim more accurately than do wax candles.
Candle auctions, thus, provide select pilgrims with the best opportunity to
come closest to the saint and to contract his sacred power. The first candles
auctioned generally sell for the highest prices. At the largest pilgrimages, these
candles can fetch over 250,000 dirhams (approximately US$27,000). Consequently,
the acquisition of these candles represents the most significant purchase
on future monetary remuneration; the vast sums expended are expected
to be returned as even greater profits in the enterprises that enriched the successful
bidder in the first place.
The public accounting of the auction highlights the fiscal aspects of pilgrimage
charity. In this accounting, the auctioneer plays a pivotal role. As the
person charged with keeping the lengthy proceedings energetic, the auctioneer
is generally noted for his theatrical personality, strong voice, and sense of timing.
His performance includes soliciting and announcing bids, initiating the
singing of honorific poetry (Heb. piyyutim), cuing musicians when to play, inviting
women to contribute their joyful ululations, and recounting stories of
miracles performed by saints in their lifetimes and after their deaths. The auctioneer
regularly repeats the amount of current bids in song form, with a characteristic
melody and cadence. Bids tend to be made in units of centimes
(1/100th of a dirham), thereby inflating the number uttered by participants and
388 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
the auctioneer.44
As bids reach standardized increments divisible by ten (1,000,
10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000), the auctioneer often leads an extended chorus of
the amount offered, followed by popular verses of honorific poetry. The following
is a short excerpt from the auction of the first candle sold at the hillulah
of Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan:
Bidder: One million [centimes]
Auctioneer: One million and one million!
One million and one million!
One million and one million!
One million and one million!
Rebbi Amram lives!
Congregation: Rebbi Amram Lives!
Auctioneer: Rebbi Amram Lives!
Come, my brothers we will go to Ouezzane.
Our visit accomplished, we will be happy.
We will visit Ouezzane.
Full of Rebbi Amram Ben Diwan.
The one who buys the lamp [kas] and lights it.
No one will file a claim [d'a] against him.
The saddiq is the one who will reward/restitute [khlef] you.
The saddiq is the one who will reward you.
Before being inscribed in the official ledgers of the pilgrimage committee, bids
and donations are accounted in the poetic performances of auctioneers. This
poetic accounting links the amount given with a twofold debt encumbered by
the saint. First, the successful bidder will find protection from mundane suits,
claims, and slanders, together signified by the term d'a. Second, the money expended
by the pilgrim will be returned by the saint, through an act of divine
restitution (khlef).
In another instance, at the pilgrimage to Rebbi Haim Pinto, the auctioneer
was selling the most desired candle. Purchase of the candle also entitled the
successful bidder to a medallion engraved with an icon of the saint and to the
honor of opening the door to an enclosure (Heb. hekhal) housing a torah scroll
in the saint's shrine. The honor of opening the enclosure, an act referred to
with the Hebrew term petiha, shares its name and function with the parallel
honor auctioned during synagogue services.
Auctioneer: Now we will sell... In front of Rebbi Haim Pinto's tomb ... In
front of Rebbi Haim Pinto's tomb there is a hekhal where there
is a scroll of torah. We are selling the petiha of pamasa. There is
the hekhal in the cemetery, facing the one who will open the
petiha of the pamasa. That is to say the pamasa that is all of one's
work during the coming year, from this New Year until the next
New* Year. Here he has come, Rebbi Haim! Here he has come!
Here he has come, Rebbi Haim! Here he has come!
Congregation: Here he has come, Rebbi Haim! Here he has come!
Here he has come, Rebbi Haim! Here he has come!
Auctioneer: The opening of the torah scroll of Rebbi Haim Pinto, the gold
medallion, and the candle. This means that the one who opens it
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 389
will know already, he will already know how to mark what he
will earn in this next year.
In the most public pilgrimage ritual, auction money and business profit are acknowledged
as gifts and countergifts in cycles of sacred exchange rejuvenated
annually at pilgrimages.
Such relationships are not endangered by acts of overgenerosity. "To submit
the other party to an over-difficult test is to risk seeing the exchange interrupted,"
writes Bourdieu (1970:231). Yet, where the other party is a saint,
whose capacity for recompense is unlimited, no gift is so great that it cannot be
reciprocated. The relationship established between winning bidders and saints
emerges as an extension of the auction itself, with the implicit expectation that
any recompense will take the form of an increase on the final bid. Beyond the
auction and the hillulah, the possibility of the ever-increasing return-gift mirrors
a faith in boundless profits: Where those profits derive from commercial
activity on a global scale—from jeans manufactured in Morocco to be sold in
France or from soft drinks licensed in the United States to be produced and distributed
in Morocco—saintly recompense and transnational profits converge in
the money of charity.
The circulation of money between candle buyers and saints serves as an
ideal representation of the movement of money in the transnational economy.
In many respects, the sacred economy of pilgrimage diagrams the profane
economy of transnational capitalism. Both realms rely on long intervals between
investment and return. Both hold out the hope of ever-increasing profit.
Both rely on discrepancies of wealth that must be reproduced. Both require
faith that an uncertain future can be strategically controlled. In these ways,
Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage and the transnational economy are articulated in
the money of charity, not only as the money of tourism.
Conclusion
The radical opposition which so many anthropologists have discovered between the
principles on which gift and commodity exchange are grounded derives in part, we
believe, from the fact that our ideology of the gift has been constructed in antithesis
to market exchange.
—Parry and Bloch, Money and the Morality of Exchange, 1989
Money flows in and around pilgrimages in a variety of ways, and its value
is determined in competing discourses and practices. As an ethnographically
grounded heuristic, I began this article with a distinction between expenditures
(expenses) and charity (sedaqa) as indexes of two domains of value. Expenditures,
as I have used the term broadly, index a range of interests, investments,
promotions, and payments that frame hillulot as transnational tourist events.
Charity includes money given to the poor and to saints in rituals of exchange
that entail sacred recompense. The distinction between expenditures and charity
could be made to map neatly onto the opposition between commodity and
390 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
gift that Parry and Bloch warn against. Yet, my demonstration that charity and
profit are intimately linked in rituals of pilgrimage exchange indicates that 1
take heed of what Appadurai has similarly identified as the "exaggeration and
reification of the contrast between gift and commodity in anthropological writ
ing" (1986:11). 1 want to conclude by emphasizing how my argument resonates
with critiques of exclusivist approaches to gifts and commodities (see
also Bloch 1989; Hermann 1997; Lemon 1998; Yan 1996).
To develop this point, 1 have relied on a genealogy of readings (Appadurai
1986; Bourdieu 1970, 1977; Parry and Bloch 1989) that extends back to
Mauss's seminal discussion of the gift. Appadurai, recognizing his indebtedness
to Bourdieu, summarizes this line of interpretation as extending 'a hitherto
underplayed aspect of Mauss's analysis of the gift (Mauss 1976:70-73),
which stresses certain strategic parallels between gift exchange and more ostensibly
'economic practices' " (Appadurai 1986:12). In this vein, pilgrimage
charity represents gift exchange not only because of an ideology that emphasizes
generosity and social solidarity (klal yisrael), but also because of the
competitive, hierarchical, and self-interested ideological practices through
which pilgrimage charity circulates.
Rituals of charity, I have shown, initiate and continue triadic relationships
of exchange that involve donors, recipients, and saints. As exchanges among
pilgrims, rituals of charity rely upon and reproduce hierarchies of wealth. As
exchanges between pilgrims and saints, rituals of charity inscribe these hierarchies
into a sacred idiom that justifies wealth and poverty in the present and
channels the circulation of money in the future. Money given as charity is
transformed into a recognizable form of sacred capital that will be repaid by
saints. In the dialectic between disinterested charity and the expectation of recompense,
gift and commodity are difficult to distinguish, especially where
saintly recompense is realized as profit in the global market.
Hillulot partake of the global market both as commodified rituals cum
tourist attractions and as sacred rituals cum investment strategies. The transnational
revitalization of Jewish pilgrimage in Morocco reflects a strategic refashioning
of the hillulah as a political showcase of liberal pluralism and as a
multifaceted juncture of economic revenue. This strategic revitali/ation, moreover,
relies less explicitly on the faith of devoted pilgrims, or on what certain
Moroccan Jewish modernists view as "archaic" forms of "saint-worship," and
more explicitly on nostalgic sentiments that can be animated in a transnational
community. Yet. local and diasporic pilgrims also continue to cultivate ongoing
relationships with saints, whom they revere and on whom they depend. Although
such relationships have become muted in the late-20th-century promotion
of pilgrimage, hillulot have not become disenchanted. Hillulot, at their
ritual core, comprehend a globally commodified world in which certain pilgrims
become recognized as the rightful beneficiaries and moral agents of entrepreneurial
success.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 391
Notes
Acknowledgments. I gratefully acknowledge funding for two years (1994-97) of
research in Morocco, France, and Israel from the following sources: the Research Institute
for the Study of Man, the Fulbright-Hayes program, and the Social Science Research
Council. Funding for the preparation of this article was provided by the Memorial Foundation
for Jewish Culture. An earlier version of this article was presented as part of a
panel entitled "Money, Markets, and Migration: Ethnographic Perspectives on the Cultural
Politics of Value," at the 1998 annual meetings of the American Anthropological
Association. I thank participants from that panel for their helpful comments. I am grateful
to my teachers and colleagues at the University of Michigan and at Lawrence University
who have given their support and feedback at various stages of the research and
writing that led to this article. Revisions to the manuscript of this article benefited from
the critical, and greatly appreciated, comments of Paul Eiss, Julie Hastings, Jeff Heath,
Tom Williamson, Ann Anagnost, and the anonymous reviewers for Cultural Anthropol-
ogy
Transcription note. Regional and ethnic dialects of Arabic and Hebrew in Morocco
complicate transcription strategies. For the sake of readability, I have transcribed
Arabic and Hebrew words as they are spoken in Morocco with an English orthography.
Those familiar with these languages should have little difficulty tracing word roots;
hopefully, those unfamiliar with the languages will not encounter the foreign terms as
stumbling blocks. I have used the following abbreviations to indicate the original language
of foreign words: Ar. (Arabic); Fr. (French); Heb. (Hebrew).
1. The preeminence of Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai among the saints of Jewish Morocco
relies partly on his status as the putative author of Zohar, a central text of the Jewish
mystical tradition (kabbalah). The celebration of Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai's
pilgrimage at Moroccan shrines relies on various ideological tenets of saint veneration
in Morocco. Many local saints, for example, are said to have died on Lag b'Omer, thus
suggesting a sacred linkage to both the festival calendar and to Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai
himself. Moreover, pilgrims believe that Rebbi Shimon Bar Yohai is present at local
shrines on the eve of the Lag b'Omer pilgrimages.
2. Hillulot, also celebrated in homes or synagogues, do not necessarily entail pilgrimage
to shrines. Moroccan Jews, however, often use the terms hillulah and pilgrimage
(Fr. pelerinage; Ar. ziyara) interchangeably. In general, pilgrimage is considered an
integral part of the hillulah experience, and for this reason I use the terms synonymously
in this article.
3. The relationship between pilgrimage and tourism has been explored in a variety
of secular and religious contexts (see Cohen 1992; Dubisch 1995; Frey 1998; Graburn
1977; Levy 1997). On the political economy of international tourism, see Crick 1989.
4. This self-consciousness has been institutionally formalized in transnational organizations
such as the Global Assembly of Moroccan Judaism (see Note 20).
5. This is not to say that these national boundaries and identities are never significant,
but rather that a transnational Moroccan Jewish identity creates contexts for circuits
of movement, exchange, and identity in which international boundaries may be
subordinated. Insofar as one attends to newfound national identities assumed by Moroccan
Jews in the states to which they have emigrated (cf. Levy 1997). one can reasonably
speak of the international context of Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage. I do attend to such
identities and, as such, do not discuss the important distinctions between pilgrims arriving
from Israel, France, Canada, and so forth. My analysis invites an investigation of
these distinctions, which I intend to pursue elsewhere. Such an approach would further
392 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
complicate the category of "pilgrim" and illuminate the ways in which the transnational
and the international are in dynamic tension.
6. Although only a relatively small number of communal hillulot continue to be
celebrated, over 600 Moroccan Jewish saints have been identified (Ben-Ami 1984).
7. To take a single example of this integration, one of the most popular poems sung
at pilgrimages hinges around a refrain thanking "[all of] the dear saints." The total
number of verses varies according to the skill, energy, and creativity of the singers. Each
verse refers to a different saint and often mentions the location of the saint's shrine as
well (see Ben-Ami 1998).
8. The attributes of Jewish holy men, particularly their function as exemplars of piety
and as intercessors between persons and God, suggest the term saint as a convenient
English gloss. For commentaries on the use of the term saint in Jewish and Moroccan
contexts, see Cohn 1987, Cornell 1998, and Jacobs 1990. The great antiquity of saint
veneration among Jews in Morocco is asserted by pilgrims themselves. French colonial
scholars commonly portrayed saint veneration among Jews and Muslims as survivals of
prehistoric Berber animism (Voinot 1948). Without making any claims as to the prevalence
of pilgrimage in Jewish Morocco in the premodern period, I simply note that pilgrims
understand the practice to be a long-standing part of their cultural tradition.
9. See Goldberg 1983:67,1996:26-27, Schroeter and Chetrit 1996:102. According
to informants, during the early part of the 20th century, the largest hillulot attracted upwards
of 20,000 pilgrims. Newspaper articles and photographs confirm the large scale of
pilgrimages during this period. An article appearing in 1932 in the Judeo-Moroccan
press, for example, estimates that 15,000 pilgrims attended the hillulah of Rebbi Amram
Ben Diwan that year (Union Marocaine 1932).
10. See, for example, "La veille du Conseil annuel des Rabbins du Maroc: La Hilloula"
in La Voixdes Communautes 1951.
11. For an example of colonial critiques of money at pilgrimage, see Abbou
1953:383.
12. Contemporary studies of Moroccan Jewish pilgrimage have been conducted
primarily by Israeli anthropologists whose research has been based predominantly on interviews
conducted with North African immigrants in Israel and on ethnographic research
conducted at Israeli shrines that attract North African adherents. The few
examples of Morocco-based research have, correspondingly, focused on pilgrim-tourists
returning from Israel (Levy 1997). Kenneth Brown (1989) has commented on the relationship
between the religious and commercial motivations of Moroccan migrants to
Israel. His discussion is one of the few to note a tight connection between mobility, commerce,
and hillulot, especially in the transnational relationship between Morocco and Is-
rael.
13. I do not mean to simplify the ways in which Morocco and Israel compete as
Jewish homelands, as they do in a range of Moroccan practices and discourses. I only
want to suggest that certain, especially economic, aspects of Jewish pilgrimage in Morocco
are mediated within the Moroccan-Jewish diaspora, of which Israel is one part.
14. For a similar argument regarding Christian pilgrimage in Greece, see Danforth
1989.
15. Pilgrimage studies, more generally, have been characterized by a reevaluation
of Turner's emphasis on communitas and an increased emphasis on hierarchy and contestation.
For a review of this analytical turn, see Dubisch 1995:41-47. Although a communitas
approach has been dominant in studies of hillulot, several authors have, in
varying degrees, appreciated the competitive and hierarchical social dynamics of North
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 393
African Jewish pilgrimage with regard to intercommunal and interethnic tensions in Israel
(Shokeid 1974; Weingrod 1990a). Yoram Bilu (1988) has proposed that Moroccan
pilgrims in Israel enact a form of sibling rivalry as they attempt to acquire the limited
blessings of petitioned saints. My analysis of hillulot extends and foregrounds a sensitivity
to pilgrimage competition and hierarchy based on class and enacted in the pecuniary
rituals of charity.
16. For population estimates, see Les Cahier de la Alliance Israelite Universelle
1997:37. My estimate of the population in the 1990s is based on discussions with CJCM
leaders. Although the CJCM does not keep exact statistics, it is likely that the number of
Jews living in Morocco at the time of my research was closer to 5,000 than 10,000.
17. On the revitalization of the CJCM, see Levy 1994.
18. Until the early 1990s, the CJCM appointed a "president of holy places" whose
responsibilities included the administration of all pilgrimages. Through the 1990s, the
CJCM retained its authority over pilgrimages even as individual pilgrimages continued
to be organized by "local" committees, members of which now reside predominantly in
Casablanca. Tensions between the CJCM and pilgrimage committees frequently erupt
around issues of administrative authority and rights to shrine income.
19. The transnational revitalization of hillulot suggests a reconsideration of Andrd
Levy's (1994) emphasis on the "contraction" of saints and shrines. While there has been
an overall diminution in the number of active shrines and pilgrims, the trend has not been
uniform nor have hillulot been generally characterized by a "depressed and gloomy" atmosphere
(Levy 1994:139). Indeed, the shrine of David U-Moshe, which Levy observed
as having lost its previously prominent position, hosted one of the largest transnational
hillulot in 1996.
20. Ethnic community associations have been created throughout the Moroccan
Jewish diaspora, especially in Israel, France, and Canada. Among the events organized
by these associations are hillulot, now celebrated in these and other countries (Cernea
1988). In 1985, the Global Assembly of Moroccan Judaism was formed partly to facilitate
the interaction among diasporic Moroccan Jewish communities.
21. Official diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel were established in
1994. Previously, Jews returning from Israel traveled on European passports or were required
to apply for Moroccan entry visas in European cities. By the time of my research,
entry visas could be obtained in Israel, Israeli travel agents were organizing group tours
to Morocco, and several direct commercial flights between the two countries had been
charted.
22. As part of an initial national politics of Jewish political inclusion. Dr. Le*on
Benzaquen was appointed as the first minister of post and telegraphs. For commentary
on Benzaquen's short-lived tenure and on the early involvement of Jews in national government,
see Dahan 1995.
23. For summary perspectives on these varied diasporic experiences, see the often
autobiographically informed essays in Juifs de Maroc 1980.
24. While I was in Morocco, rumors circulated that the royal government was developing
strategies to attract Jewish repatriation. The King's oft quoted remarks to the
effect that he continued to recognize Moroccan Jews abroad as royal subjects and national
citizens were viewed in this*light. More specifically, I heard of indefinite plans to
develop a seaside nursing home in Tangiers for aged Jews who might want to return to
live out their lives in Morocco. I did know a handful of Jewish men who had returned to
Morocco to pursue economic opportunities, but virtually all Moroccan Jews I met found
the idea of mass repatriation unthinkable.
394 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
25. For a graphic example of the development and profitablity of Jewish Tourism
see: http://www.heritagetoursonline.com/jewish_heritage.html, accessed April 11,
2002.
26. See, for example, "Retrouvailles a l'ombre d'un saint" in Information Juive
1986.
27. For example, see "Morocco: Coexistence for the Sons of Abraham" in the Jewish
Exponent 1992.
28. For a related discussion on Muslim pilgrimage in Morocco, see Reysoo
1991:181-192.
29. For example, see "La Hailoula, ou le pelerinage des septs saints des Ouled BenZmirou
a Safi" in Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb 1995.
30. The Moroccan Jewish community receives financial support and services from
a number of international Jewish organizations, including the American Joint Distribution
Committee, theAlliance Israelite Universelle, Lubavitch/Habad, and the Organisation
Reconstruction Travail.
31. It is difficult to calculate the percentage of annual income which local vendors
derive from the pilgrimage economy. However, informal interviews with marketers and
local service providers (e.g., hoteliers, taxi drivers) suggest that they consider pilgrimages
an important economic opportunity.
32. The role of pilgrimages and shrines in transforming exchanges between men
into ongoing relationships with saints also characterizes Moroccan Muslim practices
(see Crapanzano 1973; Eickelman 1976).
33. Where shrines are dedicated to saints whose sacred lineage extends to the present,
as in the cases of Rebbi Haim Pinto and Rebbi David Ben Barukh, living members
of the family are recognized by many as the rightful stewards of funds collected at pil-
grimages.
34. For numerous examples of relevant hagiographic folk tales, see Ben-Ami
1998.
35. Klal yisrael is also fractured by social divisions that refer to criteria other than
wealth, class, and charitable display. My intention here is not to suggest that identities of
gender, age, current residence, and so forth, are insignificant in the inflection of social
difference at hillulot. My emphasis on identities of wealth, rather, is only intended to
analytically foreground some aspects of pilgrim identity and hillulah practice that have
previously received little ethnographic attention.
36. The French term pauvres is used most often in the context of the affairs of the
CJCM. At pilgrimages and in other contexts, the CJCM has attempted to transform the
poor into a category of individuals serviceable by a social welfare bureaucracy, as opposed
to dealing with them as a node in a sacred economy of exchange. Thus, for example,
at some hillulot the CJCM has taken to posting charity boxes with captions enjoining
pilgrims to "pensez a nos pauvres" (think of our poor).
37. A similar relationship between the ritual poor, charity, and saints is established
at Moroccan Muslim pilgrimages. The categorical poor (Ar.foqra) at Muslim pilgrimages
(Ar. mwasem, sing, musem), however, may include all the living descendants of the
saintly lineage who are entitled to a share of the proceeds (Crapanzano 1973).
38. Victor Turner remarks on a similar relationship between pilgrimage petition
and orthodox liturgy in the context of Catholic pilgrimage: "Now pilgrimage may be regarded
as an accelerator of normal liturgical practice. It is popularly felt that the merits
acquired by the saint or martyr lent power to masses said on the altar of a church dedicated
to him" (1979:136).
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 395
39. Dale Eickelman has written about a similar relationship among alms, the poor,
and Muslim saints (marabouts) in Morocco: "Ideologically, the giving and receiving of
alms (sadaqa) between Moroccans are also outside the calculus of obligation. Nonetheless,
an implicitly triangular reciprocity is involved. Beggars ask God or a marabout to
repay the donor on their behalf (Eickelman 1976). A corresponding triadic relationship
among beggars, donors and sacred reward appears in the ethnography of Jewish life in
the Eastern European shtetl (Zborowski and Herzog 1952:191-214).
40. Muslim vendors are generally restricted from access to areas directly surrounding
saints' tombs. On several occasions, I did witness Muslim marketers attempting to
hawk their wares near a saint's tomb. At the behest of pilgrims, these vendors were forcibly
removed by soldiers stationed at the shrine.
41. It is worth noting that the range of responses to candle sales problematizes any
construction of "modern" pilgrims as a homogenous category. Shrine officials committed
to the bureaucratization of pilgrimage charity under a central authority did not necessarily
question the power of saints to compensate donors of charity. To the contrary,
the very same officials who halted the independent selling of candles sometimes functioned
as auctioneers in candle auctions and performed hagiographic narratives and poems
that hailed the miraculous powers of saints.
42. As a category of persons, the wealthy are called 'ashirim (sing, 'ashir) in Hebrew
and tujar (sing, tajer) in Arabic. Both terms connote wealth specifically acquired
through successful business and commercial endeavors rather than wealth more generally
(Ar. ghani). These terms, however, do not have nearly the same currency at pilgrimages
as those used to refer to the poor.
43. Winning bids must eventually be paid. Outstanding debts to the shrine committees,
however, are not always forthcoming. Indeed, auctioneers sometimes begin the
proceedings with an entreaty that past debts to the saint should be paid and forthcoming
debts should be settled quickly. The negotiation of payments, however, takes place off
the public stage and is motivated by responsibility to the saint and expectations of recompense
rather than by the competition for social honor.
44. A rhetoric of inflated numbers is exploited in a variety of Moroccan discourses
through which finances are negotiated and wealth is displayed. I am not suggesting that
this rhetoric is unique to auction poetics but rather that it is central.
References Cited
Abbou, David
1946 Pour la supression de la Mendicite*. Noar. Aout-Sept.
1953 Musulmans Andalous et Jude'o-Espanols. Casablanca: Editions Antar.
Appadurai, Arjun
1986 Introduction: Commodities and Values. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities
in Cultural Perspective. Arjun Appadurai, ed. Pp. 3-63. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
1991 Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology. In
Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. Richard G. Fox, ed. Pp.
191-210. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
Baudrillard, Jean
1981 For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. St. Louis: Telos Press.
396 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
»
Ben-Ami, Issachar
1981 Folk-Veneration of Saints among the Moroccan Jews. In Studies in Judaism
and Islam. Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben-Ami, and Norman Stillman, eds. Pp.
283-344. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.
1984 Ha-'arasat haqedoshim beqereb yehude Maroqo. Jerusalem: The Magnes
Press.
1998 Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press.
Bensimon, Doris
1980 La Judaicite' Marocaine dans la Seconde Moiti du 20e Siecle: Evolution demographique
et sociale: Emigration. In Juifs du Maroc: Identity et Dialogue. Pp.
233-245. Grenoble, France: La Pense'e Sauvage.
Bensimon-Donath, Doris
1968 Evolution du JudaVsme Marocain sous le Protectorat Franc,ais 1912-1956.
Paris: Mouton and Co..
Bilu, Yoram
1987 Dreams and Wishes of the Saint. In Judaism Viewed from within and from
Without. Harvey Goldberg, ed. Pp. 285-313. New York: New York University
Press.
1988 The Inner Limits of Communitas: A Covert Dimension of Pilgrimage Behavior.
Ethos 16(3):302-325.
Bilu, Yoram, and Eyal Ben-Ari
1992 The Making of Modern Saints: Manufactured Charisma and the Abu-Hatseilas
of Israel. American Ethnologist 19(4):672-687.
Bilu, Yoram, and Andre" Levy
1996 Nostalgia and Ambivalence: The Reconstruction of Jewish-Muslim Relations
in Oulad Mansour. In Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in
the Modern Era. Harvey E. Goldberg, ed. Pp. 288-311. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Bloch, Maurice
1989 The Symbolism of Money in Imerina. In Money and the Morality of Exchange.
Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch, eds. Pp. 165-190. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre
1970 The Sentiment of Honour in Kabyle Society. In Honour and Shame: The Values
of Mediterranean Society. J. G. Peristiany, ed. Pp. 193-241. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, Kenneth
1989 Dat, Miskhar, Vehanaidut shel Yehudai Moroko. Pe'amim 38(4):95-108.
Cernea, Ruth Fredman
1988 Flaming Prayers: Hillula in a New Home. In Between Two Worlds: Ethnographic
Essays on American Jewry. Jack Kugelmass, ed. Pp. 162-191. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Cohen, Erik
1992 Pilgrimage and Tourism: Convergence and Divergence. In Sacred Journeys:
The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. E. Alan Morinis, ed. Pp. 47-61. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 397
Cohn, Robert L.
1987 Sainthood on the Periphery: The Case of Judaism. In Saints and Virtues. John
Stratton Hawley, ed. Pp. 87-108. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cornell, Vincent J.
1998 Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
Crapanzano, Vincent
1973 The Hamadsha: A Study in Moroccan Ethnopsychiatry. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Crick, Malcolm
1989 Representations of International Tourism in the Social Sciences: Sun, Sex,
Sights, Savings, and Servility. Annual Review of Anthropology 18:307-344.
Dahan, Jacques
1995 Regards d'un Juif Marocain sur l'histoire contemporaine de son pays. Paris:
Editions L'Harmattan.
Danforth, Loring
1989 Firewalking and Religious Healing: The Anastenaria of Greece and the American
Firewalking Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Deshen, Shlomo, and Moshe Shokeid
1974 The Predicament of Homecoming: Cultural and Social Life of North African
Immigrants in Israel. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Dubisch, Jill
1995 In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Eickelman, Dale F.
1976 Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
Frey, Nancy Louise
1998 Pilgrim Stories: On and off the Road to Santiago. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Geeitz, Clifford, Hildred Geertz, and Lawrence Rosen, eds.
1979 Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society: Three Essays in Cultural Analysis.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Godelier, Maurice
1999 The Enigma of the Gift. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldberg, Harvey E.
1983 The Mellahs of Southern Morocco: A Report of a Survey. The Maghreb Review
3(3):61-69.
1990 The Zohar in Southern Morocco: A Study in the Ethnography of Texts. History
of Religions 29(3):233-258.
1992 Potential Polities: Jewish Saints in the Moroccan Countryside and in Israel. In
Faith and Polity: Essays on Religion and Politics. Mart Bax, Peter Kloos, and Adrianus
Koster, eds. Pp. 235-250. Amsterdam: VU University Press.
1996 Introduction. In Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in
the Modern Era. Harvey E. Goldberg, ed. Pp. 1-51. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Goulven, Joseph
1927 Les Mellahs de Rabat-Sale". Paris: Paul Geuthner.
398 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Graburn, Nelson H. H.
1977 Tourism: The Sacred Journey. In Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism.
Valene L. Smith, ed. Pp. 17-31. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
Hawley, John Stratton, ed.
1987 Saints and Virtues. Berkeley: University of California Press
Hermann, Gretchen
1997 Gift or Commodity: What Changes Hands in the U.S. Garage Sale. American
Ethnologist 24(4):910-930.
Information Juive
1986 Retrouvailles a l'ombre d'un saint. Information Juive, June.
Jacobs, Louis
1990 Holy Living: Saints and Saintliness in Judaism. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Jewish Exponent
1992 Morocco: Coexistence for the Sons of Abraham. Jewish Exponent, August 14:
1-X-4-X.
Juifs de Maroc
1980 Juifs du Maroc: Identite et Dialogue. Grenoble, France: La Pense'e Sauvage.
Lasry, Jean-Claude, and Claude Tapia, eds.
1989 Les Juifs du Maghreb: Diasporas contemporaines. Montreal: Les Presses de
l'Universite de Montreal.
La Voix des Communautes
1951 La veille du Conseil annuel des Rabbins du Maroc: La Hilloula. La \'oi\ des
Communautes, October 14.
Le Matin du Sahara
1978 3,000 Km dans le le Royaume, la Hiloula de Ouez/ane et le festival de Marrakech.
Douze journalistes de la pressejuive americaine enthousiasme's de leurvoyage
au Maroc ou ils on ete frappes par la beaute du pays et par l'exceptionelle image
de 1'entente judeo-arabe. Le Matin Du Sahara, June 16.
Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb
1979 Pelerins juifs etrangers et marocains ont prie' pour le repos de Tame des
chouhada de notre integrite territoriale au cours de la Hilloula de Rabbi David Ben
Baroukh dans le region de Taroudant. Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb. December 30
1980 De centaines d'Israelites du Maroc d'Europe et d' Amerique presents a la Hi
loula de Rabbi Amram Ben Diouane. Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb. May 6.
1986a Un millier de Juifs marocains ceiebrent la Hilloula'. Le Matin du Sahara et
du Maghreb, May 27.
1986b Une delegation des juifs d'Oujda residant a Paris en visite dans l'Oriental 1 £
Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb, May .31.
1995 La HaYloula, ou le pelerinage des septs saints des Ouled Ben-Zmirou a Safi. Le
Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb, August 27.
Lemon, Alaina
1998 "Your Eyes Are Green Like Dollars": Counterfeit Cash. National Substance,
and Currency Apartheid in 1990s Russia. Cultural Anthropology 1 M 1 ):22 .s.S.
Les Cahier de la Alliance Israelite Universelle
1997 Number 197: 37. Paris: Alliance Israelite Universelle.
Levy, Andre"
1991 Une Grande Hillulah et une "Atzeret Tshuva" l.tudc d'un Cas. In Recherchcs
sur la Culture des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord. I. Ben Ami, ed. Pp. 167-179. Jerusalem:
Communautd Israelite Nord-Africaine.
TOURISM, CHARITY, AND PROFIT IN MOROCCO 399
»
1994 The Structured Ambiguity of Minorities towards Decolonisation: The Case of
the Moroccan Jews Today. The Maghreb Review 19(1 -2): 133-146.
1997 To Morocco and Back: Tourism and Pilgrimage among Moroccan-Born Israelis.
In Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and
Experience. Eyal Ben-Ari and Yoram Bilu, eds. Pp. 25-46. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Malka, Victor
1978 La Me'moire brise'e des juifs du Maroc. Paris: Editions Entente.
Mauss, Marcel
1990[ 1976] The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. New
York: W. W. Norton.
Myerhoff, Barbara
1993 Pilgrimage to Meron: Inner and Outer Peregrinations. In Creativity/Anthropology.
Smadar Lavie, Kirin Narayan, and Renato Rosaldo, eds. Pp. 211-222. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press..
Parry, Jonathan, and Maurice Bloch, eds.
1989 Money and the Morality of Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Reysoo, Fenneke
1991 Pelerinages au Maroc: Fete, Politique et Echange dans l'lslam Populaire.
Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme.
Romanelli, Samuel
1989 Travail in an Arab Land. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Shokeid, Moshe
1974 An Anthropological Perspective on Ascetic Behavior and Religious Change.
In The Predicament of Homecoming: Cultural and Social Life of North African Immigrants
in Israel. Shlomo Deshen and Moshe Shokeid, eds. Pp. 64-94. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Shroeter, Daniel J., and Josef Chetrit
1996 The Transformation of the Jewish Community of Essaouira (Mogador) in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. In Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewries: History
and Culture. Harvey E. Goldberg, ed. Pp. 99-116. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Smart, Alan
1993 Gifts, Bribes and Guanxi: A Reconsideration of Bourdieu's Social Capital.
Cultural Anthropology 8(3):388-408.
Stillman, Norman
1982 Saddiq and Marabout in Morocco. In The Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage.
Issachar Ben Ami, ed. Pp. 489-500. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.
Tessler, Mark
1988 Moroccan-Israeli Relations and the Reasons for Moroccan Receptivity to Contact
with Israel. Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 10(2):76-108.
Turner, Victor
1974 Pilgrimages as Social Processes. In Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic
Action in Human Society. Pp. 166-230. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
1979 Death and the Dead in the Pilgrimage Process. In Process, Performance and
Pilgrimage: A Study in Comparative Symbology. Victor Turner, ed. Pp. 121-142.
New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.
400 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Turner, Victor, and Edith L. B. Turner
1978 Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Union Marocaine
1932 Le Carnet de Pelerin. Union Marocaine, May 26.
Voinot, Louis
1948 Pelerinages Jude'o-Musulmans du Maroc. Paris: Editions Larose.
Weingrod, Alex
1990a The Saint of Beersheba. Albany: State University of New York Press.
1990b Saints and Shrines, Politics, and Culture: A Morocco-Israel Comparison. In
Muslim Travelers'. Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination. Dale
Eickelman and James Piscatori, eds. Pp. 217-235. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Westermarck, Edward
1926 Ritual and Belief in Morocco. London: Macmillan.
Yan, Yunxiang
1996 The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Zborowski, Mark, and Elizabeth Herzog
1952 Life Is with People. New York: Schocken Books.