The great sage, philosopher and physician, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as the Rambam (Maimonides), lived in Fez, Morocco, after being exiled from Spain following the Almohad conquest of Cordoba in 1148.
Rabbis returned to the city as part of a historic rabbinic conference in Casablanca this week, possibly the largest gathering of rabbinic leaders in Fez since Maimonides’ times.
They were there to celebrate the Siyum conclusion of the last chapter of Maimonides’s magnum opus, Mishneh Torah, whose study cycle has been completed around the world in recent weeks.
The rabbis at the conference represent relatively small Jewish communities in 40 countries from Africa to the Middle East as well as smaller European Jewish communities like Bucharest, Romania, and Dublin, Ireland, among dozens of others. The conference also drew participants from Muslim-majority countries including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Nigeria.
Rahamim Azuelos, a resident of Fez, whose family has been in the city since they were exiled from Spain some 500 years ago, recalled meeting the late Shliach Rabbi Yehuda Leib Raskin in Fez for the same ceremony in 1985.
Attending the event was Rabbi Raskin’s son Rabbi Mendel Raskin, Director of Beth Chabad Cote S. Luc in Montreal, Canada. While speaking, Azuelos discovered that the younger Raskin was Azuelos son’s counselor in the Chabad summer camp in Fez 40 years earlier.
“For such an event to happen in Morocco is extraordinary,” Azuelos told Chabad.org. “In America, it’s normal, but not here in Morocco.”
Henri Cohen, who’s lived in Fez for 54 years, noted that he first encountered Chabad growing up in Sefrou, a city near Fez. Today, Cohen is one of just 40 Jews living in Fez, down from 27,000 when he and Azuelos were growing up. He maintains the cemeteries in Sefrou, where he was born, and in Fez.
“We are so happy the Chabad emissaries came. Today I met my cousin here in Fez at the conference. He’s the Chabad rabbi in Marrakesh,” he said, referring to Rabbi Chimon Lahiany. “I never knew about him before. His grandmother and my mother were sisters.”
The conference was hosted by Moroccan-born Rabbi Levi Banon and his U.S.-born wife, Chana Banon, who have served as emissaries at Chabad-Lubavitch of Morocco since 2009, when Mrs. Raizel Raskin, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Morocco, appointed them to lead the next generation of Moroccan Jewry.
Throughout the three-day conference the emissaries discussed the opportunities and challenges of serving in communities with limited access to Jewish services, from kosher food to mikvahs to Jewish schools.
During the ceremony in Fez, Rabbi David Banon of Montreal, a prominent rabbi of the Moroccan Jewish diaspora, recited the traditional blessing for the nation’s monarch, King Mohammed VI. Remarks were also shared by Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice-chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
thank you for sharing
The house they visited is that the actual house where the Rambam lived? Do we know where he actually lived in Fez?
Yes it is, the Rebbe acknowledge that house and Rabbi Raskin would travel there for the Siyum harambam.