Morocco – Shimon Levy, director of Casablanca’s Museum of Moroccan Judaism, died on Friday at the age of 77, the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat reported yesterday. His is the only Jewish-themed museum in the Arab world.
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Born in the ancient Moroccan city of Fez, Mr Levy breathed his last in an intensive care unit in the capital Rabat.
“Mr Levy led a politically eventful life. Barely 20, he joined the ranks of the nationalist movement for resistance against the French colonialists,” Asharq Al Awsat reported.
He turned down French citizenship, which France offered to all Jews in its colonies in North Africa, preferring to live for 24 years without citizenship documents, until the Moroccan citizenship law came into effect in 1958, two years after independence.
Mr Levy is also remembered for being a fervent defender of the Palestinian cause and an advocate of the rights of the working class in Morocco. He was one of the prominent figures of Morocco’s Party for Progress and Socialism, and the leader of the Jewish community in Casablanca.
In both roles, he is credited with promoting the values of tolerance between Muslims and Jews.
In 1998, he set up the Foundation of Jewish-Moroccan Cultural Heritage, that works to protect Jewish-Moroccan heritage from looting and smuggling outside the country, especially to Israel.
Strange that not a single commentator has expressed regret at the death of this fine Jew.
Is it because he is a Sefardi and a Moroccan at that?
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