Links to facebook pictures

OK This is definitely going to be my last post of the day. We just had couscous and I'm mad tired (couscous just does that too you). Anyway, here are the links to my facebook pictures of Morocco. I hope you enjoy them

Fez trip pt 1

My first album

Fez pt. 2

Gibraltar

My name in awesome calligraphy

Some random pics and Tangiers

Ok thats really all for now. Shabbat Shalom!

Two in one day?! What a deal?! or Moroccans are Multilingual

As stated above, Moroccans are crazy multilingual. Take my host father, who can speak Darija, Fus-ha, French, and English fluently. Or my Media Arabic teacher, who during our Arabic placement interviews, was known to bust out Hebrew, Spanish, other African languages, and German I think. Also the majority of Moroccan Jews I’ve met speak Darija, French, English and Hebrew. Haha its crazy here. A quick anecdote of how intense they are about multilingualism is how before I told my host family that I was Jewish (they know now and are awesome), my host father asked me what my second language was, and when I told him I only knew a little bit of Arabic (since I wasn't quite ready to tell him I was Jewish and know Hebrew) he was clearly a little disappointed in me. Also a couple of weeks ago Raechel and I were spending Shabbat in Casablanca, so we ate lunch at our favorite Moroccan Jewish family's house. While there we talked mostly to the son, David, who is completely fluent in Darija, French, and English. He was telling us, in almost completely unaccented and american sounding english, that since he was fluent in the aforementioned languages he thinks that its about time for him to learn another language! The kid is 16! Another thought on the multilingualism of Moroccans: Latifa, my host sister (who I have developed a really nice relationship with) is 9 years old. She is currently studying english in addition to French and Fus-ha. By the time she is my age inshallah (Which means God willing and is equivalent to b'ezrat hashem), she will be fluent in Darija, Fus-ha, French, and English, which according to my calculations means she will be able to affectively communicate with something like 1.5 billion people of the world without any trouble. It's awesome. While the multilingualism that exists here is incredible and awe-inspiring, it makes me a little depressed about the language abilities of Americans. Don't get me wrong, America is still by far the greatest country to have ever existed in the history of humankind, but we really need to get on this. If in Morocco's shitty shitty education system they can produce a population that is completely bilingual, just imagine what could be done in America. Also if you're reading this blog and you have children or will eventually have kids, please do them a favor and teach them a language when they're young. Not only will you be contributing to a hopefully more intelligent and internationally capable society, but also you will be doing them a big favor by teaching them a language when they're young. Anyway, saffi with the preaching (saffi means enough or stop). Again if i don't post more, which I might, then Shabbat Shalom umevorach!

My experience with the some of the Chagim

Well hello there, sorry its been so long since I’ve written. Usually my writing of my blog is like kinda like writing my parents home from camp, I usually don't do it because i'm busy doing much more fun things, but i can be persuaded by monetary compsenation. Just kidding...(hint hint)

A lot of people (ok fine just my family) have asked me about my High Holiday Experience in Morocco, so I guess I’ll tell you all about it. So first we went to the Shul in Rabat. Its called Talmud Torah. Back in its heyday like 20-30 years ago it was also the seat of Jewish life in Rabat, with a school serving 400 kids and plenty of members. On Erev Rosh Hashanah, there were like 30 men and 10 women (those numbers include 4 American men and 4 American women. The Shul itself is pretty beautiful, with giant Moroccan carpets covering the floor, a gorgeous amud and Ark and many chandeliers, which I guess is a recurring theme in Moroccan Synagogues. Services were pretty weak overall. This is due to two main reasons.  The 1^st is that I don’t really love Sephardi davening. I’m just not really used to it nor does it have the epic-ness and truly awesomeness of Ashkenazi High Holiday davening. In the case of Talmud Torah, this is exacerbated by the 2^nd reason, which is that there were only like 30 old men davening. After davening was over, all of the American students were invited over to people’s houses for dinner. It was really awkward standing around with the president having him ask people to host us, but our hosts were great. Me and Raechel ate dinner with two brothers who were visiting Morocco and their mother from France.  They were both born in Rabat, in fact, their mother said that her family had been living in Rabat for like 400 years or something, they went to Talmud Torah, but now they both live in Strasbourg, France. We had an awesome meal. The brother’s both spoke English (in addition to French, Darija, and Hebrew) and the mother spoke darija.* The meal was delicious. We began with a bunch of symbolic Rosh Hashanah foods, including: toasted sesame seeds with sugar, cooked vegetables, some odd spinach paste, pomegranate seeds with sugar, and cooked sheep head. Oh Rosh Hashanah! And that was just before motzi. There were also plenty of delicious Moroccan salads, and when they brought out the main course, they told us they wouldn’t tell us what we were eating until we tried it. So they passed around the plate which had meatballs and something that looked like diced pieces of chicken but really fatty. Turns out they were cows’ stomach. They were very flavorful but had a really chewy texture/consistency. Raechel thought it was really good but I wasn’t too big a fan. There were also plenty of fresh fruits for desert and overall was a great meal. Me and Raechel then walked the 3 miles back to Agdal.

The next day services were fine. There were more people but same kinda boring atmosphere. However, we got invited to the Rabbi’s house for lunch. We had a ton of salads, and Couscous with mutton. It was awesome. I love couscous. Neither the rabbi or his wife spoke English, so we mostly communicated in Hebrew and Arabic, since neither me or Raechel speak French. After lunch was over, we asked the rabbi if we could go hang out in the Shul before mincha/maariv. He said yes, then took us to a locked garden next to his house. It was beautiful and there were so many different types of trees, including an etrog tree. He then took us into another locked door, which turns out was a beautiful 400 year old synagogue. It was in perfect condition, because even though nobody uses it anymore, he still keeps it clean. All of the Rabati Jews who go to services go to Talmud Torah now, even though our hosts from the night before both went to the 400 year old synagogue when they were kids. Again, I can’t really stress enough how beautiful this synagogue was. It was just exquisite. Anyway, we went back to Talmud Torah to just chill out for the 4 hours before mincha/maariv, but this crazy women who always sits out in front of the synagogue wouldn’t let us in, so we went back to the Rabbi’s house and napped on his couches. After maariv we went back to the brother’s house for dinner where we had tongue as our special treat.  We also went to services the next morning but ate lunch with our respective families.

Yom Kippur was another affair altogether. We decided that since davening in Rabat was kinda lackluster we would go to Casablanca, which has at least 3000 Jews, as compared to Rabat’s 120.  Raechel got us an invite with a family whose daughter had gone to Brandeis. They were awesome. We ate a giant pre-fast meal with them and then went to their synagogue, Neve Shalom, for Kol Nidre. It was fantastic. It was remarkably different from Talmud Torah, and substantially more enjoyable. I counted and there were at least 100 men and 40 women in the Synagogue, not including all of the people and children who were outside in the courtyard.  The services were lively and energetic and just great overall, even if I didn’t recognize any tunes. For Shacharit we went a Synagogue called Beth El. Its also known as The Temple. It was huge and remarkably beautiful. Honestly the ark was probably the most beautiful ark I’ve ever seen in my life. While it was exceedingly beautiful, the davening was much less enjoyable than at Neve Shalom. However, after musaf, we stayed at Beth El for an hour while the Governor of Casablanca and his political and military entourage came to the synagogue. The members of the Shul put up a picture of the king and The Rabbi said a prayer for the king and the president gave a speech to the governor. It was a fascinating experience. We then went back to Neve Shalom for mincha and Ne’ilah. It was great. The whole Shul was crazy hyper during the last half hour of Ne’ilah. By the way, the ark opening for Ne’ilah was auctioned off for 27,000 dirhams, which is approximately $3200.  After Ne’ilah we ate break-fast with the family. We broke the fast first with wine, then with a glass of arak. Lovely stuff. Another great and fun filled and gigantic meal.  Also the Jews of Morocco tend to eat slow more American paced meals, whereas my host family gobbles down most meals  in like 15 minutes.

*Sidenote: The vast majority of Moroccan Jews I have met speak French at home instead of Darija. I have no clue why this is the case, since they all know Darija and French. After many conversations with Moroccans on the subject of French, Since everyone is fluent in French there isn’t really anything socially unacceptable about mostly only speaking French, although I get the feeling it might be regarded as very slightly elitist, at least among Muslim Moroccans. It sounds at least among the mainstream that French only is regarded as a little hoighty toighty. That being said I have met a number of Muslim Moroccans that predominantly speak French.

Anyway, I hope this post satiated your burning desires for tales from Morocco. I actually plan on writing more today, so inshallah this won't be my only post of the day. If it is though, Shabbat Shalom!

Wow, I watch a lot of TV Here

First of all, you should know that I really don’t watch that much TV at home or at Brandeis. Funny story actually, freshman year my family basically made me bring a TV to school saying I would want to watch it. I watched it once, then unplugged it and let it sit in my closet for the rest of the year. Needless to say, I did not bring a TV to school last year either. Anyway. Moroccans love their TV. Like in more than a platonic way. Its invited to more meals than most relatives, even the ones that live in the house. Seriously. The TV is on during every meal, and just in general during most of the day. There are numerous different shows on, and my host family seems to watch just about all of them. With the exception of 2 channels, my host family only watches TV in Arabic. The two other channels have English TV shows and movies subtitled in Arabic. Generally my family watches the news (either in Darija or Fus-ha), Mexican, Turkish, or Indian soap opera’s dubbed into Darija, Moroccan soap opera’s or sitcoms, or National Geographic Abu Dhabi (which is in Fus-ha). It’s crazy. Generally speaking TV is the main source of entertainment during meals (especially dinner). Now, some of you might be wondering, but Jeremy, do you understand any of the TV that you’re watching? And the answer to your astute inquiry is…No. But things are getting better. When I first got hear a month ago I couldn’t understand a single thing on TV. As in I couldn’t even comprehend when words were ending. Then after a little while I could hear words ending. Now I can actually hear a couple of distinct words or phrases and understand them, or at least recognize them. While it was incredibly frustrating the first couple of weeks, its now very exciting when I realize I understood what was just said, even if its as simple as “I want” or “lets go”. So while at home I give Robbie an incredibly hard time about watching TV during dinner, I’m not nearly as bitchy about it here. Another quick TV infobyte: While I’ve certainly already watched more TV here in the past month than I have in the past year at home or school, I do talk a lot with my Moroccan host family, they’re lovely and wonderful people, and they have been teaching me a lot, even if it is while watching TV.

A day in the life of Jeremy Fineberg- at least during Ramadan

Hello to all my loyal readers!
This is hopefully the first of a couple of posts today. I have decided to do this in segments so that I can not only speerate my thoughts easier, but so that you all can read smaller posts. Huzzah! Anyway, so the first in this current installment is about a normal day in my life, at least during Ramadan. Basically I wake up every morning sweating like crazy at 7:30. Me and Jonathan eat breakfast at 8:00 and walk to Amideast at 8:15 so we can get there by 8:30. Here is the current list of my classes and how they're going.  Every day I have modern standard arabic for an hour. Basically I miss my professor from Brandeis. In addition to being an all around baller, if a hardass, he was a fantastic educator. While I agree that there is something to be said about learning a language from a native speaker, there is something else to be said about learning a language from a non-native speaker that speaks your language and learned through similar methods that you did. Oh well. Almost more than I miss my old professor, I really miss using my Arabic Textbook. I had the privilege of using the Ahlan wa Sahlan Textbook, which in addition to being newer appears to be substantially superior in every way to the textbook used basically everywhere else in the world. I know this to be true because many of the people on the Program and in some of my classes used the other book for more than a year and were in the same class as me. Basically the book sucks. Anyway, I'll deal with it.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I have Darija, or Moroccan Colloquial Arabic. This language is the day to day language of Moroccans. Technically speaking, its only a colloquial dialect, meaning its not a written language at all. Its very interesting and very different from Modern Standard Arabic. Basically there are no vowels in any words, so everything is kinda mushed together. But it is a very fun language.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays i have Media Arabic. This is gonna be a class that actually kicks my ass. Its very difficult and taught in arabic. While the teacher is kind of intense, he is also incredibly smart and very clever. He is also always willing to help us with a word (or sentences) that we don't understand. He is also remarkably cynical, which i really appreciate. For example, in a short practice article about a conference in sharm el-sheikh, he basically told us the real reason egypt wanted to host the conference was because of all of the money that it would bring to the egyptian economy. Fun stuff. Its been a while since a class actually kicked my ass, and i guess i kinda like the abuse.

Finally I have two humanities type classes. The Islamic world and the West, and Gender, Islam, and Society. They seem pretty interesting, but i haven't really had them enough to pass judgement. besides, I came to Morocco to study arabic, and I am taking around 10 hours of arabic a week, so thats fun.

Even though I rarely have more than 3 hours of class a day, I usually stay at Amideast until 5- which i think is largely because theres nothing to do in Morocco during the day during Ramadan. Then I come home and watch tv with my host family or watch a movie with Marwan and Jonathan. Then theres ftour, which i've explained before. Hooray for force feeding! Seriously i'm getting as much Moroccan soup as I could ever want, and i'm pretty happy about that.  After and during ftour we watch tv, which is not so fun. An entry coming soon will be dedicated to tv in Morocco.  Then hopefully I go out and see more of Rabat! Either I go to the medina or go see touristy things, or just go get coffee.
Last night was the 27th of Ramadan, which is called Lailat al Qadr, which means Night of Destiny. In addition to people going to the mosque all night, children walk around in adorable traditional clothes at night. So a bunch of us went out to the Hassan Tower (pictured below) and saw the children and the tower. It was a pretty cool experience, but I didn't take any pictures of the children since I didn't want to be creepy. Quick facts about the Hassan Tower, it was started in the late 1100s, and was meant to be the tallest minaret for a mosque in the Muslim world, but the Sultan who was building it died before it was finished. Anyway, its really cool and i have pictures. Enjoy!
Get ready for my next post which should be coming out soon and will examine a couple of different aspects of Moroccan Culture!

Host family time!

Well folks, its the moment you've been waiting for, my next update! Well, lots of the things have been happening since I last wrote, but probably the most important has been the move to my host family. The Sediki (which means my friend) family consists of 5 members. Abdelghafor is the father. He used to work for the ministry of communication, is 52, and retired. He now just does carpentry to pass the time and he's quite talented. I know what you're all thinking, but he really is 52 and retired!!! Next is Meryem, Abdelghafors wife. She is an incredible cook and really nice. Next comes Soufian. He's 24 and goes to a culinary school (i think) outside of casablanca. Marwan is 19 and a student at Mohammed V in Rabat. He's studying economics and wants to be a banker. Finally we have 9 year old Latifa, who is ridiculously adorable.

Anyway, we moved in yesterday. Abdelghafor and Marwan picked us up from the Amideast building and we walked to their house, which is in the same neighborhood, called Agdal. Thankfully our family lives only a 10 minute walk from Amideast. We met the rest of the family and got a tour of the appartment. To be honest I really know nothing about apartment size or whatever, but they have a very nice apartment. They have a kitchen, a guest room (which i guess is the equivalent of one of those really goyish living rooms that have the nice furniture that nobody really spends any time in),  A bedroom that has a king sized bed and a twin sized bed, although to be honest i have no clue who sleeps in that room yet. Next is mine and Jonathan's room (Jonathan is the other guy from my program at the house). I took a picture of our room for you all to see. Finally is the family room/living room. The walls are lined with couches and there is a tv and computer. There is also a table (i think abdelghafor made it) and we eat every dinner in this room.

Dinners in Morocco are quite different from dinners in the states, or at least they're different from dinners at home. We eat while watching tv, which is apparently common in every moroccan household.  Its very weird for me but its ok. Dinner at least the past 2 nights has stretched quite far into the night. Last night after an hour and a half watching tv and eating, and by eating I mean Meryem basically demanding that we eat more. "Kul" which i think is the command form for eat in arabic was basically the most common word she said. Glad to see that Jewish and Muslim mothers have at least that much in common. Anyway after an hour and half me and Jonathan moved to the balcony where we were served tea with Soufian and Marwan. Moroccan tea is basically the best thing ever. Its incredibly sugary and minty and delicious. Also the process is great, but i think i'll save that for another post. Anyway we drank tea and ate more dessert and talked to Soufian and Marwan. Jonathan speaks french but no Arabic and I speak a little arabic. Every member of the family speaks Arabic and French, but Soufian and Abdelghafor speak enough english to communicate with me. Marwan takes english classes at Amideast and his english is fantastic. We talked about all sorts of things and were out there for another 2 hours. It was fantastic. Then Marwan showed us around Agdal and we ate delicious pumpkin seeds. It was a great night.

One note about Rabat and the fantastic time I've been having: Its hot as hell in Rabat right now. Apparently its been hotter since ive been here than it was all summer. Today was 102 degrees fahrenheit, and I was outside walking around Rabat from 10:30-2:00. Also the only thing really missing from the Seddiki house is air conditioning, or a fan. Its pretty brutal here.

Some variety of orthodox church

Anyway, Here are some pictures of Rabat. Just so you all know for the future, if the pictures have very weird angles and are kind of odd, its because most Moroccans (especially shopkeepers) don't like pictures to be taken of them and their shops. Oh well. Such is life. Until next time. Laila sayeeda (good night)!

A guy sleeping on the street in front of a really cool picture

Bank of Morocco

Me and Raechel in front of a gate to the Medina

My room! My bed is the one on the left

A Shop in the Souk

Keyf Keyf

So after a long day of introductions, walking around, doing a little touring, and zoning out, a bunch of people decided to go to the Medina at night. A medina, according my pretty meh guidebook is "a densely packed urban conglomeration enclosed within defesnive walls set with lookout towers." All in all a pretty interesting place, especially at 10:00 pm, when it was packed to the brim with people who had definitely not been out when I was there around 5 due to Ramadan.  Anyway, imagine the area of the medina that I was in as Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem...on crack. We walked around the medina for an hour or so, just taking it all in.  It really is fascinating how cheap everything is there, with most pieces of "Adidas" or "Nike" or "Prada" clothes or sweatsuits costing less than $12.  Oh, and there was food everywhere. Fresh dates and prickly pears and delicious orange juice everywhere you looked. This wasn't really a camera trip, but don't worry, the next one will be.

Anyway, one of the most important things to happen today happened after we got back to the hotel.  We asked for our roomkeys (apparently in other countries you often leave your key at the reception or concierge) and while we got them, we also got an hour and a half Arabic language seminar. We communicated with the security guard Zouahir and the bellhop Abdil in an odd mix of Standard Arabic (which moroccans call Arabic, so from here on, its just Arabic),  Darija, French, Spanish, and a dash of English for good measure. I considered telling them that I spoke Hebrew when they asked me what other languages I spoke, since almost everyone on the program knows/is learning at least one other language aside from Arabic (damn overachievers), but I decided to wait on that front. Anyway, we tons about the differences in pronunciation between Darija and Arabic, and a bunch of different words for the same thing. In fact, keyf keyf means "same same" according to Zouahir, which was incredibly useful to figure out differences in Darija and Arabic. However, its important to know that keyf by itself means marijuana...Oh the joys of a new language!