Andre Azoulay: Setting Examples for Arab-Jewish Coexistence

By Jamal Amiar

Andre Azoulay left Morocco to start a new life in Paris in 1966. But, as a Jew who grew up in an Arab land, he has never forgotten that coexistence was possible.

He was born half a century ago, in 1941, in the town of Essaouira, 150 miles south of Casablanca on Morocco's Atlantic coast. As an emigrant in the 1960s, he was one of the thousands of Moroccan Jews who left for North America, Europe or Israel.

Despite all the political problems between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East since then, ties between Moroccan Jews and the land of their birth have remained strong. One idea that kept coming back during all these past years of conflict in the Middle East is that if coexistence was possible between Arabs and Jews in Morocco, that should be possible elsewhere in the Middle East. And the more so if hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews themselves lived in Israel.

Setting Up "Identiti et Dialogue"

In the fall of 1976, Andre Azoulay took the lead in Paris in organizing Moroccan Jewish friends into a group that became known as "Identity and Dialogue," based upon the Sephardic Jewish history and culture that flourished in Morocco throughout the 500 years that have passed since the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain. "This Sephardic culture has, for a very long time, been neglected, unknown, and ill-known, and also often ill-treated in the Jewish world and in Israel itself, where it has long been considered as a kind of second-rate culture, Azoulay explains.

Identity and Dialogue's first concern, therefore, was to correct such negative images. Fifteen years later, he considers that the goal of recovering Moroccan Jewish identity has largely been met.

"I think that today all over the world, in the Jewish world in Israel, and on the Israeli political scene no one can deny the political, social and cultural reality of Moroccan Judaism," Azoulay explains. "In recovering and defending their identity, Moroccan Jews have become stronger."

Today more than 700,000 Israelis, one out of six of the population, are of Moroccan origin. What few Americans realize, however, is that every year thousands of Moroccan Israelis visit the land of their origin.

Another surprise is that, among Jews from Arab countries, Moroccan Jews are the only ones who have a federation of all the Moroccan Jewish associations around the world.

It was established in 1985 in Montreal, Canada, with leading roles taken by David Amar of Morocco and Rafi Edry of Israel. The following year, then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres visited Morocco.

Only 15 years ago, when Identity and Dialogue was set up, recalls Andre Azoulay, "Moroccan Jews living in Israel would change their names to make them more French-sounding than Arab-sounding, and tell their neighbors that they had come from Marseilles or Nice, rather than 'confess' that they came from Casablanca or Marrakesh. " Because that is no longer the case, Azoulay says, his organization is no longer so concerned with the problem of identity.

What remains, however, is the issue of dialogue with the Arabs, the other reason for which Identity and Dialogue was set up 15 years ago. As a leader of a Jewish group of Arab origin, Azoulay felt that he should try to help Jews on the one hand, and Arabs and Palestinians on the other, come to know each other better. Since its founding, therefore, Identity and Dialogue has systematically promoted such cross-cultural communication.

As a widely recognized professional in the fields of communication and public relations, Andre Azoulay was certainly the perfect man for the job. Before leaving Morocco, he had worked as editor of the daily newspaper Maroc-Informations. Later, in Paris, he headed the public relations department of the Peribas International Bank, a job for which in 1990 he received a prestigious French professional award.

Earlier this year, Andre Azoulay moved on to head the Paris-based Eurocom Corporation, the world's seventh and Europe's first firm in the field. A tall and soft-spoken man, he put all that public relations experience to work to bring Arabs and Jews together. He confesses that he knew that "the task of bringing those Semites together was not going to be easy," but his faith in the future was reinforced by his understanding of the past, and particularly the Moroccan Jewish past.

"Moroccan Jewish memories are many centuries old, " he says. "We know it has not all been rosy. There are black pages. But the Moroccan Jewish past has nothing to do with the history of the Jews during that same period in the West. In Morocco we have seen no deportations, no Nazism, no concentration camps and no inquisition whatsoever. Rather, we have seen Jews and Muslims living together and respecting each other.

"We have seen a relationship develop that was globally positive," he explains. "We want to tell the world that something other than just war and bloodshed is possible in Arab-Jewish relations. Our examples can be found among our fellow Moroccans. Among the Arabs of Morocco, many share the goals of Identity and Dialogue. They consider that what they have experienced with their fellow Moroccan Jews is part of the national heritage, and therefore must be protected."

In the past, Identity and Dialogue has organized many meetings between Moroccan and Israeli opinion leaders, particularly between Israeli politicians of Moroccan descent and Moroccan government officials in Rabat. Thanks also to the efforts of Identity and Dialogue, Israeli journalists such as Matti Golan and Yehud Ya'ari have been able to visit Morocco and report on their visits to their Israeli and international readers.

Andre Azoulay believes these meetings and visits, which have had a great media impact in Israel, have contributed to changes in the image of the Arab world among Israelis.

"Those meetings," Azoulay says, "destroyed cliches and negative stereotypes on both sides. The Israelis realized that the Arab world had a civilization, an artistic and a cultural life; the Arabs realized that the Israelis had a human face."

Azoulay considers himself an ordinary Jew, or, as he puts it, "a Jew concerned with Israel's security. " But, he adds, "I am not a Jew taking only my biological origins into account. I am also a Jew in philosophical and moral terms. I will not be satisfied until the Palestinians have recovered the whole of their rights. I will not be faithful to my own values until then."

Azoulay's most significant experience in meeting with Palestinians was in what he recalls as walking the "common path" with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Issam Sartawi.

For approximately eight years, Azoulay met regularly with the prominent Palestinian moderate, and arranged for Sartawi to meet with various other Israeli and Jewish personalities.

Issarn Sartawi was assassinated in Portugal in April 1983, allegedly by Abu Nidal extremists, but this did not prevent Identity and Dialogue from carrying on meetings with other Palestinian officials. This year, Andre Azoulay and his Identity and Dialogue have set up a working group composed of 60 French and European Jewish personalities to meet once a month in Paris with a PLO delegation from Tunis.

In 1989, on the occasion of the bicentennial of the French revolution, Azoulay received the "Legion d'Honneur" from the government of France. For the last few years, also, he has held the position of vice president of the Tel Aviv-based International Center for Peace in the Middle East, a group presided over by moderate former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban.

As Identity and Dialogue celebrates its 15th anniversary, Azoulay is particularly proud of its most recent months. The war in the Gulf brought Paris-based Jewish and Arab organizations together to work to avoid Arab-Jewish conflicts on the French scene, where, Azoulay notes, "Most of the Arabs and most of the Jews are of North African origin."

The effort was successful, he reports, and again it augurs well for future cooperation on a wider scene. "Thanks to tremendous efforts and goodwill from both sides," Azoulay says, "we have been able, together, to look beyond the war in the Gulf and keep in perspective that what mattered most was the quality of Arab-Jewish relations."

Now, like millions of Arabs and Jews in and out of the Middle East, Azoulay looks forward to the convening of the Middle East peace conference scheduled for fall.

"Of course it is not enough, but at last we are talking about peace," he says. " Palestinians and Israelis are discussing the terms and the conditions to be fulfilled, so that, finally, when everyone sits around the same table, psychologically and culturally things will already be different."

Jamal Amiar is a US-educated radio journalist based in Tangier, Morocco.