And one of their leaders there wants there to be no picnics, for real. Customarily Moroccan Jews have annual celebrations each year at the end of Passover, when they invite people into their homes and have lavish cookouts in parks. But now, this is somehow considered a bad thing.
"Sam Ben-Sheetrit, chairman of the World Federation of Moroccan Jewry, said Thursday that the yearly outdoor 'Maimouna' celebration boosts the stereotypes, and he wants it to stop 'because it humiliates us...We don't want to see any more Maimouna television pictures of Moroccans jumping up and down with glasses of (liquor) in their hands.'"
OK, first of all, those picnics sound totally cool. I wanna be invited to one. Second, Morocco has this amazing culture that nobody should ever look down upon. Also, I have a cookbook of Jewish recipes from around the world, and let me tell you... as much as I love matzoh ball soup and the odd gefilte fish, it's the Sephardic recipes that really make me drool. Perhaps the mocking stems from a culinary/cultural inferiority complex from somebody else? Hmmm?
So if I were one of those Moroccan/Israeli Jews, I'd happily ignore pronouncements against my picnic and go light the barbeque. Frankly, that sounds like a tradition that needs to be spread far and wide.
