HIAS Refugee Shabbat: Our Stories, Our Table
- Congregation Kol Ami
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
This Friday night Kol Ami will join Jewish communities across the country in observing HIAS Refugee Shabbat, a Shabbat dedicated to remembering our own refugee history and standing with refugees today.
The work of HIAS began more than a century ago when Jewish communities organized to help Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. Over time that work expanded. Today HIAS helps refugees of many backgrounds rebuild their lives with safety, dignity, and hope.
As HIAS president Mark Hetfield has said, “We used to help refugees because they were Jewish. Now we help refugees because we are Jewish.” Jewish memory reminds us again and again that we know what it means to be strangers searching for safety. As the Torah teaches: “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger.” (Exodus 23:9)
I come to this Shabbat not only as your rabbi, but also as the child of a refugee.
My mother left Morocco after experiencing antisemitic sexual violence in the streets. She fled with a backpack and almost nothing else, making her way to Israel. Members of her family left in small groups. They locked the doors of their apartment and left everything behind — their belongings, their businesses, the graves of their ancestors, and the ancient holy spaces of their community.
My family is from Sefrou, a small city in the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains near Fez. For centuries Sefrou was known as one of Morocco’s most remarkable Jewish towns. At times Jews made up nearly half of the population. Jewish life there was vibrant and deeply woven into the life of the city.
Sefrou was famous throughout Morocco for something beautiful: its long tradition of Jewish-Muslim coexistence. Jews and Muslims lived side by side, shared markets, music, and festivals, and participated in each other’s civic life. The town was known for the Cherry Festival, where Jews and Muslims celebrated together in the streets. The rhythms of life were shared even while religious traditions remained distinct.
For more than two thousand years, Jews lived in Morocco. Jewish life there predates Islam and stretches back to antiquity. Over centuries Jewish communities flourished in cities like Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes, and Casablanca. Jews were merchants, poets, scholars, artisans, and musicians. Their culture blended Hebrew traditions with Arabic, Berber, and later Spanish influences.
In 1492, when Jews were expelled from Spain, many Sephardic Jews found refuge in Morocco, joining the older indigenous Jewish communities already there. For centuries Morocco was home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the Muslim world.
In the mid-20th century that ancient community nearly disappeared.
After the creation of Israel and rising regional tensions, many Moroccan Jews experienced violence, discrimination, and increasing insecurity. Between the late 1940s and the 1960s, over 250,000 Moroccan Jews left the country. Many made their way to Israel, sometimes through organized clandestine operations and sometimes through difficult and uncertain journeys.
Today the vast majority of Moroccan Jews live in Israel, where their descendants are a vibrant and central part of Israeli society. Others built new lives in France, Canada, and the United States. Only a small Jewish community remains in Morocco today.
This near-total migration reshaped Jewish life across the globe. Moroccan Jews carried with them their language, melodies, prayers, foods, and customs. They helped build neighborhoods, synagogues, and cultural traditions in the places where they settled.
American Jews all came from somewhere. Our families arrived from Morocco, Eastern Europe, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, and many other lands.
We carried memories. Languages. Songs. Traditions.
And food.
Food is one of the ways Jewish communities carry their history across continents. Recipes travel even when everything else must be left behind.
So this Friday night we will gather for a community potluck Shabbat dinner. I invite you to bring a dish from your family tradition — something that tells the story of where your people came from.
I will be bringing a chicken tajine, a dish from the Moroccan Jewish kitchen that connects me to my mother’s story and the long history of Jews in Morocco.
Come share a meal. Come share stories. Come welcome Shabbat together.
Our service will be led by David Levitan and Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg, and together we will reflect on the Jewish journey, the meaning of refuge, and the responsibility our history places upon us.
The refugee story is not abstract for Jews.
It is personal.
It is historical.
And it is sacred.
Please join us for HIAS Refugee Shabbat.
Bring a dish. Bring a story. Bring your whole self.
RSVP here:
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg
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