Poetry, Promenades, and Perspectives: A Day of Learning in Rabat
By Mihir Patankar
We woke up to another bright morning, able to enjoy ample time to rest after our busy day yesterday. We sat down to reconvene for a quick hotel breakfast before we set off on our excursion of the day. Today’s destination was a local university, where we hoped to learn more about Moroccan history and literature.
We departed the hotel and the bus took us to the university. We met with Professor Mustapha Qadery, who teaches history there. He was happy to give us a quick tour of the campus, which is specifically for graduate students studying humanities. He gave us an in-depth lecture, where he discussed lots about Moroccan history and the context around it. It was super interesting to learn how history can be interpreted differently depending on the literature it was sourced from. He also answered some of our most pressing questions about Moroccan nationalism and the role of the Amazigh in Moroccan culture. After the lecture we were able to meet with some of the students of the university and it was incredibly interesting to learn how their experience going to school in Morocco differs from our own university experiences. Professor Mustapha was very knowledgeable and passionate about his subjects, and we are grateful to have gained insight through him.
We were then tasked with promenading around the city to look for lunch. With so many options to choose from, some of us opted for Coq Magic, a rotisserie place that we have come to love here in Rabat. After lunch we had some time to read for our upcoming class. We spent some time perusing several poems and essays, before heading to class, led today by Professor Lefkovitz.
We had a very interesting class, dissecting several texts centered around the Jewish experience in Morocco. We started with some meta discussions on the writing of history. We then learned about Sephardic Jews, and how their removal in 1492 led them to Morocco. We dissected a few poems that captured the experience well. We were lucky to meet with our guest speaker, Abdo, who works for an NGO called the Maimouna Foundation, that tries to preserve Morocco’s Jewish heritage and culture. It does this primarily through education, using civil discourse when required. He took us further through the history, and discussed how Jews integrated into Morocco and what the effects were when the state of Israel entered the picture.
After our class, we were able to grab dinner to end off our day, some of us went to an Italian restaurant near the hotel, and were quite impressed by the food. Overall, our second day offered a fascinating glimpse into Morocco’s layered history, deepening our understanding of Moroccan culture and the complex experiences of Jewish communities within it. We are visiting Casablanca tomorrow—and we are excited to take you all with us!