Jewish–Muslim Interactions: Performing Cultures between North Africa and France. Edited by Samuel Sami Everett and Rebekah Vince

Abstract

‘How to admit and transmit the unity of that which was blown apart?’, asks Valérie Zenatti, a French writer of Algerian-Jewish descent, in her afterword. The volume’s contributors answer by examining facets of ‘Jewish–Muslim interactions’, defined by the editors as Maghribi, multilingual, and ‘encompassing creative practice, stimulus, and collaboration between Jewish and Muslim artists and performers’ (p. 5). The first section, focused on relationality, illuminates the contributions of Jewish artists: Tunisian filmmaker Albert Samama, who filmed North African populations during the Italo-Turkish War (Morgan Corriou); singers Habiba Messika, from Tunisia, and Lili Labassi and Salim Halali, from Algeria, whose records were distributed and fed nationalism in Morocco (Christopher Silver); Algerian singer Marie Soussan, who overcame gender barriers and became a pioneer in popular theatre (the late Hadj Miliani with Samuel Sami Everett); Tunisian singer-composer Cheikh El Afrit, who played a major role in collecting, rendering, and diffusing folksongs (Ruth F. Davis); the co-founders of L’École de Tunis in Tunisia, and Jean-Michel Atlan in Algeria, who promoted avant-garde art and aesthetic innovation (Fanny Gillet). From a broader anthropological perspective, Jonathan Glasser scrutinizes the main approaches, and their limitations, to studying Muslim–Jewish musical relationships and suggests an alternative model based on affinity. The second section, devoted to elision (as both omission and merging), starts with a study of the ‘pattern of neglecting’ Jewish communities’ presence and contributions in Algerian comics (Elizabeth Perego, p. 156). In Morocco, Cristina Moreno Almeida argues that the ‘narrative of coexistence’ developed in traditional rap music serves official discourses of unity and discourages criticism (p. 162), while Aomar Boum contends that Jewish sounds, promoted on radio and in festivals, ‘are increasingly becoming integral to the state project of Jewish cultural revival’ (p. 183). Turning to Moroccan cinema, Vanessa Paloma Elbaz probes the role of diegetic music in offering ‘alternate patterns of coexistence’ (p. 219). Jamal Bahmad and Miléna Kartowski-Aïach discuss the work of Moroccan filmmaker Kamal Hachkar; the former analyses his ‘affective use of silence’ to address trauma (p. 224), while the latter explores his position as an ‘orphan of otherness’ mobilizing music to connect with and resuscitate Jewish presence (p. 240). The deconstruction of stereotypes is then explored in the work of Paris-based street artist Combo, who subverts normative models through hybridity and irony (Nadia Kiwan), and in the dialogic performance of Younes and Bambi, a Jewish–Muslim stand-up comedy duo who ‘neutralize the divisive power of these stereotypes’ and promote a model of ‘rire ensemble’ in France (Adi Saleem Bharat, pp. 282, 287). The volume features numerous illustrations, including splendid plates by graphic artist Iris Miské. The editors’ choice to focus on non-conflictual interactions is refreshing, but sometimes generates depoliticized readings. Some aspects could have been incorporated (literary interactions, Amazigh connections), fleshed out (Muslim artists, interactions in France), addressed more directly (the question of Palestine and Israel), or nuanced (Moroccan rap is diverse and not all narratives of coexistence are politically manipulated). Despite these ­reservations, the book is an erudite and much-needed account of often-neglected individual ­trajectories and broader dialogues (re)connecting Jews and Muslims, with an invigorating interdisciplinary focus on idioms and concepts.