The US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism signed a groundbreaking agreement with the NGO Association Mimouna of Morocco on Friday to jointly combat antisemitism and efforts to strip Israel of its legitimacy.
“Morocco’s Jewish community dates back to antiquity,” Ellie Cohanim, the State Department’s deputy special envoy to combat antisemitism, told The Jerusalem Post.
“With thanks to the leadership of King Mohammed VI, we are seeing Judeo-Moroccan heritage being taught in schools, we have witnessed a $1.5 million center dedicated to Jewish culture built in Essaouira, and now with the signing of our memorandum of understanding agreement comes a dedication not only to honor the Jewish past in Morocco but to create a future of harmony and tolerance for all generations to come,” she said.
Cohanim, who is known as a high-energy diplomat, was born in Tehran and was forced to flee repression after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She has played a role in a string of agreements with Arab countries to fight antisemitism and advance Jewish-Muslim relations.
Last October, after Bahrain normalized ties with Israel, a Bahraini institute signed an agreement with the US State Department to fight antisemitism, anti-Zionism and the delegitimization of the Jewish state.
“This new partnership is both timely and welcome as it extends the government of Morocco’s firm commitment to combating antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of hatred to the civil society sector, aptly represented here by Association Mimouna of Morocco,” said Princess Lalla Joumala, Morocco’s ambassador to the US.
“The MOU also reinforces the deep and longstanding partnership between our two countries in the fight against all forms of intolerance and the promotion of peace and mutual coexistence,” she said. “It is an unwavering engagement spearheaded by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, who leads by example and upholds the proud heritage of tolerance perpetuated by his forefathers.”
The MOU, which was reviewed by the Post, says Mimouna and the State Department agree to combat “all forms of antisemitism, including anti-Zionism and the delegitimization of the state of Israel.”
In December, Israel and Morocco agreed to normalize diplomatic relations. Mimouna Association is an organization of young Moroccan Muslim leaders that seeks to strengthen ties between Jews and Muslims. It also works to preserve Jewish heritage in the Muslim-majority North African country.
The “Association Mimouna’s extraordinary journey from a campus club to today’s MOU signing ceremony with the US Department of State is a testament to the ingenious Moroccanity of its founders and our friends, Elmehdi Boudra, Laziza Dalil and their compatriots,” American Sephardi Federation executive director Jason Guberman said.
“As Moroccan Muslims committed to ‘resisting amnesia’ about Judeo-Moroccan heritage, Association Mimouna has faced antisemitism firsthand and overcome attacks to achieve a trio of firsts: organizing, with Kivvunim, the Arab world’s first Holocaust conference in 2011, leading the first delegation of young Arab Muslims to Israel in 2012 and more recently creating the first Holocaust curriculum ‘by and for’ Muslims,” he said. “This MOU is another milestone and, moreover, an affirmation of Association Mimouna’s vital work helping keep Morocco an exception to the global trend of increasing intolerance.”
Association Mimouna president Elmehdi Boudra, who organized the first Holocaust conference in the Arab world in 2011, said he looks “forward to implementing the agreement to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia.”
The Association Mimouna, which was founded in 2007, “created the first Holocaust curriculum by and for Muslims,” Boudra said, adding that the MOU is an “opportunity to formalize our relationship with Department of State.”
US State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Elan S. Carr said he started his role with a focus on combating antisemitism in the Arab world along with promoting philosemitism in the Arab world. He praised Association Mimouna for “combating antisemitism and its embrace of Jewish heritage. Mimouna has been transformative in its work.”
Carr, who has an Iraqi Jewish background, said the MOU is “very likely my last act” as special envoy. It is a “historic agreement” because it is also adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, he said.