Ain't No Party Like A Mimouna Party
Ain't No Party Like A Mimouna Party
The Maghrebi celebration at the end of Passover brings together Israeli and Diaspora Jews of all backgrounds. It serves up a dish of unity alongside the carbs and revelry.
The beloved Mimouna festival that occurs every year immediately after the end of Passover is a relatively new phenomenon. New not in the sense that it was just created or discovered, but rather that it has only recently been adopted by the general population. Israelis from all backgrounds and former countries have delighted in this celebration. It has become a fixture of Israeli society over the last two decades. Bars, clubs, and restaurants advertise their own take on this Maghrebi holiday, while families host more private celebrations in their own homes. In fact, a feature of the holiday is that many open their homes to guests without formal invitations.
Maghrebi Jews are those who come from North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, and Tunisia (sometimes including Egypt). They have brought a gem to Israeli society that is a highlight of the springtime, second only to the seder itself. It has all of the ingredients of a fun party - plentiful food (especially bread products and other assorted carbs), alcohol, music, and dancing.
Origin of the Name
An elusive aspect of Mimouna is the name. There is no shortage of theories for its origin. There are three in particular that I will highlight here:
It was originally a celebration to mark the yahrzeit (anniversary of the death) of the Rambam’s (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) father, Rabbi Maimon ben Yosef and thus it took on Maimon’s name.
Others attribute it to the word for believers, ma’amanim1. Professor Haim Ze’ev Hirschberg attributed this theory to Rabbi Yosef ben Na’im who said that this belief held that just as salvation had come to the Jewish people during the month of Nissan of the first Passover, so too would salvation come again in the month of Nissan.
The word for money is Hebrew is mamon and thus Mimouna has come to represent a celebration of wealth and good fortune2.
Mimouna Arrives in Israel
The Moroccan community didn’t really celebrate Mimouna when they started to arrive around 1948. They prioritized acclimating to life in Israel and it was only about two decades later that people started to celebrate. Professor Haim Ze’ev Hirschberg wrote a book about Mimouna in 1957 and it was celebrated on a very small scale at that time.
Only almost 10 years later in 1966, did Shaul Ben Shimhon host a mass picnic in Ben Shemen, a moshav in central Israel close to Lod. He was a community activitist who wanted to bring the North African Jewish community together. He also said that the Moroccan It attracted about 300 people and grew to a few thousand the following year3. Just a few years later, in 1970, did it grow to tens of thousands at the main celebration in Jerusalem.
The reality that Israelis from all backgrounds celebrate Mimouna demonstrates that original motivation behind bringing Mimouna to Israel, which was, in Ben Shimhon’s words, to “feel like they are giving to society and not only taking.” The Moroccan community is still one of the poorer communities in Israel and this yearly celebration serves as a contribution to greater Israeli culture and society as a whole.
That [Mimouna wasn’t widely celebrated in Israel] changed in 1968, when Ben-Simhon was a high-ranking official at the Histadrut, Israel’s trade union alliance. He organized a Mimouna celebration in Lod in a bid to ease the integration of Moroccan immigrants into Israeli society, and his effort to raise the community’s morale attracted 300 participants. The next year, he moved the celebration to Jerusalem, got then-mayor Teddy Kollek on board and managed to draw a crowd of 5,000. This grew into the large Sacher Park event and inspired the revival of Mimouna across Israel.”
- Nathan Jeffay, “Mimouna Revelries Mark End of Passover”. The Forward.
The Evolution of Mimouna
Before coming to Israel, the Moroccan community wouldn’t celebrate Mimouna so lavishly. Elisheva Chetrit, a historian of Moroccan Jewry at Jerusalem’s Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and at Israel’s Open University said that, “In Morocco, they did not do this at all. At the start of the celebration, [Moroccans ate] only nuts and dried fruit. Then the Arabs would bring butter, milk and flour to prepare bread.”4 Mimouna has been growing over the last few decades. And growing. And growing…
Beyond the giant celebration at Sacher Park in Jerusalem, an estimate in 2012 showed that around 2 million(!) people in Israel celebrated Mimouna that year5. The population of Jews in Israel from the Maghrabi region is about 700,0006. That leaves more than a million people from other regions celebrating the holiday, which goes to show just how popular the holiday has become.
“When Jews from different parts of the world immigrated to Israel, many of the customs unique to each community were lost. The brutal "melting pot" process destroyed the unique traditions of many communal cultures, and subsequent generations of Israeli-born or raised Jews did not continue the legacy of their ancestors.
However, there has been a shift from a "melting pot" to a "cultural holism" approach, which has led to recognition and support for preserving the traditions of various communities, and efforts to cultivate the tradition that celebrates each unique Jewish heritage.”
Dr. Joel Rappel and Ortal Mogos, “Mimouna: How a single tradition became Israel's most beloved holiday”. Ynet News. 4/12/23
This ‘melting pot’ to ‘cultural holism’ shift can be seen in many aspects of Israeli culture. When groups of olim arrived in Israel, they either chose to set their own traditions aside in the hope of being a part of the new culture in Israel or their traditions were looked down upon. These attitudes contributed in some ways to a unified culture that celebrated the same holidays and held similar values, but it ignored the strong fact that people from all over the world had arrived in Israel with their rich traditions and customs. It took time, but slowly these traditions emerged and were celebrated. Just think of all of the diverse restaurants in Israel today that highlight Moroccan food, Bucharian food, Russian food, and even American food (burger joints have popped up all over Israel and fried chicken is popping up here and there).
What makes this food different from all other foods?
Mofletta is a thin crepe that is often the star of the show. Other treats include stuffed dates, cookies, lamb and fig tagine (a North African dish traditionally made in a dish called a tagine), fried eggplant, and a variety of sweets including zaban b’louz (white nougat)7.
In order to see what Mimouna looks like in practice, here is a video from ILTV News that provides a window into the celebration:
It’s not clear what exactly Mimouna will look like this year, as we are living in difficult and subdued times. As it is a beloved part of a Jewish holiday, many might seek comfort and something positive in it. A time to be with family and friends and to take an opportunity to celebrate in a time that feels dark.
In Morocco, Mimouna was a day to visit each other to bury grudges. Maybe it can be used for that this year. In a time that has brought us together, we can become even closer by making amends with those we have hurt or who have hurt us. It couldn’t have come at a more important time.
If you do go to a Mimouna celebration, I hope that it is meaningful and gives you some joy.
Tirbah u’tissad* - May you prosper and succeed!
*The Judeo-Arabic blessing that North African Jews wish each other at the end of Passover as Mimouna begins8
Song of the Week
יש כאן טוב
Yeish kahn tov
There is good here
Lior Narkis, a national treasure, brings some light with a look at the goodness that exists even in these dark times.
Slang of the Week
אס”ק
אווירת סוף קורס
Ah-sock (short for Aw-vee-rawt soef course)
Literally, the atmosphere at the end of a course. This is the Hebrew equivalent of senioritis, or that feeling of being checked out at the end of something.
Wishing you all a chag sameach and moadim l’simcha on this Passover holiday. May this time of miracles bring good news soon!
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Rappel, Dr. Joel and Ortal Mogos. “Mimouna: How a single tradition became Israel's most beloved holiday”. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/by6qq11efn.
Rappel, Dr. Joel and Ortal Mogos. “Mimouna: How a single tradition became Israel's most beloved holiday”. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/by6qq11efn.
“Mimouna”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimouna.
Jeffay, Nathan. “Mimouna Revelries Mark End of Passover”. The Forward.
“Mimouna”. World Jewish Travel. https://www.worldjewishtravel.org/listing/mimouna/
“Demographics of Israel”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel
Moutaki, Amanda. “Recipe Ideas for a Moroccan Mimouna Celebration”. marocmama.com
Bouskila, Rabbi Daniel. “Mimouna: In My Mind, I’ve Gone to Marrakech”. Jewish Journal.