Thousands of Israeli tourists will travel to Morocco to spend Passover, especially after flights between Tel Aviv and Rabat were recently launched.
This month, some 2,000 Israeli tourists are set to arrive in Morocco to celebrate “Mimouna,” a traditional Moroccan-Jewish post-Passover celebration.
The origins of Mimouna, a tradition dating back to the mid-18th century, remain unknown.
The most common story about its creation says that the Moroccan Jews welcomed their Muslim neighbours to their homes to herald the beginning of Spring and to thank them for keeping their chametz (leaven) during the Passover holiday.
Muslim neighbours in turn brought the flour, which is forbidden in Jewish homes over Passover, and the Jewish hosts would prepare the treats.
Moroccan music and traditional clothes would complement the harmony of the celebration.
Between 1940 and 1960, more than 300,000 Moroccan Jews immigrated to Israel, taking the tradition with them.
Numbered today at about one million, Moroccan Jews in Israel continue to celebrate the Mimouna festival.
In El Mellah, the Jewish quarter in Moroccan cities, once the thriving heart of a large Jewish community, around 3,000 Moroccan Jews continue to commemorate the festival until the present day.
Since the formal launch of Moroccan-Israeli normalisation late in 2020, Rabat had actively attempted to revive old customs of the Moroccan-Jewish community as an opportunity to champion coexistence between Jews and Muslims in the North African kingdom.
