The Sephardic Heritage International DC’s 11th annual “Mimouna Festival of Good Neighbors” brought more than 1,000 attendees to the nation’s capital on April 27 to break bread — or in this case, Moroccan crepes.
In a proclamation signed on May 2, Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser officially recognized SHIN DC’s end-of-Passover festival as “the District’s official Mimouna.”
Mimouna, meaning “good luck” and “wealth,” is a celebration that marks the end of Passover and the beginning of the agricultural season, according to Afraim Katzir, the founding director of SHIN DC.
“That means a lot because when we speak of a Festival of Good Neighbors, we want to be able to connect with all neighborhoods,” Katzir said of the official recognition. “To have the mayor declare this as D.C.’s official Mimouna, I think that helps us connect with the diverse communities that are D.C., which is really very much in the spirit of Mimouna.”
He added that the proclamation allows word to spread around the D.C. area about this largely underrepresented community.
“It’s important to celebrate Moroccan Jewish heritage; it’s an important part of Jewish heritage [and Israeli heritage],” Katzir said. “In terms of the Jewish community, it’s important to celebrate all of the heritages and an important part of that is Mimouna.”
Katzir and the SHIN DC team transformed the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., into a Mimouna with Moroccan decorations, furniture and traditional sweets — the latter from a Moroccan-owned French bakery in Kemp Mill. Each floor of the museum contained something different, from a lavish desserts table to cooking demonstrations to a shouk — Hebrew for “market.”
The festival featured a concert by Moroccan Israeli singer Neta Elkayam and an ensemble including Israeli artist Moshe Elmakias and Muslim artists singing mainly Arabic songs.
“Mimouna is a holiday that, for me, symbolizes the beauty of how Jews in Morocco maintained good neighborly relations with their Muslim neighbors,” Elkayam said in a press release.
SHIN-DC’s Mimouna was also the first in the world to host governmental representatives from both Israel and Morocco, Katzir said, which reflects the countries’ shared history.
“[Mimouna] is a celebration of neighborliness, when the doors of Jewish homes were open to welcome others,” including Moroccan Muslims, Katzir said.
Muslim neighbors often brought honey, fresh mint, flour, fish and milk to the Mimouna — many of the foods that their Jewish neighbors didn’t have during Passover.
“It was often because of the Muslim neighbors that those foods were available right after Pesach,” Katzir said.
That sense of unity, a prominent theme of the Mimouna, doesn’t quite look the same today.
“It’s often lost in modern society,” Katzir said. “People often don’t know who their neighbors are.”
He added that most Moroccan Jews no longer live in Morocco now, meaning there are fewer established relationships between Jewish and Muslim neighbors.
“We have to make the effort to maintain that bond between Jews and Muslims, that bond that existed in Morocco,” Katzir said. “That’s one of the reasons why it’s important to bring together musicians from different backgrounds because it sort of alludes to that bond that Jews and Muslims shared with Mimouna historically.”
Islam and Judaism share two common values: hospitality and neighborliness. The Mimouna is a way to connect the two cultures over those commonalities.
“The hope is that people would share that and see each other less as ‘other’ and to have a shared humanist experience,” Katzir said.
Katzir emphasized the importance of unity, especially as residents of the nation’s capital.
“D.C. is a very multicultural place, but sometimes we take multiculturalism and diversity as a positive thing for granted because it often divides people,” he said. “It’s important in a diverse place like D.C. to bring people together in this way for multicultural experiences.”
Connecting with our neighbors helps reduce prejudice.
“Having a shared experience, our hope is that it has a positive effect when it comes to combating things like antisemitism and other kinds of hate,” Katzir said. “[I hope] people get to see each other as human beings and experience the music and the food together and learn more about each other.”
