A Special Night in Taroudant - Oct 31

By this point I am ready for different food. There is only so much kefta one can take. That being said after my kefta dinner tonight I decided to take a stroll. My plan was to walk off dinner and perhaps buy a dvd to watch before bed. I was stopped dead in my tracks by an antique store bearing a typical Jewish last name. In the two store front windows were two enormous Moroccan style synagogue lamps. Glass with beautiful Hebrew writing and large about two feet tall. These were the real deal. I decided to enter. I had heard of a store like this from a friend in the know who had said that this man’s merchandise was legitimate. Its so hard to tell here usually. He greeted me in Arabic and we continued to explain pleasantries in Arabic until he wanted to confirm that I was Moroccan. I told him I was American (and Jewish) and he had me sit down. He asked me what I wanted to drink. He was drinking a beer. I figured I would pass and had tea instead. He was drunk and we spoke in a mixture of Arabic and English. His grandfather was Jewish although he has no taste for religion at all. His son was there and his brother eventually joined us. His merchandize, which was expansive, included every antique you could ever want. In the Judaica realm he had silver hanukiot and mezuzot. He showed me a silver with pearl inlay shofar case with shofar inside (he told me it wasn’t old, new in fact, but it looked oldish to me). He had everything. He said he didn’t care about money and that thank God he had plenty. I had never heard this before from anyone here so either he was very special or very drunk. He sold me some things at cost (not Judaica). He said it was his pleasure and that all he wanted was a letter from me when I get to America. I later called a friend to tell him of this adventure. He said that the proprieter is the real deal. He said that those two lamps once hung in village synagogue between Taroudant and Talioune, a village so small that he didn’t even know the name.