Last Sunday was presented at the University of Ottawa the film Tinghir – Jerusalem, Echoes from the Mellah. In the documentary, the filmmaker Kamal Hachkar, a Muslim Berber or “Amazigh” – as they should be properly called – explores the 2000-year-old Judeo-Berber culture of Tinghir, a village high in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and follows the trail of the village’s once-substantial Jewish population to its émigrés and descendants in Israel. The screening of the film was followed by Professor Boussad Berrichi’s informative comments about the history of the Amazigh people in North Africa. Professor Berrichi, from the Department of French at uOttawa, provided the audience with interesting insights about the social and cultural context where Judeo-Berbers and Amazighs lived together in peace for centuries sharing the same language and many customs. The Sephardic Association of Ottawa organized this event in partnership with the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program (Photos: Howard Sandler).
