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André Azoulay
Born	1941 Essaouira, Morocco
Nationality	Moroccan
Ethnicity	Sephardic
Title	H.E
Religious beliefs	Judaism

André Azoulay (born 1941 in Essaouira) is a senior adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco.^[1] He previously advised Mohammed's father, King Hassan II. He currently presides over the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, based in Alexandria, Egypt. He is also President of the Executive Committee of the Foundation for the Three Cultures and the Three Religions, based in Seville, Spain, a founding member of the C-100 Davos Forum for the Dialogue of Civilisations and religions, and was formerly Executive Vice-President of the Paribas Group, Paris.

In 1966 he left Morocco to start a new life in Paris, hence becoming one of the hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews who emigrated from Morocco to North America, Europe or Israel.

Contents 1 Public work 1.1 Arab-Jewish brokerage 2 See also 3 References

[edit] Public work

According to Azoulay, "Moroccan Jewish memories are many centuries old. We know it has not all been rosy. There are black pages. But the Moroccan Jewish past has nothing to do with the history of the Jews during that same period in the West. In Morocco we have seen no deportations, no Nazism, no concentration camps and no Inquisition whatsoever. Rather, we have seen Jews and Muslims living together and respecting each other"^{[citation needed]}.

In the fall of 1976, André Azoulay took the lead in Paris in organizing Moroccan Jewish friends into a group that became known as "Identity and Dialogue," based upon the Sephardic Jewish history and culture that flourished in Morocco throughout the 500 years that have passed since the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain. 'This Sephardic culture has, for a very long time, been neglected, unknown, and ill-known, and also often ill-treated in the Jewish world and in Israel itself, where it has long been considered as a kind of second-rate culture', Azoulay explains.^{[citation needed]}

Identity and Dialogue's first concern, therefore, was to correct such negative images. Fifteen years later, he considers that the goal of recovering Moroccan Jewish identity has largely been met.

'I think that today all over the world, in the Jewish world in Israel, and on the Israeli political scene no one can deny the political, social and cultural reality of Moroccan Judaism. . . In recovering and defending their identity, Moroccan Jews have become stronger.'^{[citation needed]}

Azoulay recalls that only 15 years ago, when Identity and Dialogue was set up, 'Moroccan Jews living in Israel would change their names to make them more French-sounding than Arab-sounding, and tell their neighbors that they had come from Marseilles or Nice, rather than 'confess' that they came from Casablanca or Marrakesh.'^{[citation needed]} Because that is no longer the case, Azoulay says, his organization is no longer so concerned with the problem of identity.

What remains, however, is the issue of dialogue with the Arabs, the other reason for which Identity and Dialogue was set up 15 years ago. As a leader of a Jewish group, Azoulay felt that he should try to help Jews on the one hand, and Arabs and Palestinians on the other, come to know each other better. Since its founding, therefore, Identity and Dialogue has systematically promoted such cross-cultural communication.

As a widely recognized professional in the fields of communication and public relations, Azoulay was ready for the job. Before leaving Morocco, he had worked as editor of the daily newspaper Maroc-Informations. Later, in Paris, he headed the public relations department of the Paribas International Bank^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Arab-Jewish brokerage

Azoulay considers himself both an Arab Jew^[2] an ordinary Jew, or, as he puts it, 'a Jew concerned with Israel's security'. But, he adds, 'I am not a Jew taking only my biological origins into account. I am also a Jew in philosophical and moral terms. I will not be satisfied until the Palestinians have recovered the whole of their rights. I will not be faithful to my own values until then.'^{[citation needed]}

"We want to tell the world that something other than just war and bloodshed is possible in Arab-Jewish relations. Our examples can be found among our fellow Moroccans."^{[citation needed]}

In the past, Identity and Dialogue has organized many meetings between Moroccan and Israeli opinion leaders, particularly between Israeli politicians of Moroccan descent and Moroccan government officials in Rabat. Thanks also to the efforts of Identity and Dialogue, Israeli journalists such as Matti Golan and Yehud Ya'ari have been able to visit Morocco and report on their visits to their Israeli and international readers.

According to Azoulay, "those meetings destroyed clichés and negative stereotypes on both sides. The Israelis realized that the Arab world had a civilization, an artistic and a cultural life; the Arabs realized that the Israelis had a human face."^{[citation needed]}

Azoulay's most significant experience in meeting with Palestinians was in what he recalls as walking the 'common path' with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Issam Sartawi.

For approximately eight years, Azoulay met regularly with the prominent Palestinian moderate, and arranged for Sartawi to meet with various other Israeli and Jewish personalities^{[citation needed]}.

Issarn Sartawi was assassinated in Portugal in April 1983, allegedly by extremists linked to Abu Nidal , but this did not prevent Identity and Dialogue from carrying on meetings with other Palestinian officials. In the late eighties, Azoulay and his Identity and Dialogue set up a working group composed of 60 French and European Jewish personalities to meet once a month in Paris with a PLO delegation from Tunis.

In 1989, on the occasion of the bicentennial of the French revolution, Azoulay received the Légion d'honneur from the government of France. For the last few years, also, he has held the position of vice president of the Tel Aviv-based International Center for Peace in the Middle East, a group presided over by moderate former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban.

As Identity and Dialogue celebrates its 15th anniversary, Azoulay is particularly proud of its most recent activities. The Gulf War brought Paris-based Jewish and Arab organizations together to work to avoid Arab-Jewish conflicts on the French scene, where most of the Arabs and most of the Jews are of North African origin.

In 2008 he was elected president of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures.

[edit] See also

Foreign relations of Morocco

[edit] References