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SHALOM IN MY HEART,
SALAAM ON MY LIPS:
A Jewish Woman in
Modern Morocco

by Gloria Becker Marchick

A Memoir
paperback
ISBN: 0-916288-48-X
159 pages
$15.00

Description

Sixty-two year old Gloria Marchick accepts a teaching Fulbright to Morocco as an ESL teacher. She always wanted to go to Morocco because Morocco was one of only three countries that saved its Jews during Hitler’s rise to power. When the Vichy government demanded that Morocco give them the names of their Jews, King Mohammed V answered, “Morocco has no Jews, only Moroccan citizens,” and refused to release the list.

This story stayed with Gloria for years, but she arrived in present-day Morocco two weeks before the second Intifada breaks out in Israel. The anti-Jewish sentiment takes her aback and fearful for her safety she hides her Jewish identity----hence the title. She learns how to keep a delicate balance, warmth and a sense of humor in a difficult situation and becomes very fond of her Muslim students.

The memoir is entertaining and gets behind Middle East headlines with human feeling.

Reviews

“Gloria Marchick’s vivid memoir of her year as a Jewish woman in Morocco during the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada provides an absorbing and instructive account of the tensions between politics and religious identity in the contemporary world”

Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, The Five Books of Moses. Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature UCal, Berkeley

“Gloria Marchick’s Moroccan adventures are a tidal wave of laughter, tears, and discovery. You will be swept away.”

Patricia Adler, Ladies Home Erotica; Fire in the Hills

“Gloria Marchick’s remarkable odyssey of a Jewish professor in a land of Arabs begins when she alights from an airplane in Morocco wearing bright red sandals. One is reminded of Dorothy and her ruby slippers in the land of Oz....I was not able to put this hilarious and exciting book down until I found out how she managed to get out of this mish-mosh alive.”

Oscar London, Md., Kill as Few Patients as Possible

“...her writing illuminates both what it is to be a woman and a Jew, each just slipping by in positions of great jeopardy. Her sense of humor and her quick insight bring that world alive for every reader lucky enough to pick up this book.”

Linda Gray Sexton, Rituals; Searching for Mercy Street

“Marchick was able to get to know people from numerous backgrounds and her narrative is vivid and detailed.”

Jewish Book World

“... filled with the hilarious incidents and trials of a newcomer in a foreign land....an inspiration to other women with similar goals.”

Contra Costa Times