Review by Dillys Lusweti -- Keys to Tetouan

Review by Dillys Lusweti -- Keys to Tetouan

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Review by Dillys Lusweti

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Keys to Tetouan written by Mois Benarroch highlights the history of the Benzimras in Tetouan from the sixteen century to twenty first century. The book is historical because the author starts by having this man called Fernando Benzimra searching for his identity by visiting his cousin Moshe in Jerusalem after having read a letter in which his late father reveals the secret that he was a Jew and that his mother was a gentile from Venezuela.

Most of the characters in the book were born in Tetouan but had to go to countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Spain and Algeria to be productive for example Mimon narrates to his grandson who is also called Mimon the history of Tetouan in 1868 how the situation was bad and so he left to work in Brazil.

Mimon narrates to the grandson of the bad situation in Tetouan especially when it was invaded by the Spaniards and as a result the Arabs shifted the anger to the Benzimra the Jews in Tetouan by looting them and worse still they were killed by cholera and were also killed by Ayish and Lashen. The Jews were forced to convert into Christianity from Judaism and since they were defenseless as they were not allowed to have arms they had to go to other countries to study and they became doctors, programmers and authors.

What I like the most is how the author depicts the Benzimras as hardworking despite of the challenges in Tetouan where they were born so for this reason they leave for countries like Spain, France, and the USA where they study to become authors, programmers and well known doctors since practising medicine was their bloodline profession starting with Eli Benzimra who was a doctor in the sixteen century and Fernando Benzimra who is a doctor in the twenty first century and for this reason, I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars for depicting the family as very industrous despite of the hardships. I would not give the book the rating of 2 because theme of the book has clearly been highlighted by the author which is the history of the Benzimras tribe in Tetouan. I would not give it a 4 because of some grammatical errors made by the author. For example the author wrote "it is only natural in father abd only son relationship" instead of it is only natural for a father and son to have a relationship. He also wrote " they were more German then they were Jews" instead of they were more German than Jews. He also wrote " to warship God" instead of to worship God. He also wrote " paying all expanses" instead of paying all the expenses. He also wrote " one thing we won't do ... we won't turn the other check" instead of we won' t turn the other cheek.

This book would appeal the most to the current generation of Jews for wanting to bow about their history and those studying the Jews history in exile. The book would appeal the least to the Nazi' s.

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Keys to Tetouan 
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Links to Keys to Tetouan in
English getbook.at/keys2tetouan
Castellano getbook.at/llavesdetetuan
Hebrew עברית http://www.lulu.com/shop/paperback/product-22974017.html