Mazaltob

"Mazaltob" is a fascinating portrait of a young Moroccan Sephardi woman as she navigates the ever-shifting ground between tradition and modernity, East and West, self and other, obligation and desire. Stylistically bold, culturally rich, by turns comic and wrenching, this polyphonic novel is both historically important and, in its new translation, a gift for our current times.

English-language readers will rejoice at this translation of Blanche Bendahan’s coming-of-age story, set in northern Morocco at the turn of the century and following the dreams and travails of a Jewish young woman who chafes at the constraints that society places upon her. This marvelous annotated translation restores to us the forgotten words of an award-winning Jewish woman writer—and introduces us to a young, female Jewish protagonist whose sexual and spiritual desires are evocative and timely. With artful, informed introductory words by Yaelle Azagury and Frances Malino, Mazaltob is a crucial complement and counterpoint to Albert Memmi’s Pillar of Salt: it is what students of French, North African, and Jewish culture have been thirsting for.

Bendahan’s masterpiece, a stunning exploration of Jewishness, feminism, and modernity in Morocco, deserves to be read far and wide. Malino’s excellent biographical introduction and Azagury’s fascinating literary analysis beautifully frame their translation. A delight and a triumph!

A beautiful, poetic novel, Mazaltob offers rich description of the lives of Jewish women in early 20th century Tetouan, while also reflecting upon the early 20th century French intellectual milieu of its author, Blanche Bendahan. The fluid translation makes the work of this important but long-overlooked Sephardic writer a pleasure to read in English.

This is a poignant coming-of-age novel which explores themes of feminism, decolonization, diaspora, orientalism and the struggle between modernity and tradition. The text is rich and lush in its descriptions of North African Jewish life and customs; it’s also slippery in its point of view, meandering between narrators and voices in a way reminiscent of fellow modernist feminist writer Virginia Woolf.

Mazal­tob is psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly astute, high­light­ing clash­es — of tra­di­tions and of val­ues — that are incred­i­bly mod­ern. The his­to­ry of this lit­tle-known cor­ner of the Jew­ish world where “the Sephardim view them­selves as aris­to­crats” is fas­ci­nat­ing and moving. Ben­da­han was ahead of her time as a fem­i­nist yet of the moment as a nov­el­ist. She had one foot in twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Euro­pean cul­ture and anoth­er in the rit­u­als and rhythms of ancient Sephardic Jewry.

It is a little gem of a book, not a historical curiosity but something to be read for all the good reasons you read a novel.

With this edition, we are able to appreciate fully how unique the novel was for its time, and why it is relevant for anyone interested in understanding how the awakening of a feminist sensibility took shape in this distinct cultural and historical climate....that is, Jewish North Africa in the 1920s, during French colonization—when many Jewish women began to question centuries old norms and expectations in what was traditionally an extremely patriarchal culture.

Azagury and Malino have translated Bendahan's text beautifully, and their footnotes, introductions, and explanations supply necessary context... a brilliant and ambivalent piece of feminist fiction.