Joseph Chetrit (linguist)

Throughout his career, Chetrit has advocated for the preservation of the oral traditions and languages of North-African Jews. Between 1978-1981, Chetrit initiated and coordinated a research and education workshop, which took place in the town Shlomi. The project was funded by the Center for the Heritage of Jews from Spain and the East in the Ministry of Education and Culture. The workshop included the audio documentation of oral poetry, proverbs, and tales of the Jewish life in the communities from which Shlomi's residents originated.[9]

Chetrit’s early research work is concerned with the study of French lexicology and syntax. However, his primary research work is related to various fields of North-African Jewry as reflected in his publications as follows:

Chetrit's research includes the characterization and categorization of Judeo-Arabic dialects from North-Africa into four groups based on phonetic and phonological structure: Eqa:l in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, Wqal in the Atlantic regions of Morocco, Nkal in northern Morocco, and SEk^jal in south eastern Morocco. In addition, he described the Berber that was used among the Jews of Moroccan rural communities, the influence of French on Judeo-Arabic dialects, and the linguistic relationships between Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Spanish in Morocco. Furthermore, he described the Hebrew component of the lexical and structural foundations of Judeo-Arabic, including the Jewish secret languages based on Hebrew lexical elements and formulae.

Chetrit's research and publications are also concerned with the Bakashot and Piyutim (liturgic poetry) of Moroccan. He discovered Hebrew  poets in Morocco, as well as unique poems which shed light on events and processes that have little or no other documentation including the poets Rabbi Shlomo Haliwa, Rabbi David Elkaim, Rabbi David Bouzaglo,[10] Nissim Naqqab, as well as the unique female Hebrew poet Friha bat Rabbi Avraham ben-Adiba. Through his interest in the affinities between liturgic poetry and Andalusi music and the Arabic Qasida poetry in Morocco, he also described the cultural and practical components that led Jews to collaborate with Muslim musicians throughout the generations.

He has published an essay in literary studies of the trends and patterns of Judeo-Arabic poetry, in addition to other essays concerned with the interpretation of poems of historical or cultural importance for the study of Jewish life in Morocco.

During the fieldwork at Shlomi between 1978-1981, thousands of Judeo-Arabic proverbs and idioms were recorded and documented for research and education purposes. These proverbs were spoken mostly by older women, and in part by men, and were published along with their linguistic and cultural status in several collections.

He wrote a book about the traditional Jewish wedding studies the values, practices, rituals and ceremonies as practiced in Morocco. This research also describes the social-discursive networks which operate and guide the traditions of the Jewish wedding.

He described the discursive strategies and content of the traditional communal discourse, which was conducted according to the teachings and writings of rabbis. He also described the changes that took place in the discourse in the end of the 19th century, and more specifically, the new linguistic uses in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic, which led to the formation of a new middle Judeo-Arabic in Tunis. In another study, Chetrit characterized the dual culture of Moroccan Jews. This duality included, on the one hand, the learned rabbinic culture and on the other hand, the mixed popular culture. This popular culture includes core values derived from practical Halacha and Jewish tradition and ceremonies, practices, and forms of life that deviated at times from the purely Halachic canon, for example, the beliefs in magic, demons, fortune, evil eye, and so forth. The folk communities that practiced such beliefs did not view them as contradictory to the basic beliefs that define their distinct Jewish identity, but as an existential need that cures their physical and mental ailments, due to the lack of medicine and physicians as they operate today. Chetrit sees this duality between learned rabbinic culture and syncretic folk culture as the core which granted them the mental strength and stable Jewish identity that enabled their survival despite the persecutions under Islam.

Chetrit has focused his research on additional aspects of the development of Jewish culture in North-Africa and beyond this region. Thus, he studied the Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic enlightenment movements that developed during the second half of the 19th century in North-Africa. These movements were influenced by the Hebrew harmonious enlightenment movement of Eastern Europe that sought to integrate rabbinic tradition and biblical culture with the European values of enlightenment. His studies illuminated the characters of the enlightenment movements' leaders, such as Rabbi Shalom Flaḥ, Rabbi David Elkaim, Isaac ben Yaish Ha-Levy, Rabbi Baruch Mitrani, and more, and described their positions, struggles, and literary and journalistic creation.

Another field of research illuminates various issues in the history of Moroccan Jews through special poems written by poets who experienced the historical events and described them through the perspective of their community members. These poems are frequently the primary documentation preserved relating to the matter.

Chetrit examined a document from the middle-ages that described an alleged growth, power, and destruction of the old Jewish community of Dar^ca in south Morocco which had a supposedly powerful army. He showed that the document was written by Muslim scholars at the end of the 13th century, and not by Jews. The erudite authors fabricated this Jewish history in order to retroactively legitimize the extermination of the Jewish community of Dar^ca in 1145 or 1146 by the Almohad Caliphate. Another research is dedicated to Morocco's Jewish communities during WWII.

Additional research is dedicated to Morocco's Jewish communities during WWII.

Chetrit established an academic unit in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Haifa, dedicated to the legacy of Sephardic and Eastern Jews. As part of this unit, he established new courses in various university departments, with partial funding from the Centre for Sephardic and Eastern Heritage. The academic unit has operated for more than twenty years. In addition, he initiated and organized dozens of seminars, national, and international conferences.

In addition, In 1998, he established in the University of Haifa's Research Authority the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture in Spain and Muslim Countries and was its head until December 2018.

Chetrit initiated and edited the monograph Miqqedem U-Miyyam (Hebrew), which its nine volumes were all dedicated to the study of various aspects in the history and cultural heritage of Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa.[11]

1. Syntaxe de la phrase complexe à subordonnée temporelle. Paris: Editions Klincksieck, 1976. 226 p.
2. The Piyyutim and Baqqashot of the Moroccan Jews. Tel-Aviv: Moreshet Dorot Press, 1991 (Hebrew)
3. The Written Judeo-Arabic Poetry in North Africa: Poetic, Linguistic and Cultural Studies. Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim Press, 1994  (Hebrew)
4. Hebrew Poetry in Morocco: Studies on Poems and Poets. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1999 (Hebrew)
5. Traditional Jewish Wedding in Morocco: Interpretive and Ethnographic Studies(main author). Miqqedem Umiyyam VIII, Haifa 2003 (Hebrew)
6. Diglossie, Hybridation et Diversité intra-linguistique. Etudes socio-pragmatiques sur les langues juives, le judéo-arabe et le judéo-berbère. Paris-Louvain: Peeters 2007
7. Linguistic Treasures and Textures. Socio-Pragmatic Studies on Judeo-Arabic in North Africa and its Hebrew Component: Articles, Poems, Tales and Proverbs. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2009 (Hebrew)
8. Paroles exquises. Proverbes judéo-marocains sur la vie et la famille, en transcription phonético-phonologique, arabe et judéo-arabe et en traduction francaise et hébraïque. Collection Matanel. Waterloo : Avant-Propos, 2014
9. Paroles affables. Proverbes judéo-marocains sur l’hospitalité et l’amitié. Collection Matanel. Waterloo: Avant-Propos, 2015

1. (with Y. Barnai et alii), Studies on Judaism in Muslim Lands. Miqqedem Umiyyam I (1981), Haifa: Haifa University Press (Hebrew).

1. (with Z. Yehuda), Studies on Jewish Society in Muslim Lands. Miqqedem Umiyyam II (1986), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. Tradition and Modernity in North African and Oriental Jewries. Miqqedem Umiyyam III (1990), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. Tradition and Mutations in the Culture of Moroccan and Oriental Jews. Miqqedem Umiyyam IV (1991), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. Culture and Society in Oriental Jewries, Miqqedem Umiyyam VI (1995), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. (with H. Saadon), North African and Oriental Jewries in the XXth Century. Miqqedem Umiyyam VII (2000), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. (ed.), Traditional Jewish Wedding in Morocco: Interpretive and Ethnographic Studies. Miqqedem Umiyyam VIII (2003), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. Jewish Metropolises: The Communities of Fes and Meknes, Miqqedem Umiyyam IX (2006), Haifa: Faculty of Humanities (Hebrew).

1. Joseph Chetrit, Jane S. Gerber, eds. Jews and Muslims in Morocco. Their Intersecting Worlds. Lanham-NewYork: Lexington Books, 2021 (forthcoming).