The Elharrar Clan

In 1993, after a short visit to Morocco I flew to Israel where I went to visit my parents upon whom I was anxious to impress with my visit and pictures from the land of their ancestors. It was then with the help of my father that the idea for recording the genealogy of our vast family germinated. Entrusted with some hand written notes of the names of our ancestors taken by my father as well as with some meticulously preserved documents, I set out to build the genealogy tree of our family. I understood then that while preserving the written patrimony is the ultimate act of ascertaining one’s identity, acquiring the collective oral heritage is the epitome of that which we call "I".

This compendium is intended to act as a living document, it is my intention to continue acquiring names of both living and deceased family members and to add them to the database which to date includes the names of more than one thousand people. I should note that during my numerous interviews with the members of our "clan", I was time and again given anecdotal information which I hope to include in the next revision of this book.

The information presented herein was collected during numerous interviews with members of the family. While some names may be misspelled they are nevertheless phonetically accurate and should be construed as correct. I nonetheless urge the reader who may find his or her name incorrectly written to provide me with the right spelling so as to correct the database. I also take this opportunity to encourage you to provide me with any additional information that may further enhance the genealogical history of our vast and multi-branched family.