We had a communal ferrane in our backyard in Netivot.

It was located at the back of our house and between three neighbors' houses, all from Morocco. The ferrane was a communal oven that we shared. It looked like an igloo-shaped oven, made of clay.

On the right side of the oven was the burning fire, and on the left was an area where the bread and other dishes were placed for baking.

On some days, Muima Rivkah took charge

and baked the khobz bread for everyone. My mother often sent me to help with taking the bread to our neighbours. One Friday afternoon, my mother sent me to watch a potato dish she had placed in the ferrane, waiting for them to turn golden. This was one of our Shabbat dishes. I sat there in the late afternoon, sitting on a large rock in front of the ferrane oven, and the hunger defeated me. I heard the Sabbath siren. In Netivot, the Sabbath siren is heard twice. The first siren lets the village know that the Sabbath is entering very soon. The second siren marks the entrance of the Sabbath.

After the first sound of the siren, I couldn’t take it anymore and began grabbing some hot potatoes from the ferrane. With a wooden stick, I pulled one hot and soft potato, then another, and another. I told myself I would stop eating them when the second siren started. I ended up eating a quarter of the potato dish by myself. I returned home after the second siren. When my mother saw the dish, she got upset, but my father laughed and said something in a derisive tone, that he knew the feeling. It seemed to bring back a memory for him too.

The ferrane clay oven was used in our neighborhood in Netivot for many years, and then it disappeared, and I forgot about it. But now, in Morocco, I find memories of objects and places that don’t exist anymore. I stand near the communal ferrane for almost an hour, taking in the smell of the fire and the fresh-baked bread.

The baking of the traditional bread in the outdoor clay oven awakens my body memory and brings the realization that this world I knew is long gone, disappeared. The disappearance of places.