(Author: Bernard Katz, Vol. 80, #1, Autumn 2025)
Jewish Presence in Ancient Times (10th Century BCE – 3rd Century CE)
The presence of Jews in Morocco goes back to early pre-Islamic times. Legends claim that it dates as far back to the First Temple in the time of King Solomon and the Phoenicians (10th Century BCE), when Hebrews came to Sala in the vicinity of Sale (Rabat) to purchase gold.[1] If this is correct, Jewish settlement would predate by five centuries the known existence of a Carthaginian (Phoenician) gold market in Morocco.[2] A Jewish gravestone from the North African Tunisian city of Carthage has been found with an inscription dating to 813 BCE.[3] Epigraphic evidence for Jewish settlement in Morocco emerges much later, during Roman times. 3rd Century CE inscriptions on gravestones in the Roman town of Volubilis have been found. [4]
Jews of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya), who historically spoke Berber languages are known as Berber Jews. The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun names a number of large Moroccan Berber tribes who converted to Judaism prior to the Arab conquest.[5] This has led to many scholars postulating that these Jews were originally indigenous Berbers who had over time converted to Judaism.
The theory of large Berber conversions to Judaism is, however, not supported by a genetic study published in 2008. This study investigated samples of North African Jews and found an absence of the M1 and U6 mtDNAs (transmitted from mother to children). The authors concluded that the lack of M1 and U6 chromosomes among North African Jews renders the possibility of significant admixture, as between the local Arab and Berber populations with Jews, unlikely.[6]
Jewish Presence Pre- and Post the founding of Morocco (ca 600-850)
Between 581 and 693, many Jews were compelled to leave Spain due to persecutions by the Visigoth kings. According to later traditions, thousands of Spanish Jews had settled in North Africa by 693. Some historians claim that there were Jews among the Berber-Muslim invaders of Spain in 711.[7]
The Idrisids (788-974) are considered to be the founders of Morocco. They fled from the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and founded Morocco’s first dynasty.
Idris II (791-828) established the capital in Fez and invited a large number of Jews to settle in the city. Protection, however, came at a price, the jizya tax, which was paid in gold. Notwithstanding the tax, Jews flourished as traders and merchants.[8] Some historians consider that, from a spiritual and intellectual point of view, the most brilliant period of the Jews in Morocco belongs to the reigns of the Idrisids.[9]
Jews in the Emergent Arab Lands (ca 850-1250)
Jews lived in Arabia for centuries before the birth of Mohammed. The emergence of Islam in the 7th century and the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries resulted in an Arab empire from Morocco in the west to India in the east. The majority of Jews in the world at this time thus lived in Muslim lands. Jewish culture developed and flourished, and Jews participated in the creation of a vibrant civilization which had no peer between Rome and the Renaissance.[10]
During the 11th and 12th Centuries the Almoravids, a confederation of Berber tribes, established an empire in Morocco and Spain. The position of Jews under the Almoravids was apparently free of major abuses.[11]
By 1154 Morocco had come under the control of the Almohads, a rival Berber confederation of tribes who didn’t tolerate non-Muslims. Thereafter, however, a short period of improvement occurred for the Jews of Fez.[12] In 1159 Maimonides fled Spain due to persecution from the Almohads, who were in the process of gaining control over Muslim Spain. Maimonides settled in Fez, also under Almohad control, for five years before ultimately relocating to Egypt. Many of the Jews of Fez were forced to convert to Islam.[13]
From the time of the Crusades the Muslim world grew poorer and weaker and the Christian world stronger and richer.[14] The decline in the Muslim world impacted negatively on its Jewish citizens, who also experienced a significant decline in the quality of their lives.[15]
The Jewish American historian and Orientalist Norman Stillman writes that the Almohad period was an aberration in the history of Jews in Arab lands and forced conversions of Jews were extremely rare.[16]
Maghrebi Jews emerged from the period of Almohad domination spiritually and numerically impoverished.[17] According to Stillman, the course of Moroccan Jewish social history was marked by “tremendous polarities of tolerance and intolerance, assimilation and isolation, and security and insecurity.”[18]
Jews in Arab Lands in the Late Islamic Middle Ages (ca 1250-1800)
The Merenid dynasty, another Berber tribe (1244-1465), replaced the Almohads and established their seat of government in Fez. The Merenids had very little in common with the Arab bourgeoise and considered themselves to be outsiders in the cities. They were well disposed towards the Jews, with Jewish communities being reestablished and Jews appointed to senior positions in the administration.[19] Despite the Merenids favourable disposition, however, the popular mood remained hostile.[20] It was the Merenids who, in the wake of anti-Jewish disturbances, created the first mellah for Jews in Fez in 1438. This became prototype for the Moroccan Jewish ghetto. Although the creation of the mellah was for Jewish protection, the Jews were not happy with it. In fact, the Fez mellah failed to provide the envisaged protection, for in 1465 almost all the inhabitants were killed by rebels who brought down the Merenid dynasty.[21] The Wattasid dynasty, another Berber dynasty, then ruled for approximately the next 80 years.
Under the Merenids, Moroccan Jews were prosperous, being in complete control of the Sahara gold trade as well as trade with Christian countries.[22] However, during the 15th Century in particular, Muslim power declined and the Jewish position deteriorated accordingly.
Following the expulsions of Jews from Spain in 1492 and later from Portugal in 1497 possibly 20 to 30 000 of these expelled Jews (known as megorashim) found refuge in Morocco.[23] The megorashim were for the most part ill-received by their native co-religionists (known as toshavim – indigenous) [24] and maintained their own synagogues. The megorashim generally enjoyed superior economic and cultural status compared to the toshavim and quickly came to dominate Jewish life in Morocco.[25] The Spanish and Portuguese Jews thus revitalised the Jewish community of Morocco.[26] In the late 15th and 16th Centuries Jewish life in Morocco improved from the upheavals of the post Merenid period, aided by the Spanish Portuguese Jewish influx.
Moroccan Jews, like their Ashkenazi counterparts provided the religiously distasteful economic functions shunned by the majority religious group, including moneylending. Jews also had virtual monopoly on jewelry-smithing.[27] In spite of all the restrictions Jewish life in Morocco was never as bad as it was in medieval and modern Europe. Jews were permitted to enter into joint ventures with Muslims. The situation of Jews in Morocco was, however, more oppressive than the situation of Jews in most other Arab lands.[28]
After the capture of Constantinople in 1453 the Ottoman Empire grew to control a vast area. This led to an improvement of conditions for Jews in these lands.[29] However, two major Muslim countries with significant Jewish populations, remained outside the Ottoman’s ambit, namely Morocco (in the west) and Iran (in the east). In both of them, writes Anglo-American historian Bernard Lewis, the position of the Jews was far worse than in Ottoman lands. Moroccan Jews suffered two disadvantages compared to Jews in the Ottoman Empire. The first were the Almohad persecutions, which created material and intellectual degradation from which Jews never fully recovered and the second being their position as the only religious minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim land. [30]
According to Anglo-Jewish author Chaim Raphael, at one level Jews of Morocco epitomised the humiliation and poverty often associated with the Sephardi masses but at another the country’s isolation from the Ottoman Empire and its association with Spain and Portugal and the Atlantic provided some Jews opportunities in trade and diplomacy. Trade was particularly enhanced when Portugal, at the height of its power, occupied Morocco’s Atlantic coast in the 16th Century.[31] More than a century prior, during the reign of John I (1385-1433), Portugal had in 1415 captured the port city of CeutaI. In time it was transferred to Spain, which still possesses it.
Bernard Lewis remarks that in the centuries following the 16th Century Jewish life in Morocco was on the whole unpleasant. On this theme he quotes Stillman, who described it as “the highly ritualized degradation of the Jews of the major towns and cities.”[32]
The 18th Century saw impressive commercial activity amongst the Jews of Morocco. In 1766 the sultan turned the port of Mogador (now Essaouira) into a commercial hub making it and Tangier the only two Moroccan ports able to trade with Europe. However, the calm situation did not last and the situation for the Jews deteriorated with the sultan ordering the destruction of synagogues in Fez and the expulsion of Jews from the city. (Two years later they were allowed to return after the ascension of a new sultan). After the attack by Spain on Tangier in 1791, the sultan extracted the cost of the war and the added protection now required from the Jews.
European Intrusion into Arab Lands and Colonialism Period (19th and 20th Century, pre-World War II)
In 1830, France occupied Algeria. Tunisia became its protectorate in 1870 and Morocco in 1912.
The progress in terms of civil rights made by Jews in the Ottoman Empire and in Algeria (under French rule) bypassed Morocco, whose Jews lived under one of the most oppressive dhimmi systems of the late Islamic Middle Ages. This remained in force for most of the 19th Century and in some places well into the 20th.[33]
The Jewish situation deteriorated in Morocco in the 19th Century together with a general worsening in law and order.[34] In one particularly egregious case Sol Hatchuel, a 17-year-old girl from Tangier was publicly executed in 1834 for apostacy to Islam. A Muslim woman she had befriended wished to convert her. The Muslim woman reported Hatchuel to the authorities claiming that she had converted but stayed true to her Jewish faith. Hatchuel denied the accusation that she had converted.
The plight of the Jews in Morocco came to the attention of influential Jews in Western Europe and the United States. In 1863, Moses Montefiore led a delegation of British Jews to Morocco with the backing of the British government. His goal was to improve the legal and social position of Jews and to get the sultan to protect them from widespread abuse. He succeeded in getting Sultan Mohammad IV to issue a dahir (decree of the King) that promised “Jews…rightful measure of justice equal to others according to the law.” Whilst Montefiore’s visit and the sultan’s dahir sent an important message, in practice, however, this decree had little impact on the status of the Jews.[35]
In 1860 Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) was established for the purpose of safeguarding human rights of Jews around the world [on this, see Anny Wynchank, In the beginning was a school: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and its Legacy – Jewish Affairs – Ed.]. Its first school in Morocco was established in Tetuán in 1862 and by the end of the century schools had been established in most major towns and cities with Jewish communities from Morocco to Iran. These made a significant impact, and a middle class imbibed with western values emerged from this education.
Morocco has been ruled by the Alawite dynasty since the 17th Century. The Alawites resisted incursions by the Ottomans, Spanish, Portuguese and British. From the mid-19th Century competition between France, Britain and Spain for influence in Morocco could be evidenced. After France’s victory over Morocco at the Battle of Isly in 1844 and Spain’s occupation of the northern city of Tetuan in 1860-62 Morocco’s economy became increasingly subjected to global trading markets taking on increasing debt which required the introduction of new taxes.
Morocco’s dire economic situation prompted France to force Morocco to sign the Treaty of Fez in 1912. This divided Morocco into a French protectorate over most of Morocco and a Spanish protectorate over northern Morocco excluding Tangier. Unlike Algeria, where Jews became citizens of France, Jews in Morocco remained subjects of the sultan.
According to the British Jewish historian Martin Gilbert Jewish life in Morocco suffered a setback with the advent of French rule. The Moroccan population, seeking retribution but not strong enough to fight the French, sought out the Jews who became scapegoats. Two weeks after the French seized control of Fez, the mellah was attacked and more than 60 Jews were murdered.[36]
Jessica Marglin, an associate professor of religion at UCLA authored a book Across Legal Lines, Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco, in which she examined through the experience of one Jewish family how the law helped integrate Jews into Muslim society during the 19th and early 20th centuries and how much of that was disrupted after the French occupation of Morocco. [37] Her research resulted in a number of important observations:
- As dhimmis Jews were under the special protection of the sultan.[38] They were permitted access to – albeit not entirely equal – to Islamic courts and the right to maintain Jewish courts. Jews also had the ability to choose among the legal fora – Jewish law, Islamic law, and in some cases foreign courts (extraterritoriality).[39]
- The French never formally abolished the dhimmi, nor did they introduce equality for the Jewish citizens. Jews remained dhimmis de facto until 1912 and de jure following Moroccan independence in 1958.[40]
- French legal reforms were one of the ways in which barriers were created between Jews and Muslims, with the erection of administrative walls.[41] Jews were restricted in their access to Sharia courts, whose previous use by them evidenced Jewish integration into Muslim society.[42]
- AIU schools was another factor causing Jews to move towards the West and away from the Muslims amongst whom they lived.[43] This gave Jews a massive advantage over Muslims in terms of both education and job opportunities.[44] AIU also lobbied on behalf of Jews in trouble.[45]
- The unintended consequence of French legal reforms introduced for the most part negative consequences by creating colonial legal divisions.[46] The legal system went from a factor contributing to integration into Muslim society to one which divided and separated.[47]
World War II
After France surrendered to Germany in June 1940 and an armistice was reached with the Vichy government Morocco, along with Algeria and Tunisia, came under Vichy control.
Whilst the Jews of Morocco escaped the full brutality of the Nazis they nevertheless suffered much. Sultan Muhammad V reputedly refused to sign-off on ghettoization and deportation of Jews. Despite his opposition the Vichy government nevertheless enacted enact partial race laws, which had a damaging effect on both livelihoods and morale. Jews holding public office were fired and banned from working in the free professions.
The efforts of King Muhammad V to protect his Jewish subject led to Shimon Peres and others arguing that he be recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. This initiative was, however, not successful.
Israeli historian David Guedj reflects in his book, Light in the West: Hebrew Culture in Morocco 1912-1956 on the hardships faced during World War II: “For the Europeanized and Westernized Jews the dream of integration was shattered.”[48]
Wrote US historian Susan Miller, “Wedged between an indifferent Muslim majority and an anti-Semitic settler class, Morocco’s Jews were pushed to the edges of society during World War II, entering a no-man’s-land from which they never really returned.” [49]
Modern Period – Independence and Jewish Emigration
After World War II pressure mounted on France to grant Morocco independence. In 1953, the French exiled Muhammad V to Madagascar amid increasing protests. However, his exile did not last long, and just prior to independence in 1956 he returned.
After 44 years of French rule, 90% of Moroccans were illiterate. Only 1415 had bachelor’s degrees, 640 Muslim and 775 Jews.[50] In 1960, it was estimated that over 40% of Morocco’s Jews were illiterate.[51]
Largescale Jewish emigration from Morocco began after World War II and intensified after Israel’s independence. The Six Day War was the last straw for most of the Jews that remained.
In 1948 about 250 000 Jews lived in Morocco. Raphael Spanien, emissary of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, estimated that only between 25 000 and 50 000 were “Westernized.” Amongst the 50 000 who had immigrated to Israel in the decade following World War II, “there is not even one doctor.”[52] By and large Moroccan Jews were poor and illiterate. As a generalization the poor and illiterate Jews moved to Israel whereas the educated and rich moved to France and Canada.
Jamaa Baida, professor of history at a Rabat university, attributes Jewish emigration to many factors. They include decolonization, the clash of national identities, the poverty of the Jewish masses, and the uncertainties of the political and economic future of Jews in an independent Morocco. [53]
Aomar Boum, Assistant Professor in Sephardi Studies at UCLA and a Muslim born in a small Moroccan village, has devoted his career to the scholarship of Jewish history in Morocco. He contends that although economic reasons (competition with members of the dominant society) and political stresses were strong factors in the emigration of Jews, the success of Zionism and the failure of Moroccan nationalism to include Jews after independence, together with the strengthening of Arab Nasserite nationalism and the emergence of Islamism led to great fear amongst Jews about their future.[54]
After the declaration of the State of Israel, Sultan Muhammad V warned both his Muslim and Jewish subjects against any action that would disrupt law and order and undermine a secular tradition of friendly relations between the two communities on Moroccan soil.[55] In 1955 he said that “Jewish Moroccans have the same rights and the same duties as other Moroccans.”[56]
The Moroccan government took a dim view of Jews emigrating to Israel. In 1961 the Minister of Information described it as a “betrayal and desertion” and that “It was unjust that Moroccans should take the place of Palestinian Arabs in Israel.” Emigration to Israel was forbidden and the public mood towards Jews was described as being “ugly.”[57]
In 1962 Hassan II became king on the death of his father Muhammad V. Ben Gurion negotiated with him and agreed to the demand that Morocco be paid USD100 for each Jew moving to Israel. To achieve this Ben-Gurion overruled finance minister Levi Eshkol, who argued that Israel could not afford the payments. Between 1962-64, 100 000 Moroccan Jews relocated to Israel at a cost of up to USD10 million [58].
One of the positive outcomes of the agreement was that a close relationship developed between Israel and Hassan II. This led to secret visits by Yitzchak Rabin (1976) and Moshe Dayan (1977) and it provided the catalyst for Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel (1977) and the Israel-Egypt peace treaty (1979).
Following riots in Morocco after the Six Day War, King Hassan II protected Jewish citizens and punished the violent mobsters.[59] Concerned at rising xenophobia against the Jewish community, he issued a statement: “The Jew has fulfilled all his obligations towards Arabism and Islam, but the sentiments of the population have unfortunately been exploited by some elements whose only concern is to sow confusion and disorder and to brand the Jews with treacherous slogans.” Hassan reiterated his father’s objection to Zionism but defined himself as the protector of Jews.[60]
For a long time and even in the 20th Century Jews in some places of Morocco spoke Berber languages. A survey in the 1930s showed that half of the surnames of Jews in the Maghreb were of Arabic or Berber origin.[61]
Boum interviewed 80 respondents representing four generations of the communities in the vicinity of the village in southeastern Morocco where he was born. He concluded that the grandparents and great grandparents’ generation “continue to discuss nostalgically the richness of Jewish-Muslim life in the past” but that the “younger generation demonstrates narrow and misinformed perspectives of Jews”[62] and that the Palestinian Israeli conflict continues to enlarge the gap of misunderstanding.[63]
During the period 1912-1956 Moroccan Jewry was in the process of secularizing, a process that had begun in the 19th Century, but which gained momentum at the start of the 20th as a westernized elite emerged. The elite for the most part was composed of graduates of AIU affiliated institutions.[64]
Chabad emissaries started arriving in Morocco in 1951. According to Guedj, the advent of Chabad in Morocco marked the birth of ultra-Orthodoxy in Morocco.[65]
Today probably only about 2500 Jews remain in Morocco.[66] Jewish Israelis of Moroccan heritage, according to reports, comprise one million citizens. [67]
Before the Covid pandemic and the current Middle East conflict more than 50 000 Israelis (and many other Jews of Moroccan extraction from France and elsewhere) visited Morocco every year.[68]
Notable Moroccan Jews
Andre Azoulay served as an economic advisor to King Hassan II and later King Mohammed VI. He has been the target of political slogans in protests against Israel although he has publicly stated that, “I have complete legitimacy in this country….Until the Palestinian is afforded identity and dignity, my Jewishness is weakened.”[69]
Serge Berdugo served as Tourism Minister for King Hassan II (1993 – 1995) – with the specific brief to promote cultural and economic ties with Israel. He also served as secretary-general of the council of Moroccan Jews. In 2006 King Muhammad VI appointed him ambassador-at-large in the quest for peace in the Middle East.[70] In 2010 Berdugo was also charged to oversee a program initiated by King Muhammed VI to renovate Jewish cemeteries and shrines.
Yitzhak Navon, president of Israel, was a descendent of Moroccan Jews who left Morocco in the 17th Century.
David Levy, former foreign minister of Israel, was born in Rabat, leaving for Israel at age 18.
Rene Cassin, of Moroccan origin, was a French jurist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968.
Harvard University’s Baruj Benacerraf, likewise of Moroccan origin, won the Nobel prize in medicine in 1980.
Concluding Remarks
At the end of the 20th Century, Bernard Lewis reflected on the 14 centuries of Jewish life under Islamic rule: “The Jews were never free from discrimination, but only rarely subject to persecution.” He noted that the situation of Jews living under Islamic rulers was “never as bad as in Christendom at its worst, nor ever as good as in Christendom at its best.” Lewis observed that “there is nothing in Islamic history to parallel the Spanish expulsion and Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, or the Nazi Holocaust.” But he also commented that, on the other hand, there was nothing in the history of the Jews under Islam “to compare with the progressive emancipation and acceptance accorded to Jews in the democratic West during the last three centuries.[71]
Carlos de Nesry, a Jew from Tangier, was witness to the catastrophe, which he recorded in his book Jewish Moroccans had to Choose. He wrote: “Emigration…an exodus that no one truly desires, but that is often rendered inevitable due to economic necessity…. [Jews] are not fleeing Morocco, but their own misery. They are reluctantly leaving a country that is made for them, that remains part of them, and that they will never forget.”[72]
Reflecting on the emigration of the bulk of Morocco’s remaining Jewish population after the Six Day War, Susan Miller wrote that it had “ended a millennium of coexistence that had marked Morocco as the most tolerant of Muslim societies.”[73]
Morocco’s new constitution in 2011 recognised “Hebraic influences” as having enriched and nourished Moroccan identity. Boum is quoted as saying, “What the state did is take the conservation of Jewish heritage and make it more visible.”[74]
Lewis concluded that the “Judaeo-Islamic symbiosis was another great period of Jewish life and creativity, a long, rich, and vital chapter in Jewish history. It has now come to an end.”[75]
Morocco has been one of the most moderate Arab countries in its relationship with Israel and its kings have a proud history of defending its Jewish citizens against hostile foreign parties and elements of its own population. In late 2020 Morocco joined the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in normalising relations with Israel and signing the Abraham Accords.
Places of Jewish Interest
In recent times many synagogues, cemeteries and shrines have been repaired with funding from, inter alia, the Moroccan government. Morocco, in celebrating its Jewish heritage, is using it to encourage Jewish tourism.
Casablanca
Casablanca’s Jewish community is of modern origin dating essentially to the period of French occupation from 1912. Approximately 2000 of Morocco’s 2500 Jews live here today.
The Museum of Moroccan Judaism, at one time the only Jewish museum in the Islamic world (one now exists in Essaouira as well), opened in 1997. Its exhibits include numerous artefacts of Moroccan Jewish life. The extensive restoration projects underway for Moroccan synagogues and cemeteries are also on display. An interesting item is a copy of the preamble to the Moroccan constitution of 2011, which includes reference to Hebraic influence being a pillar of Moroccan unity.
The Beth-El Synagogue is the city’s largest synagogue, seating 500 persons, and an important community centre. Completely renovated in 1997, it is characterised by a typical Sephardic layout with a wooden bimah in the centre, Marc Chagall inspired stained glass windows and a carved ceiling in the Arabic style.
A tiny kosher bakery can be found around the corner from the entrance to the Beth-El Synagogue which sells challah and pastries.
The Ettedgui Synagogue dates to the 1920s. It was damaged by an allied bomb during Operation Torch in November 1942, although miraculously the bomb did not explode. The synagogue was rededicated in 2016 at a ceremony personally attended by King Mohammed VI.
There are apparently 16 synagogues still operating in Casablanca.
Rabat
The Mausoleum of King Mohammed V is an impressive building. Mohammed V (reigned 1927-61 but over an independent Morocco from 1956). Mohammed V is revered by Jews because of, inter alia, his actions during World War II. Many Jews regard him in saintly terms and make a pilgrimage to visit his tomb. His son Hassan II (died 1999) is also buried in this mausoleum. According to the American diplomat Martin Indyk, Hassan II was weaned by a Jewish woman.
Tangier
From the mid-19th century Tangier grew significantly and became Morocco’s most internationalised and cosmopolitan city. By the late 19th century after a century of growth Tangier had become Morocco’s leading port surpassing Essaouira while not yet being challenged by Casablanca.[76] By the early 20th Century 25% of the city’s population was Jewish.[77] Tangier’s Jews played an essential role with capital and expertise in trade being concentrated amongst them.
Tangier is one of the few places in Morocco which didn’t have a designated Jewish quarter or mellah. It has a Jewish cemetery which houses over 1000 graves, but which has not been active since 1983. The graves are all coloured white, which seems to be the practice in Morocco.
A number of synagogues can be found in Tangier including Moshe Nahon (1878) and Beit Yehuda (1880).
Chefchaouen
The “Blue City”, as Chefchaouen is known, is located up in the Rif Mountains.
There are many legends as to how Chefchaouen became known as the “Blue City.” Possibly the most convincing theory is said to be that the colour originated after an influx of Jews from Spain in the early 1500s after their expulsion and derived from the Jewish tradition of wearing prayer shawls with techelet (blue dye) to remind people of the presence of God.
When the Spanish arrived in the 1920s they were stunned to find Chefchaouen’s Sephardi Jews speaking an old dialect of Spanish that had been extinct for four centuries.
There is not much to evidence a Jewish presence in Chefchaouen other than a plaque which reads, “The Jewish neighborhood dates back to the 16th Century, when the Jews were welcomed to reside within the walls of the Medina.”
Volubilis
Volubilis is a well-preserved Roman city, dating to the 3rd Century BCE. It was originally a Berber, then proto-Carthaginian settlement. The town grew rapidly under Roman rule from 1st century CE – 3rd century CE and served as the capital of Roman Mauretania.
At Volubilis, the first epigraphic evidence of Jewish settlement in Morrocco was found. Several Jewish gravestone inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, as well as two lamps decorated with menorahs were found. They are likely from the 3rd century CE and indicate a significant Jewish community in the city. One of inscriptions referred to “head of congregation” – which according to the researchers indicates indisputable evidence of the existence of a synagogue but they were unable to identity a particular building that served as the synagogue. The researchers were surprised at the use of Hebrew at a location so remote from the centres of Judaism in that era. [78]
One of the most prominent buildings at Volubilis is the triumphal Arch of Caracalla. It was Emperor Caracalla who bestowed citizenship on all residents of the Roman Empire, including Jews, in 212 CE.
Fez
The first mellah, or Jewish quarter, in Morocco dates back to 1438. It was established in Fez during the rule of the Merenids, in the shadow of the sultan’s palace, after repeated attacks on the Jews. Mellah derives from the Arabic word for salt. A salty stream, Wadi Mellah, ran through or close to the neighbourhood. Many Jews became wealthy as a result of their involvement in the salt trade.
Fez was a bridge between Spain and Babylon. Jews of Fez were a strong community whose rabbis had always been linked to the great yeshivas of Sura and Pumpedita, sending financial help and seeking rulings on Talmudic questions. As the Jewish community in Spain grew, it attracted scholars from Fez.
While the mellah is no longer home to any significant Jewish population, it still contains a number of monuments and landmarks from the Jewish community’s historical heritage in the city.
The Ibn Danan Synagogue was originally completed in the 17th Century, but the current synagogue was rebuilt and reinaugurated in 1999. From 1812, until its closure in the 1960s, its rabbis all came from the Danan family, a dynasty whose ancestry can be traced back to 15th Century Spain. Like many of the synagogues in Morocco this one is decorated with tilework and woodwork.
An interesting, and possibly unique, feature of this synagogue is its mikveh. By lifting a manhole cover on the synagogue floor the mikveh below can be seen. The roof of the synagogue can be reached by a very steep staircase, and from there the cemetery can be seen. The gravestones are all coloured white.
The Al Fassiyine Synagogue is reputed to be the oldest synagogue in Fez. It is thought to have been built during the Merenid Dynasty (13th-15th centuries) but the current building dates from the 17th Century. This community comprised of Jews (called toshavim) who predated the Jews exiled from Spain (megorashim). It has been restored and was reinaugurated in 2013.
Marrakech
The mellah in Marrakech, once a small walled off area within the city, was established in 1557 by order of the king and the 30 000 Jews of Marrakech were all moved into this area. In the 19th Century, the Jewish population increased as Jews from the Atlas Mountains relocated to Marrakech, which became the largest Jewish community in Morocco. Today apparently only four Jewish families still live in the mellah. Spice trading is evident in the mellah, a market that was once dominated by Jews.
The Lazama (El-Azama) Synagogue was built by Spanish Jews shortly after the 1492 expulsion. Its blue and white interior (of a later iteration) is decorated in the traditional Moroccan manner with mosaic tiles and carpets and has been beautifully restored. The synagogue is part of a larger complex that includes a museum and courtyard at its centre.
The Jewish cemetery is adjacent to the mellah and dates from its establishment. The arrangement of the graves is unique to Marrakech. There is a children’s section which contains 7000 graves of children who died of typhus. There is also a separate men’s and women’s section. Around the perimeter are the graves of the pious, judges and scholars, which apparently serves to protect those on the inside.
About 100 Jews remain in Marrakech.[79]
- Bernard Katz, a frequent contributor to Jewish Affairs is a Chartered Accountant who does freelance corporate finance advisory, investigations and sits on several boards.
[1] Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, 1972, 12:326-327 hereafter cited as “EJ”.
[2] Ibid,12:327
[3] Gilbert, Martin, In Ishamel’s House, A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, Yale University Press, 2010, p1
[4] Andreeva, Sofia, Fedorchuk, Artem and Nosonovsky, Michael, Revisiting Epigraphic Evidence of the Oldest Synagogue in Morocco in Volubilis, Arts, 27 Sept 2019, Vol 8, Issue 4: 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts8040127
[5] EJ, op cit, 12:327
[6] Behar, Doron; et al. (2008). “Counting the Founders. The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora”, PLoS One, 2008 Apr 30;3(4):e2062
[7] EJ, op cit, 12:328
[8] Gilbert, op cit, p41
[9] EJ, op cit, 12:329
[10] Stillman, Norman, The Jews of Arab Lands, A History and Source Book, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979, pxv
[11] EJ, op cit, 12:329
[12] Ibid
[13] Gilbert, op cit, p56
[14] Lewis, Bernard, The Jews of Islam, Princeton University Press, 1984, p32
[15] Stillman, op cit, pxvi
[16] Ibid, p76
[17] Ibid, p77
[18] Ibid, p78
[19] Ibid
[20] Lewis, op cit, p149
[21] Stillman, op cit, pp80-81
[22] EJ, op cit, 12:330
[23] Rosen, Lawrence, Memories of Morocco, Jewish Review of Books, Vol.13, No.1, Spring 2022
[24] EJ, op cit, 12:332
[25] Stillman, op cit, p81
[26] Lewis, op cit, p148
[27] Stillman, op cit, p85
[28] Ibid, p87
[29] Ibid
[30] Lewis, op cit, p148
[31] Raphael, Chaim, The Sephardi Story, A Celebration of Jewish History, Vallentine Mitchell & Co., 1991, p137
[32] Lewis, op cit, p150
[33] Stillman, op cit, p99
[34] Ibid, p102
[35] Miller, Susan, A History of Modern Morocco, Cambridge University Press, 2013 p45
[36] Gilbert, op cit, p133
[37] Marglin, Jessica, Across Legal Lines, Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco, Yale University Press, 2016
[38] Ibid, p122
[39] Ibid, p197
[40] Ibid, p6
[41] Ibid, 197
[42] Ibid, p55
[43] Ibid, p17
[44] Ibid, p199
[45] Ibid, p124
[46] Ibid, p195
[47] Ibid, p198
[48] Elias, Eness, Morocco’s Jewish Golden Era Comes Back to Life, Haaretz, 13 Dec 2022
[49] Miller, op cit p143
[50] Ibid, p154
[51] EJ, op cit, 12:343
[52] Gilbert, op cit, quoting Raphael Spanien, Report, February 1955: HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) archive, p277
[53] Baida, Jamaa, The Emigration of Moroccan Jews, 1948-1956, Edited by Gottreich, Benichou and Schroeter, Daniel, Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, Indiana University Press, 2011, p321
[54] Boum, Aomar, Memories of Absence, How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco, Stanford University Press, 2013, pp 89-90
[55] Baida, op cit, p324
[56] Ibid, p330
[57] Gilbert, op cit, p278
[58] Ibid, p279
[59] Ibid, p293
[60] Boum, op cit, p118
[61] Raphael, op cit, p182
[62] Boum, op cit, p157
[63] Ibid, p161
[64] Elias, op cit
[65] Ibid
[66] Italie, Leanne, Morocco is a trove of Jewish history if you now where to go, Times of Israel, 18 April 2019
[67] Chernick, Ilanit, Moroccan Jewry in Israel set to commemorate 60 years of Aliyah, The Jerusalem Post, 25 August 2019
[68] Rosen, op cit
[69] Boum, op cit, p145
[70] Gilbert, op cit, p335
[71]Gilbert, op cit, quoting Lewis, Bernard, Semites and anti-Semites, pp121-22, ppxx-xxi
[72] Baida, op cit, p330
[73] Miller, op cit, p160
[74] Judah, Jacob, Morocco rediscovers its Jewish past and lures visitors of all faiths, Haaretz, 3 August 2019
[75] Lewis, op cit, p191
[76] Miller, Susan, Making Tangier Modern, Jewish Culture in North Africa, op cit, p131
[77] Ibid
[79] Italie, op cit
