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Morocco
history
Jews first appeared in Morocco more than
two millennia ago, traveling there in association
with Phoenician traders. The first substantial
Jewish settlements developed in 586 BC when
Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. The community
grew as an outpost of Palestine, maintaining
close ties with the Jewish homeland even as North
Africa rose in rebellion against Roman Emperors
Trajan and Hadrian. While they were not rebelling,
the Jews lived in relative tranquillity, allowed
to maintain their status as a distinct nation
throughout the Pax Romana. However, after
Constantine made Christianity the law of the land
in the 4th century A.D.
the Romans started making laws against the Jews.
Byzantine Emperor Justinian solidified these laws,
and held Jews in contempt until the Muslims
conquered the land in the 7th
century.
As early as Roman times, Moroccan Jews had
begun to travel inland to trade with groups of
Berbers, most of whom were nomads who dwelled in
remote areas of the Atlas Mountains. Jews lived
side by side with Berbers, forging both economic
and cultural ties; some Berbers even began to
practice Judaism. In response, Berber
spirituality transformed Jewish ritual, painting
it with a belief in the power of demons and
saints. When the Muslims swept across the North
of Africa, Jews and Berbers defied them together.
Across the Atlas Mountains, legendary Queen
Kahina led a tribe of 7th
century Jewish-Berbers in battle against
encroaching Islamic warriors. Though the Muslims
defeated Kahina and converted her ancestors to
Islam, many Berber communities maintained their
Judaism.
As they did elsewhere, Muslims in Morocco
made a clear distinction between "Believers"
and "Infidels." They developed a third
category for Jews and Christians, "People of
the Book," who hadn’t yet accepted
Mohammed. Jews in Islamic societies became dhimmis,
second-class citizens, who were allowed to
practice their religion but did not have equal
rights under law. In the 11th
century Muslim leader Al Mawardi solidified
twelve laws (the Charter of Omar) that ruled
Jewish life in Islamic nations – they couldn’t
touch the Koran, speak of the Prophet demeaningly,
touch Muslim women or do anything that would turn
a Muslim against his faith. The Muslims also
forced Jewish dhimmi to wear
a yellow sash, prohibited them from building
synagogues taller than a Mosque and owning horses
and did not allow them to drink wine in public or
perform religious rituals in public. The dhimmi
also had to play a head tax (djezya)
and a property tax (kharaj).
Muslims forced urban Jews to live in
ghettos called mellahs, a
name derived from the Arabic word for salt
because Muslims often forced Jews in Morocco to
salt the heads of executed prisoners before their
public display. These mellahs
were crowded, filthy, poverty-stricken areas
traversed by narrow corridors and dark,
uninviting passageways. As a result of this
segregation the Jews educated their own, leading
to a high literacy rate, much higher than that of
the Muslim community. Some Jews were able to use
their intellectual abilities to excel in business,
further separating themselves from the rest of
Muslim society.
The Moroccan Jewish community experienced a
population explosion in the 15th
and 16th centuries as
Inquisition exiles fled from Spain and Portugal.
The Spanish Jews were very different from the
North African Jews, but they tolerated each other,
sharing both customs and meager resources.
Ottoman Turks tolerated the Jews but did them no
special favors. When most Moroccan Jews welcomed
the French declaration of the Moroccan
Protectorate 1912, frustrated Muslims reacted by
massacring Jews in the Fez mellah.
Jews became Moroccan citizens under the
Protectorate, though they were not afforded
political equality. A fierce independence
rebellion broke out in 1947 on the heels of
subsequent Vichy French and Allied occupations of
North Africa. The independence movement succeeded
in 1955. As Morocco’s new Muslim government
became more friendly with the Arab League, the
Jewish position grew more uncertain; Jews tried
to escape from Morocco but government troops
captured and jailed them. In 1961 King Hassan II
gave the Jews the right to emigrate, and a
substantial percentage did.
Today there are several thousand Jews in
Morocco, most of whom live in Casablanca. There
are pockets of Jews in cities like Fez, Rabat and
Marrakesh, and a continued Berber-Jewish remnants
in small villages like Inezgane. Contemporary
Moroccan Judaism is a blend of Oriental, Berber,
Arab, Spanish customs, resulting in a variety of
practices that combine Rabbinical teachings with
a devotion to spiritualism unfamiliar to most
Western Jews.
The Talmud (the commentaries on the Torah)
began to influence Moroccan Judaism even as
Jewish scholars were writing it in the 2nd
to the 5th centuries A.D.
Talmudic scholars like Rabbi Akiva traveled
extensively in North Africa, spreading Jewish
scholarship to all parts of Morocco; even in
distant villages in the Atlas Mountains there
were Rabbis discussing the Talmud. Moroccan
Judaism developed along Talmudic lines and
therefore resembles Western Judaism more than
that of the pre-Talmudic Ethiopian Jews. The
synagogue was the center of activity in the
Moroccan Jewish community. Each community had a
chief rabbi who preached, taught Judaism and gave
advice; the cantor (shaliach tsibur,
delegate of the public), would lead the
congregation in prayer. Each Jewish community had
its own rabbinical court which had some autonomy
over Jewish law and was sometimes able to
negotiate with authorities to soften anti-Semitic
proclamations.
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