Jews in Morocco

Our week in the Costa del Sol has seen more fall-like weather and alternations between quiet days reading and preparing for Israel, and conventional tourist trips. Our day in Tangier, a city that is a bridge between Arabic, African Berber, European, and American cultures, was fascinating.
When we were shown the synagogue in Morocco, and the streets that indicated the old Jewish quarter, we realized that we didn't know much about the important history of Jews in Morocco.

This history is not only important to Morocco, but to Israel. Fifteen per cent of Israelis claim Moroccan ancestry. After two thousand years of living in Morocco, under regimes both receptive and hostile to their presence, most of Morocco's Jews emigrated to Israel in the last decades of the 20th century. Those that remain still play important roles in Moroccan society, but the community there is a shadow of what it once was. It's ironic to realize this fact in a city like Tangier, which retains it's international character and still has it's French, British, and American quarters.

The history of Jews in Morocco parallels that of Sephardic (Spanish) Jews in many respects. They flourished in the same eras of tolerant Muslim rule and suffered under more fundamentalist Islamic tribes. Morocco was a place of refuge for Jews driven out of Spain, and Moroccans reacted to influxes of refugees in ways that are familiar to this day, with both hospitality and reactive ambivalence.

We expect to meet Moroccan Jews often in our travels over the month ahead, but it will be in the home that they have created in Israel, rather than the one their ancestors helped build for centuries in Morocco.

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Location:Tangier, Morocco