The Jews Of Fez And Their Mythical Mellah – Analysis

Jews existed in Morocco for over two thousand years. (1) In the countryside, they lived in the midst of Amazigh people with whom they shared many particularities such as tribal identity and solidarity, and matriarchal feature. (2) In the cities, they first lived in the outskirts of a such urban organization but later on because of pogroms, they were placed in walled structures near royal palaces to protect them against any possible external threats. (3)

Origin of the word Mellah

The word Mellah in Arabic: ملاح, meaning literally مِلَحْ “salt” or “salt area”; and in Hebrew: מלאח, also refers to a place where products are preserved with salt, but in every city, in Morocco, it is used to refer to the Jewish quarter. This may be because a chore imposed on the Jews of Morocco was to salt the heads of executed criminals to preserve them before they were displayed at the city gates, to set an example to any future rebellion against the Makhzen (central power). (4)

This etymology seems to be considered popular. The origin is more likely the Hebrew word “מִילָה” (“mila“, circumcision, the covenant made to Abraham) passed into classical Arabic in the feminine form “مِلَّة” (“millah“, Abrahamic religion), and then into Moroccan Arabic with shortening of vowels (“mella“, moral principles, religion). The terminal H of this word is a Ta marbota which is never pronounced in modern Moroccan Arabic. The transition to the devoiced H (ح), making the word sound like the family of “ملحة” (melHa”, “salt” in Moroccan Arabic) remains poorly documented. Indeed, historical writings, French or Spanish, relating to it cite the word in Latin characters, with confusion of “ة” (feminine final where H is unpronounced), “ه” (H voiced), and “ح” (H devoiced). Other writings in Hebrew are not widely available.

Mellah can also be a biblical expression that means “lasting”. It is in fact used in the text, “bereth melah” to designate a lasting covenant, which (Bereth melah ôlam – covenant of salt forever – Bamidbar 18/19). (5) If this explanation were true, the Jews themselves would have named their neighborhood Mellah to wish themselves a lasting settlement.

Another explanation: the word Mellah could come from the Hebrew word “malahim” which means ‘’sailors’’ in the plural and which would give mallah in the singular.

However, it is generally believed that this name comes from the historical location of the Jewish quarter of Fez. It was indeed founded in an area where the salt trade took place. The name Mellah would therefore come from this particular characteristic and was used to designate the other Jewish neighborhoods that were being built in other cities.

In 1276, the Marinid Sultan Abu Yusuf Ya^cqûb (1212-1286) founded Fâs aj-Jdid, a new fortified administrative city to house his troops and the royal palace.  The city included a southern district known as Hims, which was initially inhabited by Muslim garrisons, particularly the Sultan’s mercenary contingents of Syrian archers who were later disbanded. (6) The same district, however, was also known as Mellah (“saline area”) due either to a source of salt water in the area or to the presence of an ancient salt warehouse.  It was this name that was later retained as the name of the next Jewish neighborhood in the area. (7) Subsequently, the name came to be associated by analogy with similar neighborhoods that were later created in other cities such as Marrakech.  The name Mellah therefore originally had no negative connotation but was rather just a local toponym. Nevertheless, over the generations, a number of legends and popular etymologies have come to explain the origin of the word, such as “a salty and cursed ground” or a place where Jews were forced to “salt” the heads of beheaded rebels. (8)  

It was in the XIV^th century, under the Marinids, that the first distinct Jewish neighborhood in Morocco was built. Originally, this toponym also applied to the neighboring Muslim quarter. The term appeared in the capital and became generic and was used to designate any neighborhood populated by Jews, even if it was not separate. But if the date of the foundation of the Mellah of Fez is controversial (XIII^th or XV^th century), it is otherwise for cities such as Marrakech (1557-1558), Meknes (1682), Tetouan (1807) or Rabat and Salé, whose new Mellahs were built in 1807, by order of the Sultan Moulay Slimane. (9)

Usually, the Jewish quarter was located near the Royal Palace, or the residence of the governor, to protect the Mellah inhabitants from periodic revolts, but there were, also, separate rural Mellah villages inhabited by Berber Jews.

On May 14, 1465, there was the bloodiest pogrom in Moroccan history, Jews of the city of Fez almost all were killed (10) by rebels who defied the Marinid dynasty. The immediate cause of the anti-Semitic violence was the appointment of the Jew (Aaron) Harun ibn Batash vizier. (11)

The Muslim community did not deny the Jewish and Christian communities – Ahl al-Kitāb the “people of the book”: it recognized them as “imperfect” religions, certainly, but respectable in their monotheistic anteriority, which is rooted in a common Semitic cultural heritage conferring on them legal status. As result, such status provided them with protection dhimma obliging them to pay the jizya, a capitation tax for protection. (12)

First, there was the Mellah of Fez

The Mellah of Fez (13) is the oldest Jewish quarter in Morocco. It was established in 1438. (14) Previously, from 808 to 1438, Jews and Muslims lived together in the Medina. They had properties, synagogues, (15) and a cemetery. Trade was developed, and local industry was diversified: goldsmithing, jewelery, silver, gold wire, trimmings, and clothing. The Jews were settled in various districts of the Medina. The last ones to date is Ezensfor where there was the Israelite cemetery within the walls, next to bab l-Guisa. (16)

In the quarter of Blida there was a street called Derb Essefer, which means the street where there was the Sefer, which is the book of Law among the Jews. Derb Zniara is named after a Jew who was the vizier of a sultan Bel Messâl. The Jewish women who were in charge of bloodletting and medical care for the harem of the sultan were always named Zniquat Hzzana. These Jewish women kept this function for a very long time. (17)

It is in the district of Fondoq Lihûdi, in Bab l-Guisa, where the Transatlantic Hotel was later built in the Tal^ca, that the legend fixes the residence of Moses ben Maimon(1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam (Hebrew: רמב״ם), the philosopher rabbi Maimonides. (18) Until the Protectorate, it was traditional that Jewish women made a pilgrimage to this place in the Tal^ca, especially those who had no children, and they implored the intercession of the Rambam saint to have children. A Muslim Moqaddem (designated responsible) was in charge of this place. (19)

Since then, following a dispute caused by the presence of a few bottles of wine, the legend says, there have been massacres of Jews in the Medina. The Sultan of the time ordered their transfer to a new district close to the palace to provide them with better protection and thus the first Mellah came into existence in Fez in 1438 and other cities built, much later, such similar walled ghettos for the Jews. 

The unification of Morocco and Muslim Spain carried out by the new dynasty of the Almoravids (1060-1130) promoted the exile of scholars to Fez, the new center of civilization, (20) and also contributed to the material prosperity of the city (21) which became the cultural, economic and military center of this vast empire in which Jewish traders played a leading role there, as the great Arab geographer of the time al-Bakri (22) wrote: 

“The Jews are more numerous in Fez than in any other city of the Maghreb and it is from there that they radiate for their business in all parts of the world.”

The exact reasons for and date of the establishment of a separate Jewish quarter in Fez are not firmly agreed upon by all scholars. Historical accounts confirm that in the mid-XIV^th century the Jews of Fez were still living in Fez al-Bali but that by the end of the XVI^th century they were well established in the Mellah of Fez aj-Jdid. (23) Some authors argue that the transfer probably occurred in stages throughout the Marinid period (late XIII^th to XV^th centuries), particularly after episodes of violence or repression against Jews in the old city.  (24) The urban fabric of the Mellah seems to have developed gradually, and it is possible that a small Jewish population settled there just after the founding of Fez aj-Jdid and that other Jews fleeing the old city joined them later. 

Some scholars, citing historical Jewish chronicles, attribute the date of the move more specifically to the “rediscovery” of the body of Idris II in his zawiya in the center of the old city (Fez al-Bali) in 1437. (25) The surrounding area, located in the middle of the city’s main commercial districts where Jewish merchants were very active, was transformed into a Horm (sanctuary) where non-Muslims were not allowed to enter, resulting in the expulsion of Jewish inhabitants and businesses. (26) Many other scholars date the movement generally to the middle of the XV^th century.  In all cases, the transfer (whether gradual or sudden) occurred with some violence and difficulty.  (27) Many Jewish households chose to convert (at least officially) rather than leave their homes and businesses in the heart of the old city, resulting in a growing group called al-Baldiyyin (Muslim families of Jewish origin, often retaining Jewish surnames). (28)

The expulsion of the Jews from their Mellah of Fes

In the year 1790, the Alaouite Sultan Sidi Mohammed died in Rabat. His son Moulay El Yazid (1750-1792) who had rebelled against his father during his lifetime, was proclaimed sultan in his place. (29) He transferred the black slaves who were camped in the vicinity of Meknes, to Meknes itself, and the Oudayas, numbering 3000, whose camp was also in Meknes, were moved to Fez. The location chosen was the Mellah. 

On the same year 1790, the Jews of Fez were ordered to leave the Mellah, their houses, and their synagogues, to settle in the Qasbah of Cherarda. It is not necessary to describe in which conditions this hasty transfer took place. They could not take their belongings and could not take their furniture because the deadline was only one day.

As soon as they settled in the Qasbah, they erected nwâlas or huts made of reeds covered with earth, in the manner of the nomads. There was no water and they had to buy it from the peasants who brought it from the wâdî located quite far. The dead had to be buried in a place far away from their new habitat, called al-Guisa, which was located upstream from Dhar l-Mehraz.

Berbers from the Ait Yammûr and the Oudayas settled in the Mellah and, to make themselves comfortable, they destroyed the synagogues, the tombs, and the cemetery of the Megorashims (Jewish expellees of Spain) that had existed for 300 years, and they dug up the dead. They built a mosque and a minaret on the site of the synagogue with the materials from the demolitions. The Jews were allowed to take back the bones of their dead only one day a week, on Friday. These bodies, collected in earthenware jars, were transferred and reburied in the Guisa.

To make matters worse, and one can also say that something bad is good, a fire broke out in the nwâlas or huts of the Qasbah. It was the the feast of Sukkot, in the month of Tishrin, the day before Simha Torah, after the evening prayer the year 5552 corresponding to 1792, the 17^th month of their stay in the Qasbah. The Qasbah‘s caid (mayor), his men, and all the Jews struggled all night to control the fire. More than 200 nwâlas with their furniture, a synagogue, a Sefer Torah, books, and provisions accumulated for the year fell prey to the flames.

In their growing misery, the Jews turned to the mother of the Sultan Moulay al-Yazid who wrote a letter to her son in Meknes, imploring him to return the Mellah to the Jews. In the meantime, Sultan Moulay al-Yazid died in the same year, during a battle near Marrakech and his grandson Moulay Slimane was proclaimed sultan, a wise and pious man.

In the month of Adar, in 1792, the Jewish notables were received by Sultan Moulay Slimane when he left for Meknes. He welcomed them well, and asked them to designate 3 men to accompany him to Meknes, promising to give them satisfaction. The three notables designated, Joseph Attia, David Lakhrief and Benyamin Bensimhon, accompanied the Sultan to Meknes where they stayed until the second day of Easter. They brought to the caid Ayyad, governor of the city of Fez, the order to evacuate the Mellah and to reinstall the Jews in their neighborhoods and homes. (30)

Having been forced to note that the Mellah was the property of the Jews, and that the mosque had been built with stolen materials from Jewish cemeteries. The Sultan ordered the destruction of the mosque and the minaret. A house was built on the same site which still bears the name of Dâr Ez^camâ (house of bravery). The stay of the Jews in the Qasbah lasted 22 months.

Other uses of the Mellah

It was customary in the Makhzen for unofficial foreigners coming to settle in Fez to be placed with the Jews in the Mellah; by order of the Pasha or governor, it was also with the Jews, in the vicinity of the Mellah, that were installed the exotic animals offered as gifts to the Sultan of Morocco. Thus, a menagerie of a few lions were installed in two appropriate buildings located in the street of al-Qaser, in the Mellah, and a small apartment Mesrîyah d-Nesranî was built next to these houses for the European trainer who, assisted by an Israelite, Jacob Malka, took care of the lions.

The Queen of England Victoria offered in 1880 to the Sultan of Morocco, Moulay al-Hassan I a large Indian elephant called Stoke, accompanied by his mahout, an Indian with particular clothing. This one aroused the admiration of the inhabitants when he went up on his elephant. A Moroccan chronicler recounts that the pachyderm landed in Tangier, not without difficulty. At that time, the landing was done in the harbor and it was very difficult to get him from the ship to a boat, and when he was placed there, it almost capsized with its crew.

When the elephant arrived in Fez, the Caïd of the time made him and his companion stay the house of Sheikh Lihûd (chief of the Jewish quarter) who lodged the cumbersome animal in a large fonduk, a vast room located near the Jewish cemetery. This place has kept for a long time the name of Derb al-Fil the ‘’street of the elephant.’’ The mahout lived in a small house next to the fonduk.

When, a few years later, the elephant died, because of the climate and the lack of freedom, he was given a resounding funeral, due to its status because, it was said, that the elephant is a sacred animal for the Indians.

He was buried in a plot of land in the Jewish cemetery of the time, in a space limited by the walls that separated the cemetery from the premises adjacent to the Palace. A mound called Râs al-Fîl was built over his grave, where the tombs of the old cemetery remained and where wild herbs were growing freely. This place, often frequented by truant children and card players, has been flattened over time and as a result of the construction of the new doors of the Royal Palace (Dâr al-Makhzen).

The different community authorities of the Mellah of Fez

The organization of the Israelites in their neighborhood took into account many questions that were generally hidden in the Muslim milieu. The Jewish community of Fez was run by 3 different organizations: 

• The Rabbinate was in charge of justice between Israelites;
• The Hebra, in charge of all the charitable works, was called Hebrath Gomle Hassidim under the patronymic name of the revered Rabbi Simon Bar-Yohai. It was in charge of the traditional religious ceremonies related to weddings, deaths, and charity in general.
• The Sheikh Lihoud whose role was to act as an intermediary between the Pasha (governor of the city) and the Jewish community.

The Rabbinate: The Jews enjoyed religious autonomy in Morocco. The Rabbinical Court dealt with civil status and settled disputes between Jews. Among rabbis, there were rabbis-judges (dayanim) and other rabbis whose functions were different.

The rabbis-judges had an important influence on the community. There were several of them and each one separately could make judgments about any dispute between Israelites who came to him. When an important dispute arose and the parties concerned requested the composition of a court, they appointed three rabbis.

When the community needed to make important decisions, the assembly had to be composed of all the rabbis-judges and 7 notable members of the community. Each rabbi had his own private synagogue where he taught Talmud during the week. The rabbis-judges supervised the application of the cult within the community. Other rabbis (sohatim) were responsible for the slaughter of animals for the consumption of kosher meat. These functions were paid by the butcher according to each head slaughtered. Others served as rabbis-officiants in the synagogues. Still, others were appointed as notaries (suffrim). Those who performed circumcisions were the mohels. Finally, some rabbis were singers and sang liturgical songs in Hebrew on all festive occasions, in the synagogues on Saturdays and holidays, and for wedding ceremonies, tifilim (bar mitzva), circumcisions, etc. These singers were called paytanim. It was customary to make offerings on the Sabbath (orally, that is, since the exchange of money is forbidden on Saturdays) at the synagogue where the family used to pray, for the benefit of the officiating rabbis, the rabbi-judge, the paytanim and the beadle of the synagogue. These emoluments alone allowed them to provide for their needs.

The society called Hebra “Hebrath gomle hassadim ” was composed of several distinct groups with different attributions. It was composed of pious and honest people; it had a real influence in the community. It was responsible for the management of the property allocated to the poor and for charitable works. It was well-equipped and well-organized, and it was also solicited in case of necessity to bring immediate help to members of the community in case of disaster, fire, flood, epidemic, or another calamity. Thus, many of its members went to the aid of the inhabitants of the neighboring city of Sefrou which underwent floods in 1890 (5650 of the Hebrew calendar).

Among the different teams, there were those who were in charge of collecting and distributing, on the eve of Shabbat, the bread prepared in each family (one or two loaves per family) for the needy. From the notables, it also collected the annual subscriptions for the benefit of the poor, in order to meet the distribution of subsidies on the eve of each of the three major religious holidays: Pesach, Sukkot and Shavuot.

The Hebra, a charitable institution, took care of the funeral services on a voluntary basis. A team of moqaddams or leaders, 14 in number (2 per day called mûl nhar, the moqaddams of the day) was in charge of all the steps and all the work to be done in these cases. Some of them assisted the dying person by reciting the customary prayers, others took care of the mortuary rites, which included the ablutions (performed by the washers or rohussims), the transport to the cemetery, the digging of the grave (carried out by the haffarus) and the burial. Another team called Hebra sghira, the little Hebra, took care of the ablutions and the burial of the little children.

When the deceased was a rabbi or a prominent person, its members accompanied the family to the cemetery after the morning prayer and recited psalms and prayers. This continued for 30 days except for Saturday. On that day, the members of the Hebra would visit the family of the deceased after the morning prayer in the synagogue and again recite the appropriate prayers.

A team of gravediggers, led by one of the Hebra members, was to dig the grave of the deceased on the same day, as it is traditional not to dig a grave before the confirmation of a death. 

The Hebra is also responsible of the hilûla pilgrimage  of Jewish saints. For example, it should be noted that a hilûla is held on the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Simon Bar Yohai. It is celebrated in all Jewish communities with a ceremony during which a part of his writings, the Zohar (Splendor) were recited. In Fez, this pilgrimage is celebrated with prayers in the synagogue and singing in Hebrew, including songs composed in his honor. The candles are also lit in his honor and in honor of his disciples, the first is lit in memory of Rabbi Simon Bar Yohai. These candles are sold at an auction.

The Hebra also handled the wedding ceremony in the following manner, members of the Hebra would go to the house of the groom after the prayer on the Saturday before the week of the wedding. They would make him walk to the house of the bride, while songs about the wedding and other events were sung in Hebrew. His parents were part of the convoy. It should be remembered that on Saturdays all the stores in the Mellah were closed and no foreigners were allowed to enter the Jewish quarter. At the parents’ house, who remained hidden, the celebrations continued. The groom would meet his in-laws. It is traditional that the person who introduces the groom to the members of the family of the girl receives from each of them a piece of sugar bread, usually the top part. On the following Wednesday, after the morning prayer, the members of the Hebra go to the house of the bride in order to bring her to her husband. Dressed in rich clothes and covered with gold jewels, with her face veiled, she sits on a chair that a man, used to this ritual, carries on his head. The whole journey to the bridegroom’s house is carried out in an equally picturesque way, with wedding songs in Hebrew, sung in a loud voice. When the bride arrives at the groom’s house, she is handed over to her mother-in-law. She will remain hidden in a separate room until nightfall. The officiating rabbi then recites aloud the Kittubah, (marriage certificate) established by the suffrims. Then a reception with a hearty meal is offered to the parents and guests of both families. While the festivities continue, the groom presents himself in front of the bride who is waiting for him in the room and they will have dinner together. 

On the next morning, the groom will be awakened to go to the synagogue, and this, for 7 days. The evening prayer takes place at home where it is customary for guests to come and say the evening prayer. The day after the wedding, on Thursday afternoon, the bride and groom, seated on two armchairs and having set up a table of sweets, the couple receive visitors who have come to bring them gifts. In exchange, they offer packages of cakes. After a few weeks, the newlyweds are invited to the home of the bride’s parents, a ceremony which is called “tornaboda” in Spanish, i.e. the return of the bride.

The Jews of Fez

For nearly 1200 years, the history of the Jews of Fez was intertwined with that of the city and its human, economic and cultural components. At certain times, it even marked the course of the city, as in 1465. On the other hand, from the eleventh century until the beginning of the twentieth, the large groups of Jewish origin who converted, willingly or by force, to Islam (the Baldiyyîn) and the expelled from Spain (Muhajirîn) contributed to the social and intellectual movements that nourished the economic and political life of Muslim Fez and forged its reputation as a great and influential metropolis in the history of Morocco. (32)

For Denis Rivet, the Jews of Fez had a special status: (33)

‘’Les juifs ne sont ni dans la société maghrébine, ni en dehors, mais un entre deux : ni peuple hôte dans la cité, ni peuple paria victime de la dhimmitude. […] Avec les musulmans, ils vivent dans un état de voisinage et d’exclusion, de complémentarité et de concurrence, de proximité et de différenciation.’’

[‘’The Jews are neither in the Maghrebi society, nor outside it, but in between: neither a host people in the city, nor a pariah people victim of dhimmitude. […] With Muslims, they live in a state of neighborhood and exclusion, of complementarity and competition, of proximity and differentiation.’’]

He goes on to say about them:

‘’ni exclus, ni inclus, mais reclus’’

[”neither excluded nor included, but recluse”]

Already present in the year 789 on the first site of the city founded by Idris I, near the hot springs of Sidi Hrazem, Jews found themselves nearly 20 years later in the new site defined by Idris II in 808 as the capital of the kingdom. They came from Andalusia or Al-Qayrawan (Kairouan, today’s Tunisia), like a large part of the Muslim population. Since then, they have been able to carry out their economic activities considered essential to the social life of the city while specializing in certain trades. Subjected to the protective but no less ambivalent, humiliating and unstable status of dhimmis in exchange for the payment of the Jizyah, the Jews of Fez benefited from a cultural and religious autonomy that allowed them to lead an intense Jewish life, to produce a considerable rabbinical creation and to forge a specific identity within North African and Andalusian Judaism from the beginning. Until the dispersion of the community in the third quarter of the XX^th century, Jewish life in Fez was thus determined and evolved, as it did everywhere in Morocco, at the intersection of these two constants: on the one hand, a firm and tenacious religious, cultural and identity-based self-determination; on the other hand, an economic dependence on the surrounding population and a political subjection to the Muslim powers in place, whose ups and downs and tensions had at times tragic effects for the community. 

Compared to the other Jewish communities in Morocco the community of Fez (34) has, since its formation, held the undisputed role of creative and cultural leadership; more often than not, it has had the largest Jewish population in terms of numbers. The history of the Jews of Fez is divided into three key periods: 

• The medieval period (808-1452), which saw the development of a Jewish metropolis of exceptional influence in the tenth and eleventh centuries;
• The middle period (1452-1900), with the successful transplantation of Spanish Judaism into a Jewish-Moroccan context; and 
• The final period (1900-1975), in which the temptations of modernization preceded the dissolution of the community.

Oren Kosansky writes on the Jewishness of Fez: (35)

‘’Moroccans also consider Fez to be a Jewish city. The “Jewishness” of Fez and its population often entails two claims. First, Fez was home to Morocco’s original segregated Jewish quarter (est. 1438), which later became known as the mellah. Second, some of the most renowned Muslim families of Fez had Jewish origins. Family names like Ben-Choukroun or Ben-Soussan, shared by both Muslims and Jews, are said to indicate a Jewish source. Ben-read as a Hebrew word meaning “son of,” and opposed to the Arabic variant, Ibn-is commonly taken by both Muslims and Jews as proof of Jewish ancestry. To situate this possibility in historical terms, Moroccans sometimes invoke periods of mass conversions of Fasi Jews under the rule of medieval Moroccan dynasts.’’

The ups and downs of a Jewish metropolis

During the period of the community’s formation and consolidation, in the ninth century, there are few documents that tell us anything about Jewish life, apart from the mention of incidents in which Jewish men and women were involved and of large sums of money that were paid by the community, which already testifies to its various economic activities and an important social presence. The first Jewish quarter called al-Funduq al-Yahûdî, whose occupants were finally evacuated in the XV^th century, also dates from this period. The Jews already had an important share in the city’s small and large-scale trade and occupied an exclusive place in the processing of precious metals and their use in goldsmithing and jewelry, which Islam forbade its followers to practice because of the risk of usury. 

From the tenth century onwards, the Jewish community of Fez is mentioned in the commercial correspondence discovered in the buried Jewish archives, the Gueniza, of Cairo, as well as in the Responsa that the Masters of Jewish science of Iraq, the Gueonim, sent to the community through the intermediary of the great Jewish luminaries of Kairouan, as well as in those of the Talmudic schools of the Holy Land. The community is definitively established in Jewish history through the epistle-essay that the poet and physician R. Yehudah Ibn Quraysh of Tahert (in Algeria) addressed at the beginning of the tenth century to the Jews of Fez to urge them to continue reading the Aramaic version of the weekly biblical section after the Hebrew text, even if they knew enough Hebrew to understand the original text. This linguistic research was not a trivial exercise for the recipients, for Fez was already a center for the study of Hebrew grammar and a major center of Jewish science, like Kairouan, Al-Mahdia, Tunis, Gabes, and Tahert. It had become a Jewish metropolis whose rabbinic and literary creation, inspiration, and emulation would even influence the blossoming of the Judeo-Andalusian Golden Age in Muslim Spain.  (36)

Thus, in the first half of the tenth century, grammarians such as Yehuda Hayyuj, alias Abū Zacharia Yahya ben David al-Fāsi, and Dunash Ben Labrat Halevi, born in Baghdad but trained in Fez, emigrated to Andalusia, where they were the forerunners of the Judeo-Spanish Golden Age of the tenth to eleventh centuries in the realm of Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic letters.  The former dealt with the triliteral verbal roots of the Hebrew verbal system and the latter, who was also a poet, adapted the quantitative versification of Arabic poetry to Hebrew. In the second half of the century, the lexicographer Abraham Ibn Daoud al-Fāsi wrote the 22-section dictionary of the Bible in Arabic and moved to Palestine. Similarly, the great Master R. Itshaq al-Fāsi, alias Harif, born in Qalat Hammad and author of the commentary supplements to the Talmud (Tosafot) and Responsa held a Yeshiva in Fez for decades that was famous in the Jewish world. At the end of his life, in 1088, he moved to Cordoba and then to Luzon, where he continued his teaching and where he died in 1091.

Why did these great scholars leave Fez, when the community was thriving? Apart from the attraction of the Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031), which was then in full expansion with its great Jewish viziers, the cause is to be sought in the political instability which affected Fez in the tenth and eleventh centuries, with the seizure of power by the Zirids (972-1014) after other troubles. They deported the Jews of Fez and Tlemcen to the fort of Achir (in Algeria) in 986. Although the exiles returned to Fez some fifteen years later and their landed property was restored, the community was again afflicted in 1032-33. But some stability was restored under the Almoravids (1050-1147), whose leader, Yūsuf ibn Tashfin, took Fez in 1068, unified it, made it a great religious center, and developed it into a major economic and military center, from which he advanced to Spain.

The Jews of Fez in the eye of the storm

The Jewish community also benefited from this economic prosperity, but the ousting of the Almoravid dynasty 80 years later temporarily signalled its end as a living social organism. The new masters, the Almohads (1130-1269), led by Abd al-Mumin, took Fez in 1148. As in their other conquests, they imposed by force their rigorous unifying vision of divine attributes and forced the Jews (and recalcitrant Muslims) to choose between conversion to their doctrine, departure to other places, or the sword. The fate of those who would neither recant nor leave was sealed. Chronicles report the murder of thousands of Muslims and a large number of Jews in various communities. With the majority of Jews having recanted to save their lives, all public Jewish life ceased until 1269, when the Almohad dynasty collapsed under Marinid (1244–1465) attack. 

For more than a century, the Jews of Fez and other communities lived as Muslims, but for the most part they continued to practice certain Jewish customs in secret. At times, even the surveillance of new converts was less rigorous, as was the case in Fez in the years 1160-1165 when the famous Maimonides (R. Moshe ben Maymon, 1138-1204) settled there with his father fleeing Cordoba. He studied there with the great sage R. Yehuda Hacohen ben Sousan, but when his teacher was martyred for refusing to publicly recant, he left the city for Palestine and eventually settled in Egypt. Two other great Jewish scholars, the exegete R. Yosef ben Aqnin and the poet R. Yehuda ben Shemuel Ibn Abbas followed suit later and settled in Aleppo, Syria. At the end of the twelfth century, harsher measures were taken against Crypto-Jews, such as the wearing of distinctive clothing, the prohibition of trade, and the separation of children from their families to be educated by old Muslim families. But persecution later abated, allowing the various communities to reorganize openly under the tolerant rule of the Marinids.

The Banū Marin made Fez their capital and installed their power in a new part of the city, Fās aj-Jdid, having failed to gain legitimacy among the local population, despite their efforts to promote shurafâ’ and ^culamâ’ elites. They had Jewish doctors and even Jewish viziers. Under the new dynasty, many families recovered their Judaism, but others (the Muhâjirîn or Baldiyîn) preferred to keep their Muslim faith and economic status. In the second half of the fourteenth century and in the fifteenth, the Jewish community of Fez was, on the other hand, strengthened by many Jewish families from Spain who fled the Inquisition and integrated among the Toshabim or indigenous Jews. 

This new normalization of Jewish life in Fez, however, was subject to many upheavals, the first of which was the order given to them in 1438 to evacuate their old quarters in the old city (Fās al-Bâlî) and move to a new site in Fās aj-Jdid, which was exclusively reserved for them and which had been laid out on saline soil, hence its name of Mellah. The pretext given for this forced relocation was the discovery of the tomb of the saint Idris II a year earlier in the old city, which made it a holy place of Islam. Those who refused to leave their homes and businesses were forced to embrace Islam and joined the ranks of the Baldiyîn.

The transplantation of Spanish Judaism in a Jewish-Moroccan context

In spite of these repeated misfortunes and the vagaries of Fez’s destiny, which was, in turn, a privileged capital and a city abandoned by the sovereigns of the various dynasties, the local Jewish community was able to recover, produce and create each time. A few years after the massacre of 1465, it was able to regain its strength thanks to new arrivals from Spain and other local communities, which facilitated the absorption of the Megorashim, expelled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497, (38) and redrew its new human and cultural landscape. Since the arrival of the Megorashim, the evolution of Jewish life in Fez has been documented in the various communal chronicles that recorded significant facts and events until 1925, as well as in the extensive corpus of rabbinic ordinances (Taqqanot) that organized and reshaped daily Jewish life from 1494 to 1750. On the other hand, the diplomatic archives of the powers that traded with Morocco since the sixteenth century are rich in documents concerning this trade as well as the diplomatic missions in which Jewish emissaries or interpreters were involved. In all these documents, the place of Jews of Spanish origin is predominant. (39)

After the arrival of the Megorashim, tensions arose between them and the Toshabim, against a background of competition, different Jewish ways of life and traditions, such as the lively controversy of 1526-1531, which concerned certain rules for the examination of ritually slaughtered animals and which ended in victory for the Megorashim. However, harmony was established fairly quickly between the two communities, which continued to have different organizations until the end of the 17th century. The loss of influence of Fez to Meknes during the long reign of Moulay Ismail (1678- 1727), as well as the weakening of its economic activities and even its population, contributed to the de facto unification of the two communities. The Megorashim then acquired hegemony in all fields. They brought with them their refined Judeo-Andalusian and Spanish ways of life, their advanced material culture, including their fine cuisine, and embroidered clothing, including the wedding dress (al-Kaswa al-Kbira). For nearly 150 years, until about 1650, they continued to practice their Judeo-Castilian and Judeo-Portuguese, but their bilingualism gradually faded away in favor of Judeo-Arabic and at the expense of Iberian languages. However, traces of their original languages are still evident in the Judeo-Arabic of Fez. (40)

Vanessa Paloma, on the Megorashim influence onMoroccan Jewish life, writes: (41)

‘’Fez had an ancient Jewish community, which came to be known as the Toshavim (dwellers) that had been decimated in 1465 in a wave of persecution and conversion in central Morocco (Deshen, 8). When the Megorashim (expulsed ones) arrived in great numbers after 1492, the existing community was overwhelmed by the newcomers. There were significant differences in Jewish practice and perceptions. The liturgical rites were slightly different between the newly arriving Spanish Jews and the local community. For instance, their shehitá (kosher slaughtering) and their ketubot (marriage contracts) had significant differences.

In Fez, in the sixteenth century, a group known as the Hajamei Castilla became dominant in decisions of rabbinical law, but at the level of language and culture, the struggle was more protracted. Even though the Sephardic community of Fez had become an Arabic-speaking community by the eighteenth century, having dropped their Spanish language traces, it is striking to note that in the 1940s there was an Ein Keloheinu prayer sung in the synagogue Slat al Fassiyin in Hebrew, Arabic and Judeo-Spanish. In a private conversation2, Professor Joseph Chetrit mentioned that as far south as Taroudant, his village of origin, there was one family who sang this prayer with its Spanish addition on the holiday of Simhat Torá. They did not understand the Spanish anymore, but it was in honor of their Spanish ancestors that they kept this tradition alive. This served as a remnant and trace to the memory of this community’s connection to Spain.’’

In the seventeenth century, the Toshabim absorbed other Moroccan communities that were forcibly devalued, such as the Jews of Chaouiya in 1664 driven out by Moulay Rachid and those of Taza in 1690 punished by Moulay Ismail. Both of them insisted on continuing their liturgical traditions in separate synagogues, just as some Toshabim maintained the ancient liturgical traditions of Fez in the Aben Danan synagogue until the XX^th century. But apart from these liturgical marks and certain nuptial traditions, Jewish life in Fez was regulated according to Judeo-Spanish practices and under the undisputed leadership of the rabbinic lineages of the Megorashim, who were joined by a few Toshabim rabbis of the Aben Danan and Aflalo families. From the end of the sixteenth century onwards, therefore, it was the great families of Castilian origin, such as the Uzziel, the Serero, the Mansano, the Aben Sur, the Monsonego, the Sarfati (or ha-Sarfati), the Aben Hayim, and many others, who provided lines of famous rabbis and scholars who made the scholarship of Fez shine in the Sephardic Jewish world from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Apart from the specific Judeo-Andalusian traditions, which they consolidated in various Taqqanot, they continued the study and teaching practices of Spanish Judaism. (42)

In the family Talmudic schools (Yeshivot), the commentary of Rashi (or R. Shelomo Yitzhaqi), the famous French exegete of the eleventh century, was the primary foundation of all biblical and Talmudic study, and the rational bases of Halakha (Jewish Law) were explained and inculcated. Apart from the discussion of halakhic questions, these lines of authors were interested in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic poetry, biblical and Talmudic exegesis, and philosophical exegesis, and left hundreds of manuscripts, only some of which have been published, some of which have been lost, and some of which remain unpublished. All of these prestigious lines of rabbis almost all died out in the course of the twentieth century under the seductions of the modernity introduced by the Alliance schools (43) as early as 1884. (44)

A waiting society with a diversified economy

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Megorashim and their descendants carried out diplomatic missions on behalf of Moroccan rulers and negotiated treaties between Morocco and Spain or Portugal and later with Holland. Great figures like Jacob Rosales, Jacob Ruti and later Samuel Pallache negotiated on behalf of Morocco with the rulers of Spain and Portugal during the height of the Inquisition. They fulfilled such missions thanks to their knowledge of foreign languages and their diplomatic skills. Many others served as translators during visits of foreign legations to the royal palace. These diplomats and translators, like many other Megorashim and their descendants, however, were mainly engaged in their commercial occupations consisting of the import of cloth and manufactured European goods and the export of sugar, leather goods, hides, and olive oil and sometimes also grain and large and small livestock when the rulers allowed it. They also distributed foreign, Moroccan, and Fassi products in different localities. (45)

Small trade was, as everywhere in Morocco, one of the essential occupations of the Jews of Fez, of all origins, and some of them even ran shops in the Muslim quarters (the Medina), either independently or in association with Muslims outside periods of tension. They sold cloth, olive oil, charcoal, haberdashery, spices, various commodities, sugar, and later tea, and some were even associated with peasants in the breeding of small livestock and in horticulture. (46) Until the XX^th century, the Jews of Fez continued to distinguish themselves in the processing of precious metals. They worked exclusively in goldsmithing and jewelry, serving the princes and their wives as well as the rest of the population, as well as in the manufacture of gold and silver thread (the famous Sqallî) and embroidery with gold and silver thread. (47)

The Jews of Fez were also carders, making balls of wool and producing soap from olive oil, yellow copper utensils, and mahya brandy from wax or fermented fruit. They were also doughnut merchants, shoemakers, bakers, tinsmiths, as well as market gardeners, and butchers to satisfy the needs of the inhabitants of the Mellah. Among the wealthiest were those who had real estate in the Mellah and lived easily from renting it. (48) As for the Jewish women, they were generally housewives, but some did gold and silver thread embroidery or made buttons from coiled threads. In the late XIX^th century, with the introduction of Singer sewing machines, many became seamstresses and made clothes for Muslim and Jewish retailers. After the establishment of the Protectorate, Jewish girls were able to take up office jobs, especially as secretaries, in private firms, the civil service, and banks. (49)

According to Visiting Jewish Morocco, theoccupations of Moroccan Jews were useful and varied: (50)

‘’The occupations and professions available to Moroccan Jews have been dependent upon changing economic opportunities and the political environment. While they helped them earn income, they also helped them forge Moroccan Jewish culture. The Jews of Morocco were respected for their skill in handicrafts, embroidery and metalwork, as well as their ability to market their products and imported goods. Over the centuries, a few Jews with family contacts in European ports were favored by the Sultan (the former title of the King) and given a monopoly over the import and export trade. Taxes from these activities as well as loans from the Jewish merchants often sustained the monarchy. However, until the twentieth century, many Jewish families lived close to poverty. Others were unemployed and depended upon the few rich Jews for charity.

Jews who lived among the Amazigh people in the South and mountain areas gained their living from the trans-Saharan caravan trade until ocean transport of goods became more profitable in the 18th century. The Sultan’s control of these areas was not always strong, leading to insecure conditions. Many Jewish men traveled among Amazigh villages as peddlers. Amazigh leaders protected them from harm. As the economic base of the regions deteriorated, many Jews migrated to the towns and cities, particularly Marrakesh, Agadir and Essaouira.’’

But despite this wide range of professions and jobs, many poor people had no means of support. The Community Solidarity Fund, which was supplied with voluntary donations or with the proceeds from the rental of common Jewish property (the Heqdesh), took care of them, especially on the occasion of Jewish holidays. Similarly, until the reform of the rabbinical courts in 1918, which established the remuneration of rabbis-judges by the state, the rabbis and judges of the community did not receive a salary. For their livelihood, rabbis and scholars acted as notaries or scribes for various types of contracts and biblical fragments (the Mezuzot) or Torah scrolls on parchment. They also ran businesses or held shares in synagogues, for which they earned a small stipend. 

In the twentieth century, the Jews of Fez were, after those of Tangier, the first to open up to the liberal professions, and among them were the first students, lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, and teachers in Morocco, as well as printers and publishers. The development of the banking system, industry, and the agricultural farms of the French settlers also enabled many young Jews to enter administrative and clerical positions, as they were among the first to receive a modern education in the Alliance schools.

The Jews of Fez, perhaps because they experienced first-hand the instability of power and its sometimes-disastrous consequences for the community, were fervent believers in the Messianic Redemption as early as the eleventh century when Moshe Derci predicted in 1120 the arrival of the Messiah and endangered the survival of the community. In 1526, the leaders of the Megorashim sent emissaries, including Ya’aqov ha-Sofer, to Portugal to meet with another false messiah David Haréubeni, who was staying in the court of King Joao III (1521-1557) in Tavira. The “messiah” asked his correspondents in Fez to lead a Jewish army to liberate Palestine. They were also fervent Zionists, which led to an immigration movement to Palestine in 1920-1922, but these hundreds of immigrants returned to Fez destitute. After the foundation of the State of Israel, the Jews of Fez were among the first to make their Aliya en masse in successive waves. Many of them, especially the young, preferred to settle in France and Canada.

Nature of the Mellah

The most important characteristics that differentiate the Jewish quarter from the Muslim communities can still be appreciated. One of the most important details concerns the construction of the buildings, which have exterior balconies with wrought iron latticework, completely different from the Moroccan houses, in which the windows face an interior courtyard.

For the Tharaud brothers, when visiting Marrakesh, at the beginning of the last century, for them the Mellah is: (51)

‘’un des lieux les plus affreux du monde.’’/

“one of the most dreadful places in the world.’’

Today, when you walk through the old quarter of the Mellah of Fez, which is no longer in good condition, you will notice that it differs from the other part of the old medina by the very particular architecture of the buildings. On the main street of the Mellah, you will find jewelers’ shops for those who are looking for jewelry and on top of these premises, beautiful facades and wooden balconies.

The Mellahs, walled on all four sides and generally closed, housed the Jewish population of Moroccan cities. (52) As a result, these spaces fostered Jewish community life through their physical structures. Mellahs were generally organized in neighborhoods and had synagogues, a Jewish cemetery, and kosher markets located among other public spaces. Even the synagogue itself facilitated a wide variety of Jewish communal needs, including education, ritual baths, and spaces for children to play. (53)  While at first, these neighborhoods offered considerable comfort to Jewish families, with spacious homes and protection due to the proximity of the royal palace, these luxuries soon came to an end.

However, over time, the narrow streets of the neighborhoods became crowded and overrun with people, and they became synonymous with ghettos. Jews were confined to the inner walls of dilapidated Mellahs, and the areas became associated with cursed and “salty” lands, just as Jews were perceived in Moroccan society. (54)

Because Jews were key players in trade and commerce, Mellahs were often located on major waterways and were generally close enough together to effectively facilitate trade networks. (55) Even more, the Mellah market became a prominent space not only for the Jewish community, but also for non-Jewish peoples who came to shop on market days. Because Jews generally held positions as merchants and artisans, the Mellah was an attractive trading post for the entire city, not just the Jewish quarter. (56)  The separation certainly stifled cultural interaction to some extent, but Muslims were allowed to enter the Mellah and did so if they needed goods and services that fit into the Jewish niche. (57)

The Mellahs of Morocco emerged mainly when Jews migrated to Morocco after being expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 during the Spanish Inquisition. (58) There were two main justifications given for their construction:

• First, these Jewish neighborhoods were often in close proximity to the ruling local authorities, offering a form of protection to the Jews. This explanation also relates to the resulting effective authority over the different religious populations; if all the Jews are physically together, it is easier to maintain an effective Muslim regime, assess taxes, and count the community; and
• The second justification for the cause of the institution of the Mellah is the idea that the Mellahs were a “collective punishment for specific transgressions.” Jews were associated with ethical deviance, physical deformity, and disease and were therefore separated from the Christian and Muslim populations. (59)

The organization of the city as a whole provides insight into the situation of Jews in relation to the Muslim majority and the relevance of these justifications to specific Mellahs. As Gilson Miller et al. writes: (60)

“Sometimes the neighborhood is contained within the larger city and forms a microcosm of it, such as the Jewish quarter in Tetouan; at other times it is removed from the molecular city and attached to the royal enclave, as in Fez. the neighborhood invites speculation about its origins and the relationship between the Jewish minority and the Muslim majority. Was the purpose of the neighborhood to isolate its inhabitants, to safeguard them, or both? In Fez, the proximity of the mellah to the royal palace is often read as a sign of Jewish dependence on the power and protection of the ruling ruler. “ 

While the location of Jewish settlement was generally imposed by Muslim rulers, the Mellah existed relatively autonomously, with Jews building and sustaining their own communities within the walls of their neighborhood. Indeed, there was resistance to forced relocation, but eventually, the Jewish Mellah became a sanctified space of which Jews were proud. 

For Gottreich, the door of the Mellah had a special significance for the Jews: (61)

“The one gate that gave way to the medina, which could easily have been repudiated as an emblem of imprisonment, was instead treated as an object of reverence by the inhabitants of the mellah, as we see in this early twentieth-century description: If one stops for a moment in front of this door, one sees a curious thing: all who pass by, children, beggars, peddlers driving their donkeys loaded with goods, old women, bent men, all approach this dusty wall and press their lips against it as fervently as if they were kissing the holy Torah.” 

Moses Ben ‘Attar was one of the Jews that rose to fame from the Mellah of Meknes. This merchant became one of the Jewish favorites of Moulay Ismail and ultimately: tâjer as-sultan (Sultan’s emerchant), a very prestigious and rewarding position, politically and financially. His financial genius and the gifts he lavished on the ruler’s favorites ensured his great credit. Appointed sheikh of the Jews: Sheikh Lihûd, jointly with Abraham Maymorān, whose daughter he married after having been his rival, he commanded all his co-religionists. His actions had been the cause of the ruinous setback imposed in 1716 on French trade. (62) In 1720 and 1723, he took part in the negotiations for the redemption of the English and French captives and made them pay dearly for his help. The wealth he had amassed aroused the covetousness of the Sultan, who demanded from him a tribute of twenty quintals of silver. He fell into disgrace at the end of his life and died in Meknes in September 1724. (63)

In those days, the minister of finance of Moulay Sliman was named Abraham Sicsu. His treasurer was Isaac Pinto, and the customs administrator in Tangier was a man named Moses Benasulī. When he undertook his journey to Meknes, he expressed the desire to have three Israelite personalities in his retinue. These notables were David Elkrief, Joseph Attias, and Benjamin Bensadon.

The Mellah through centuries

XVI^th-XVIII^th centuries: 

For a while, the Mellah of Fez remained the only one. The second Mellah was only established in the second half of the XVI^th century in Marrakech, which had then replaced Fez as the capital of Morocco under the new Saadian dynasty. Here too, the city’s Jewish population lived alongside the Muslim population. Many of them came from the Atlas regions and the nearby town of Aghmat, where a much older Jewish community already existed. (64)

The Jewish quarter of the time was concentrated in the current district of Mouassine. In 1557-58, Sultan Moulay Abdallah al-Ghalib ordered that the city’s Jewish population move from there to an area next to the royal Qasbah (citadel), and construction of the new Mellah of Marrakech was probably completed around 1562-1563. (65) (66) The political motivations for this may have been similar to those of the Marinids in creating the Mellah of Fez, which served as a precedent followed by the Saadian dynasty. 

In addition, however, Moulay Abdallah seemed to have planned the creation of new “model” Muslim quarters in the city, centered around the new Mouassine Mosque, which he immediately built on the newly vacated land of the old Jewish quarter. (67) Another factor for the movement may have been the rapid growth of the Jewish population due to the influx of Jewish migrants from Fez and other cities seeking economic opportunities in the capital.  Incidentally, the new Mellah was indeed quite large and functioned as a city in its own right, with its own services and facilities.  (68) Despite this, some historical references indicate that Jews may still have been living in other parts of the city in the decades after the Mellah was established. 

Morocco’s third Mellah was not established until 1682, when the Alaouite Sultan Moulay Ismail moved the Jewish population of Meknes, his new capital, to a new neighborhood on the southwestern side of the city, next to the vast new royal citadel he was building there for himself. (69) 

XIX^th century

In the early XIX^thcentury, around 1807, Sultan Moulay Slimane forced Jews to settle in Mellahs in the cities of the coastal region, in Rabat, Salé, Essaouira, and Tétouan (in Tétouan the Spanish word judería was later used as the name of the district). The Mellah of Rabat was founded in 1808 by Sultan Moulay Slimane; this separated Jews and Muslims who had lived together in a common area of the city. (70) In Salé, the new Jewish quarter was a long avenue with a total of 200 houses, 20 stores and trading booths, two ovens, and two mills. In 1865, the overcrowded Mellah of Essaouira was allowed to expand.

In particular, the fortunes of the Jewish community in Fez improved considerably during this century as the expansion of contacts and trade with Europe allowed the Jewish merchant class to place itself at the center of international trade networks in Morocco.  This also led to greater social openness and a change in tastes and attitudes, especially among the wealthier Jews, who built luxurious residences in the upper parts of the Mellah. (71) 

XX^th century and beyond

At the beginning of the twentieth century, wealthy Jews began to move to the new neighborhoods (Ville nouvelle) planned along the European urban projects, leaving only the elderly and the poorest families in the Mellahs.  

Since the creation of the State of Israel, in 1948, almost all Moroccan Jews have emigrated, either to the new Jewish state or to countries like France and Canada, (72) encouraged by the Jewish Agency. As a result, today the Mellahs are inhabited only by Muslims, the few remaining Jews having moved to the modern parts of Moroccan cities. The evolution of the Moroccan economy has also meant that the majority of Moroccan Jews now live in the modern metropolis of Casablanca, with about 5,000 living there in 1997 (only 150 in Fez, by comparison). (73)

In Marakesh, parts of the Mellah show signs of gentrification in the XXI^st century. Only three Jewish families remain in the Mellah, one of them running the Slat al-Azama synagogue, one of the few remaining in the area. (74) The Mellah of Fez faces a similar fate; however, it is currently being renovated with funding from UNESCO. 

Conclusion: Is the Mellah a ghetto for the Jews or a Moroccan district reserved for them?

All available historical evidence shows that the Mellah has never been erected for the Jews with the idea of putting them in a ghetto, as was the case in Europe prior to WWII. The proof is that rural Jews have always lived amongst Berber Muslim population in south-eastern Morocco and all-over Amazigh land. 

The walled quarters for the Jews were built next to royal palaces or Pasha’s residences for two essential reasons, firstly to protect from the attacks of religious fanatics during rebellions, with in mind the horrible pogrom of Fez of 1033 (75) and much later on that in the early days of French colonization in 1912 known as Le Tritel. (76) Secondly, the economic importance of the Jews to Moroccan economy necessitated having them all located in one quarter for ease of conducting business and trade with them or by them. (77)

 In Sefrou, a street near the Mellah was known as the banking street because it had shops that financed the caravan trade that started in the city and went to Timbuktu in today’s Mali to exchange salt for African gold. The local shop-banks made also loans to Berber peasants payable at the end of the agricultural cycle. (78) Parallel to this street, there was the street of the artisans: ironsmiths, goldsmiths, blood letters, medical herbalists, etc. Jews were successful in trade and business because they offered easy payment terms for their merchandise or money loans. In this city, there was a well-known saying among the population:

Li bghiti, tjebrou ^cand Moshe lihoudi

[Whatever you need, you can find it at Moshe the Jew]

Throughout Moroccan history, the Mellah was the economic heart of the city and the country. The Sultans recruited their tujjâr, traders and businessmen there, their interpreters, their diplomats, their international envoys, their personal physicians, and their visirs. In short, the Moroccan Jew was truly the Jack of all trades and truly the master of them all.

When the Jews departed for Israel, France, Canada, and the US starting in the 1950, Morocco lost its precious jacks and regretted bitterly their departure. (79) For Moroccans, the Jews may have left physically but their spirit remains in Morocco in the Mellahs, in their cemeteries, caravanserais, in the shrines of their saints, in their music and food. In some south-eastern Moroccan Berber villages, the villagers celebrate annually, with much fervor, some Jewish festivals as a sign of regret for their departure. (80)

For many Moroccan Jews, the departure to Israel or elsewhere was a deep wound, to use the words of David Assouline, a French politician, and Historian born in Sefrou in 1959. He expressed this feeling in his documentary film entitled: ‘’Entre Paradis Perdu et Terre Promise’’. (81) Hopefully, the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel in 2020 will help heal the wound and bring Moroccan Jews back to Morocco to visit their Mellahs and pay tribute to their saints, in the meantime, the government is renovating all their cultural and religious vestiges in the cities and Berber people are guarding the shrines of their saints and their cemeteries in rural areas.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on X: @Ayurinu

Endnotes:

1.  Zafrani, Haim. Two Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Morocco. Brooklyn, New York:Ktav Pub Inc, 2005.
2.  Ben-Layashi, Samir & Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce. “Myth, History, and Realpolitik: Morocco and its Jewish Community”, in Abramson, Glenda (ed.). Sites of Jewish Memory: Jews in and from Islamic Lands. London: Routledge, 2018.
3.  Gottreich, Emily. Jewish Morocco : a history from pre-Islamic to postcolonial times. London : I.B. Tauris, 2021. 
4.  Zafrani, H. “Mallah”, in Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (éd.). Encyclopédie de l’Islam, deuxième édition. Barbue.
5.  https://www.sefaria.org/Rabbeinu_Bahya%2C_Bamidbar.18.19.1?lang=bi
6.  Bressolette, Henri & Delarozière, Jean. “Fès-Jdid de sa fondation en 1276 au milieu du XXe siècle”. Hespéris-Tamuda, 1983, pp. 245–318.
7.  Le Tourneau, Roger. Fès avant le protectorat : étude économique et sociale d’une ville de l’occident musulman . Casablanca : Société Marocaine de Librairie et d’Édition, 1949.
8.  Rguig, Hicham. “Quand Fès inventait le Mellah”, in Lintz, Yannick ; Déléry, Claire & Tuil Leonetti, Bulle (éd.). Maroc médiéval : Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne. Paris : éditions du Louvre, 2014, pp. 452–454. ISBN 9782350314907.
9.  Corcos, David. ‘’Les Juifs au Maroc et leurs mellahs’’, in Zakhor le-Abraham/Mélanges Abraham Elmaleh. Jerusalem, 1972, pp. 14–78.
10.  García-Arenal, Mercedes. “The Revolution of Fās in 869/1465 and the Death of Sultan ’Abd al-Ḥaqq al-Marīnī.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 41, no. 1, 1978, pp. 43–66, pp. 46–47.  JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/615622
11.  Ibid., pp. 45–46.
12.  Cahen, Claude. “D̲h̲imma”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel & W.P. Heinrichs. Leiden: Brill, 2006. https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/alphaRange/Dh%20-%20Dn/D?s.rows=100&s.start=20&lang=en
13.  Chtatou, Mohamed. (2022). The Mellah of Fez. Abode of Moroccan Jews and Center of Their Activities. Sephardic Horizons, 13(1). https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume13/Issue1/Chtatou.htm
14. Gilson Miller, Susan; Petruccioli, Attilio & Bertagnin, Mauro. “Inscrire l’espace minoritaire dans la ville islamique : le quartier juif de Fès (1438-1912)”, Journal de la Société des historiens de l’architecture, 60 (3), 2001, pp. 310–327. doi : 10.2307 / 991758 . JSTOR  991758. 
15.  Weill, Julien. Le Judaisme. Paris : Félix Alcan, 1931.
16.  Tolédano, J. L’esprit du mellah : humour et folklore des juifs du Maroc. Jerusalem : Editions Ramtol, 1986.
17.  Rguig, Hicham. “Quand Fès inventait le Mellah”, in Lintz, Yannick ; Déléry, Claire & Tuil Leonetti, Bulle (éd.). Maroc médiéva l: Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne . Op. cit.
18.  Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds. New York City: Doubleday, 2008.
19.  Gerber, Jane S.  Jewish Society in Fez 1450-1700: Studies in Communal and Economic Life. Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1980.
20.  Chetrit, Joseph. “Juifs du Maroc et Juifs d’Espagne: deux destins imbriqués”. Dans Lintz, Yannick; Déléry, Claire & Tuil Leonetti, Bulle (éd.). Maroc médiéval: Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne . Paris: Editions du Louvre, 2014, pp. 309–311. ISBN 9782350314907.
21.  Blachère, Regis. “Fès chez les géographes arabes du Moyen Âge”, Analecta. By Blachère. Damas : Presses de l’Ifpo, 1975, pp. 541-548. <http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/6276>.
22.  Al-Bakri. Kitâb al-masâlik wa l-mamâlik. Translated by de Slane. Paris, 1911. Translated also, Description de l’Afrique septentrionale.Paris, 1859.
23.  Le Tourneau, Roger. Fès avant le protectorat: étude économique et sociale d’une ville de l’occident musulman. Op. cit.
24.  García-Arenal, Mercedes. “The Revolution of Fās in 869/1465 and the Death of Sultan ’Abd al-Ḥaqq al-Marīnī,” op. cit., 47–48.
25.  Gilson Miller, Susan; Petruccioli, Attilio & Bertagnin, Mauro. “Inscrire l’espace minoritaire dans la ville islamique: le quartier juif de Fès (1438-1912)”. Op. cit.
26.  Rguig, Hicham. “Quand Fès inventait le Mellah”, in Lintz, Yannick; Déléry, Claire & Tuil Leonetti, Bulle (éd.). Maroc médiéval: Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne . Op. cit.
27.  Gilson Miller, Susan; Petruccioli, Attilio & Bertagnin, Mauro. “Inscrire l’espace minoritaire dans la ville islamique: le quartier juif de Fès (1438-1912)”. Op. cit.
28.  Chetrit, Joseph. “Juifs du Maroc et Juifs d’Espagne: deux destins imbriqués”. Dans Lintz, Yannick; Déléry, Claire; Tuil Leonetti, Bulle (éd.). Maroc médiéval: Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne . Op. cit.
29.  Abitbol, Michel. Histoire du Maroc. Paris:  Perrin, 2009, pp. 278-279.
30.  Rguig, Hicham. “Quand Fès inventait le Mellah”, in Lintz, Yannick; Déléry, Claire; Tuil Leonetti, Bulle (eds.). Maroc médiéval: Un empire de l’Afrique à l’Espagne. Op. cit., pp. 452–454.
31.  Hilûla (Judeo-Aramaic הילולא, a feminine noun formed from the root הלל, HLL, the primary meaning of which is “to shout with joy and fear “) is a Jewish custom of visiting the tombs of tzaddikim (i.e, (i.e., the righteous) on the anniversary of their death, and commemorating their death with a festive ceremony in which the pilgrims read Psalms and other sacred or considered sacred texts (such as the Zohar). The Hilûla is very similar to pilgrimages to the graves of Muslim and Christian saints. During a traditional Hilûla, pilgrims visiting the grave site sometimes stay there for several days, singing, dancing, reading texts including the Psalms, feasting, placing food or drink on the tombstones. Some people also put liquids on them in order to give them a thaumaturgical function. The burial places may be architecturally elaborate, as in the case of the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai on Mount Meron. Here again, this practice contrasts with the discretion that usually surrounds the burial place in Judaism (cf. the unknown tomb of Moses on Mount Nebo).
32.  Heller, Marvin J. ‘’A Fleeting Moment, A Short-lived Press: Hebrew Printing in Sixteenth Century Fez”, Jewish Horizons, Volume 11, Issue1, https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume11/Issue1/Heller.html
33.  Rivet, Daniel. Le Maroc de Lyautey à Mohammed V. Le double visage du Protectorat. Paris, Denoël, 1999, p. 95. (Coll. « L’Aventure coloniale de la France »).
34.  Kosansky, Oren. ‘’Reading Jewish Fez: On the Cultural Identity of a Moroccan City’’,  II Journal, Volume 8, Issue 3, Spring/Summer 2001. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0008.305/–reading-jewish-fez-on-the-cultural-identity-of-a-moroccan?rgn=main;view=fulltext#:~:text=First%2C%20Fez%20was%20home%20to,to%20indicate%20a%20Jewish%20source.
35.  Ibid.
36.  Chtatou, Mohamed. ‘’ The Golden Age of Judaism in Al-Andalus (Part I) ‘’, Eurasia Review, November 23, 2021. https://www.eurasiareview.com/23112021-the-golden-age-of-judaism-in-al-andalus-part-i-analysis/ Chtatou, Mohamed. ‘’ The Golden Age of Judaism in Al-Andalus (Part II) ‘’, Eurasia Review, November 24, 2021. https://www.eurasiareview.com/24112021-the-golden-age-of-judaism-in-al-andalus-part-ii-analysis/
37.  Ibid.
38.  Chtatou, Mohamed. ‘’Expulsion of Sephardic Jews from Spain in 1492 and their Relocation and Success in Morocco”, Eurasia Review,  September 5, 2019, https://www.eurasiareview.com/05092019-expulsion-of-sephardic-jews-from-spain-in-1492-and-their-relocation-and-success-in-morocco-analysis/
39.  Gerber, Jane S., and גרבר ג’. “הדמוגרפיה של הקהילה היהודית בפאס אחרי שנת 1492 / THE DEMOGRAPHY OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF FEZ AFTER 1492.” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעי היהדות, vol. ו, 1973, pp. 31–44. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23529108
40.  Schroeter, Daniel J. “The Shifting Boundaries of Moroccan Jewish Identities.” Jewish Social Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2008, pp. 145–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40207038
41.  Paloma, Vanessa. ‘’Judeo-Spanish in Morocco. Language, identity, separation or integration?’’, in La bienvenue et l’adieu. Migrants juifs et musulmans au Maghreb (XVe-XXe siècle), Frédéric Abécassis, Karima Dirèche & Rita Aouad (dir.). Rabat : Centre Jacques-Berque, 2012, pp. 103-112. https://books.openedition.org/cjb/217?lang=fr
42. Ibid
43.  Tavan, N. A. « L’alliance israélite universelle (II) », Le Monde Juif, vol. 26, no. 12, 1949, pp. 20-21. https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-monde-juif-1949-12-page-20.htm
44.  Zafrani, Haïm, Juifs d’Andalousie et du Maghreb, Paris : Éditions Maisonneuve & Larose, 2002.
45.  Hirschberg, H. Z. A History of the Jews of North Africa. Vol. I. Leiden: Brill, 1974.
46.  Mohammed Kenbib, Juifs et musulmans au Maroc, 1859–1948. Rabat: Université Mohammed V, 1994, pp. 431-33.
47.  Deshen, Shlomo, The Mellah Society: Jewish Community Life in Sherifian Morocco. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
48.  Shai, Srougo. “The Social History of Fez Jews in the Gold-Thread Craft between the Middle Ages and the French Colonialist Period (16th-20th centuries)”, Middle Eastern Studies, 54 (6), 2018, pp. 901-916.
49.  Visiting Jewish Morocco. ‘’Occupations and Professions Prior to the Twentieth Century‘’, https://moroccanjews.org/home/moroccan-jewish-culture/occupations-and-professions-of-moroccan-jews/
50. Ibid
51.  Leymarie, Michel. « Les frères Tharaud. De l’ambiguïté du « filon juif » dans la littérature des années vingt », Archives Juives, vol. 39, no. 1, 2006, pp. 89-109. https://www.cairn.info/revue-archives-juives1-2006-1-page-89.htm
52.  Tharaud, Jerome & Jean. Rabat, ou les heures marocaines. Paris : Emile-Paul Frères Editeurs, 1918.
53.  Gottreich, Emily. Mellah de Marrakech: espace juif et musulman dans la ville rouge du Maroc . Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2006, pp. 35-36.
54.  Shmulovich, Michal. “Entrevoir des souvenirs juifs au milieu des mellahs du Maroc”, The Times of Israel, March 9, 2014.
55.  Goldberg, Harvey. ‘’Les Mellahs du sud du Maroc: rapport d’enquête’’, La Revue du Maghreb , vol. 8, non. 3, ser. 4, 1983, pp. 61-69.
56.  Gottreich, Emily. Mellah de Marrakech: espace juif et musulman dans la ville rouge du Maroc. Op. cit., p. 73.
57.  Gilson Miller, Susan; Petruccioli, Attilio & Bertagnin, Mauro. “Inscrire l’espace minoritaire dans la ville islamique: le quartier juif de Fès (1438-1912)”. Op. cit., p. 323.
58.  Frank, Michael. ‘’In Morocco, Exploring Remnants of Jewish History”, The New York Times, May 30, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/travel/in-morocco-exploring-remnants-of-jewish-history.html
59.  Gottreich, Emily. Mellah de Marrakech: espace juif et musulman dans la ville rouge du Maroc. Op. cit., p. 21.
60.  Gilson Miller, Susan; Petruccioli, Attilio & Bertagnin, Mauro. “Inscrire l’espace minoritaire dans la ville islamique: le quartier juif de Fès (1438-1912)”. Op. cit., p. 311.
61.  Gottreich, Emily. Mellah de Marrakech: espace juif et musulman dans la ville rouge du Maroc. Op. cit., p. 34.
62.  Windus, John. A journey to Mequinez, the resindence of the present emperor of Fez and Morocco: On the occasion of Commodore Stewart’s embassy thither for the redemption of the british captives in the year 1721. US: Gale ECCO, 2018.
63.  Pillet, É. ‘’L’avanie de 1716 et la suppression du consulat de Salé’’, SIHM France (2^e série), t. VI, pp. 572-579.
64.  Zafrani, H. “Mallah”. Dans Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (éd.). Encyclopédie de l’Islam, deuxième édition. Op. cit.
65.  Deverdun, Gaston. Marrakech: Des origines à 1912 . Rabat: Éditions Techniques Nord-Africaines, 1959, pp. 363-364.
66.  Wilbaux, Quentin. La médina de Marrakech: Formation des espaces urbains d’une ancienne capitale du Maroc . Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001, p. 258. ISBN 2747523888.
67. Ibid
68.  Deverdun, Gaston. Marrakech: Des origines à 1912 . Op . cit.
69.  Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. Une histoire du Maghreb à l’époque islamique. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 234. ISBN 0521337674.
70.  Houtsma, M. Th.; T.W.Arnold, R.Basset & R.Hartmann. Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913-1936), Vol 5.  Leiden: Brill, 1993.
71.  Gilson Miller, Susan; Petruccioli, Attilio & Bertagnin, Mauro. “Inscrire l’espace minoritaire dans la ville islamique: le quartier juif de Fès (1438-1912)”. Op. cit.
72.  https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/fez
73. Ibid
74.  Frank, Michael. ‘’In Morocco, Exploring Remnants of Jewish History”. Op. cit.
75.  Boum, Aomar & Park, Thomas K. “Maghrawa Dynasty”, in Historical Dictionary of Morocco. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, p. 319.
76.  Hubert, Jacques. Les Journées sanglantes de Fez, 17-18-19 avril 1912 : les massacres ; récits militaires ; responsabilités. Paris : Librairie Chapelot, 1913.
77.  Meyers, A.R. ‘’Patronage and Protection: The Status of Jews in Precolonial Morocco’’, in: Deshen, S., Zenner, W.P. (eds). Jews among Muslims. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24863-6_6
78.  Kenbib, Mohammed. ‘’Études et recherches sur les Juifs du Maroc: Observations et réflexions générales’’, Hespéris-Tamuda LI (2),  2016, pp. 21-55. https://www.hesperis-tamuda.com/Downloads/2010-2019/2016/fascicule-2/2.pdf
79.  Chtatou, Mohamed. ‘’The Departure of Moroccan Jews to Israel Bitterly Regretted’’, Jewishwebsite, September 17, 2019. https://jewishwebsite.com/featured/the-departure-of-moroccan-jews-to-israel-bitterly-regretted/46551/
80.  Chtatou, Mohamed. ‘’The Shared Beliefs of Muslims and Jews in Morocco ‘’, Eurasia Review, July 5, 2022. https://www.eurasiareview.com/05072022-the-shared-beliefs-of-muslims-and-jews-in-morocco-analysis/
81.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6cMwB2YRU