Jewish Moroccan heritage.

A long story that started very early, around roman times.
A tradition says that the Kahina, the Berber Queen who resisted the lattest to Arabic conquest, was actually leading a jewish tribe (Kahina would be a form of Cohen). However, jews were very early well integrated in the Berber tribes in the souts, and used, for example, in spite of their dhimmi condition, to wear and use arms to defend their tribe during the permanent raids and feudal disputes. Priviledge which was totally forbidden in most of the other countries, ans specially in all Europe !
A second wave of jewish immigration came with the fall of the Cordoba caliphat, and populated for example Fez and Essaouira...

More recently, Moroccan Jews were protected during WWII, and the King gave them moroccan citizenship, to protect them, refusing that they wear the yellow star or get deported.

If many of them left Morocco during the sixties and seventies, mainly for France and Israel, there is still a community, whose best known member might be Andre Azoulay, one of the nearest King's advisors. And there are still a lot of jewish "marabouts", graves of holy men, where people come in pilgrimage.

I translate here a very interesting article from Larbi's blog, unfortunatly in French.

Jewish part of Moroccan identity is still not well known, and that's a pity. Islam and Moroccan Judaism bear many similarities (traditions, rite...) which supported in the past a beautiful jewish-muslim fusion in Morocco. Here are a few examples :


Synagogue Moïse Nahon in Tangiers.

A Ketouba : Moroccan jewish wedding contract. According to the tradition, it is written in aramaic. You can see how much it looks like the muslim wedding act : both are impossible to decipher, and signed by religious officers.
For wedding, the rite is nearly identical in both communities : Legrama (Gifts and offers), henna ceremony, zgharit and even the old fashioned exhibition of the white sheet maculated with blood to prove the spouse's virginity.


I never knew why God enforced this punishment on guys, child of a Jew, child of a Muslim, both must be circumsed, taht's called Brit Mila by the Jews, Thara by the Muslims. Calendar is quite short for the first ones, avec the ceremony must be performed by the father on the eighth day after the birth, while the lattests are not bound by a formal limit (but they must not delay too long). nowadays, Muslims and Jews cheat a little bit and delegate the operation to hospitals and doctors.


Moroccan people, jewish or muslim, are highly superstitious and fear evil spirits. Hence the Khmissa to fight bad luck and protect oneself from the eye [bad eye means evil wish, bad luck, or anything negative sent on you by other people's wish or magic]. Khmissa is, by the way, no muslim religious sign, as I often hear it in France, but a sign common to all Morrocans, independantly from their religion.


This is a Moroccan cover of a Sefer Torah, a hand written copy of the Torah, stored as a roll. You can also spot the similarity with the decorations of Mihrabs and mosque, made with coranic verse (suras)


Photos: Association of Moroccan Jews