Jewish Morocco

Two thousand years, six stops

• 3rd century, Volubilis: the earliest physical evidence of a Jewish community in Morocco. Tradition traces it back to the destruction of the Temple, but there's no documentation.
• Around 1438, Fes: the first mellah, in Fes el-Jdid. The date is traditional, and scholars disagree on whether it was one move or a gradual process.
• 1764, Essaouira: the sultan builds a port and deliberately recruits Jewish merchant families. A single 1867 account puts Jews at about half of its 12,000 residents.
• 1940 to 1943, Vichy laws: Germany never occupied Morocco and no Moroccan Jew was deported. But two anti-Jewish dahirs carried the sultan's seal and stayed in force until March 1943, pushing Jews out of professions and schools. A French telegram from May 1941 has Mohammed V telling community representatives he did not approve them and that the Jews were under his protection.
• 1948 to 1964, the exodus: about 240,000 to 265,000 Jews at the peak, around 1947. The 1960 census counts 160,032, and by 1967 about 53,000 are left.
• 2020: Bayt Dakira opens in Essaouira as a memory center. In November, Morocco becomes the first country in the Arab world to teach Jewish history in its schools.

Trace your family roots (Hebrew)

City by city

• Fes: the first mellah in Morocco, and the Ibn Danan synagogue, where a mikveh nobody knew about turned up in 1997.
• Marrakech: a mellah from 1557, the still-active Slat al-Azama synagogue, and thousands of graves at Miara.
• Essaouira: built in 1764 with its Jewish merchants. Bayt Dakira, from 2020, is Morocco's main Jewish memory center.
• Tetouan: the Spanish-Jewish city, and home of the world's first Alliance school (1862).
• Casablanca: Morocco's biggest living community, and the only Jewish museum in the Arab world.
• Ouazzane: the most active Jewish pilgrimage site in Morocco.
• Oujda: about 44 Jews were murdered in Oujda and Jerada on 7 and 8 June 1948.
• Meknes: a mellah from 1682, and the collective hilula of the tzadikim on Lag BaOmer.

See all ten cities (Hebrew)

Tzadik tombs and hilulot

The Moroccan Jewish Heritage Foundation counts about 630 tzadik sites. There's no independent census, so we list only the sites we verified one by one. The calendar has 11 hilulot with verified dates.

Before you book a flight: some of the tzadikim people look for in Morocco are buried in Israel, like Baba Sali in Netivot. Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira is in Damanhur, Egypt.

Open the hilulot calendar (Hebrew)

Accuracy before drama

• Tradition is shown as tradition.
• No source, no date.
• No generated images of synagogues, cemeteries or tzadik tombs: real photos only, with the photographer credited.
• Found a mistake? Tell us.

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