The Mellah of Marrakesh Indiana Series in Middle East Studies Mark Tessler, general editor The Mellah of Marrakesh Jewish and Muslim Space in Morocco’s Red City Emily Gottreich indiana university press bloomington and indianapolis Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Jewish Studies Publications Program of the Koret Foundation. This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail [email protected] © 2007 by Emily Gottreich All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gottreich, Emily, date The mellah of Marrakesh : Jewish and Muslim space in Morocco’s red city / Emily Gottreich. p. cm. — (Indiana series in Middle East studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-253-34791-2 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-253-21863-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Morocco—Marrakech—History. 2. Jewish ghettos— Morocco—Marrakech—History—19th century. 3. City and town life—Morocco—Marrakech—History—19th century. 4. Marrakech Region (Morocco)—Social conditions—19th century. 5. Marrakech (Morocco)—Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series. DS135.M85M374 2007 305.892'406464—dc22 2006006669 1 2 3 4 5 12 11 10 09 08 07 To my parents Two things are forgotten only with death the face of one’s mother and the face of one’s city —from the poem “Straw-Blond” by Nazim Hikmet If one were to say that Marrakesh is perfect, it is not due to the perfection of one of its parts, but to all of them together. —ªAbd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi, al-iªl1m bi-man halla Marr1kush wa Aghm1t min al-aªl1m CONTENTS Acknowledgments xi Note on Transliteration, Spelling, and Usage xv Introduction: The Jewish Quarter and the Moroccan Whole 1 1. Mellahization 12 2. Counting Jews in Marrakesh 39 3. Muslims and Jewish Space 71 4. Jews and Muslim Space 92 5. Hinterlands 108 Epilogue: m1y al-Sal1m 132 Notes 139 Bibliography 183 Index 197 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the field of Moroccan Jewish history, the diffusion of primary source ma- terials tends to mirror the dispersal of the Jews themselves. For this reason, the various texts on which this study is based were amassed from libraries, archives, and private collections in Morocco, France, England, Israel, and the United States (the list could have gone on). There is little chance that I would have ever succeeded in collecting or attempting to interpret this quasi- geniza of the Jewish community of Marrakesh without the considerable help of many individuals in each of the places where I conducted research and wrote. It is to the scholars and staff of Harvard University, and particularly those affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, that I give thanks for launching me on the very rewarding path of Moroccan history. Foremost among those individuals is Susan Gilson Miller, who has seen this project through from its most tentative beginnings to its current form, unstintingly offering comments, criticisms, contacts, meals, and local knowledge along the way. Quite simply, I owe much of what I know and continue to learn about Moroccan history (not to mention life in general) to her. Through the Morocco Studies Program at Harvard, of which Susan Gilson Miller is the founding director, I was introduced to some of Morocco’s leading thinkers, including Abdellatif Bencherifa, Abdelhai Diouri, Abdelfattah Kilito, and Abdallah Laroui, all of whom generously shared their vast knowledge of Moroccan culture and society and inspired me to learn more. I was taken under the formidable wing of Isadore Twersky, who taught me the funda- ments of Jewish history and historiography. Although a Maimonides scholar, he was never able to travel to Fez to see the house reputed to once have been the home of the great RAMBAM, and so had to make do with my vague de- scriptions. His vision of the Jewish past has strongly influenced my own, for which I am grateful. The warm reception this project has received in Morocco has been grat- ifying to me both as an individual and as a practitioner of Jewish history. From the moment I first stepped off the plane in Rabat, Ed Thomas and his staff at the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Ex- change (MACECE) made every effort to facilitate my research, while the di- rectors and staff at the Direction des archives royales (MudErEya al-Wath1ºiq al-MalakEya), the Bibliothèque générale (al-Khiz1nat al-ª1mma), and the Bib- xi acknowledgments liothèque royale (al-Khiz1nat al-masanEya) welcomed me with open archives. When the libraries were closed, Khalid Ben Srhir had the patience and good humor to teach me how to decipher the documents I’d found in these places. Ahmed Toufiq likewise made his good offices available to me on several oc- casions, while Sion Assidon helped me trace the etymology of Moroccan Jew- ish names and provided his unique insight into their bearers’ histories. In Marrakesh, Jacky Kadoch, president of the Jewish community of Marrakesh- Essaouira, provided his full cooperation with this project, the importance of which cannot be overestimated. Whatever sense of place I have managed to convey in the following pages is owed in no small part to him. With Jacky’s introduction, the inhabitants of Marrakesh opened doors both real and figu- rative to the mellah and let me gaze in. I am grateful to them and hope that this book in some small way honors their forebears. The mayor of Marrakesh, Mr. Omar El Jazouli, allowed me to sit in on meetings about urban renewal programs for the former Jewish quarter, while the architects and planners of the Marrakesh branch of the Agence urbaine and the Etablissement ré- gional d’aménagement et de construction du Tensift graciously shared their expertise (as well as their maps) on several occasions. My research in France was greatly facilitated by the staffs of the Biblio- thèque nationale, the Archives du ministère des affaires étrangères, and es- pecially the Library of the Alliance israélite universelle, whose director, M. Jean-Claude Kuperminc, helped me appreciate the almost overwhelming complexity of the relationship between Moroccan Jewry and this important institution. The capable staffs at the Public Records Office, the British Li- brary, the Greater London Records Office, and Southampton University (where the records of the Anglo-Jewish Association are kept) ensured that my research in England was equally productive. In Israel, the librarians at Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University were most helpful, as were those of the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People and especially the Ben Zvi Institute, most notably Robert Attal. Shlomo Elbaz was kind enough to spend an afternoon with me in Jerusalem recalling the Marrakesh mellah of his youth. Financial support for this project came from the Moroccan Studies Pro- gram at Harvard University, the Fulbright-Hays Program of the U.S. De- partment of Education, and a Schmidt/American Historical Association African Studies grant. The completion of the manuscript was accomplished with a grant from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. For its insti- tutional support, I would like to recognize the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at U.C. Berkeley, and especially its chair, my friend and colleague Nezar AlSayyad, who has helped me try to articulate my understanding of space and cities despite my regrettable weaknesses in the field of architec- tural history. My colleagues in the field of Moroccan Jewish studies, Daniel Schroeter and Sarah Levin, deserve my warmest thanks for their endless sup- plies of goodwill, stray documents, gentle critiques, and prized tidbits of in- xii Acknowledgments formation on the most obscure of topics. Jonathan Zatlin read drafts of some chapters and offered useful comments. Dale Eickelman was a generous and kind reviewer whose suggestions helped improve this work on many levels. Mark Tessler and Janet Rabinowitch at Indiana University Press have been wonderfully supportive editors, while Miki Bird and Shoshanna Green have gently pushed me to confront my inconsistencies, at least in prose and cita- tions. For help with the illustrations, I am indebted to Varun Kapur and Lily Cooc. Finally, I owe a tremendous and unrepayable debt of gratitude to my parents, for whom education has always been what matters most. I dedicate this book to them. I thank Albert for help with the correct placement of French accents and for carrying my books across several continents, re- peatedly. And to Magda and Solal, the apples of my eye: I thank you for lend- ing meaning to it all. xiii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION, SPELLING, AND USAGE The question of language is always a difficult one for scholars of Moroccan history, especially Moroccan Jewish history, who must contend not only with the usual blurry distinctions between Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects but also with well-established French transliteration systems and Jew- ish accents on all of the above. Moreover, since the sources on which this study draws were written in several different languages and at different time periods, the renderings of the names of people and places, as well as tech- nical terms, vary quite a bit in the original texts consulted.