Jewish History of the Moroccan Coast

Shalom Aleykoum, Salam Lekoulam

By Leslie Oversteyns - My best friend of +40 years and I met up in Marrekesh for six wonderful days at the end of January. As we both love the sea, we set out to visit Essaouira, 177kms west of Marrekesh on the Atlantic ocean.

The history of Essaouira goes back to the 5th or 6th century BC when the Phoenicians used the city as an important transit point when they travelled from Africa to Ecuador. In the 16th century, the Portuguese established a fortress and a trading post, which they called “Mogador.” The city’s current name, Essaouira, is derived from the Arabic word “Souira,” meaning “small fortress.”

Essaouira, the former Mogador, was once the main port of Morocco — and a very Jewish city.  In 1764, ten families of Jewish merchants were appointed as the Sultan’s merchants; they were charged with transforming Mogador into an important international port, one that would offer a straight line from the coast, through Marrakech, to the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara. The Jewish people who founded the city, nicknamed it “The Port of Timbuktu,” and enticed other Jews to join them; by 1770, 1,875 Jews  lived there.

Mogador’s Jewish community would continue to grow over the next century and a half. By 1950, the city had about 18,000 Jews (60% of the city’s population) and 37 synagogues. Many Jews devoted themselves to the salt business. The Jewish neighborhood is called Mellah, which comes from the word "salt" in Arabic. Also in the Mellah, the Jewish population made an anise-flavored fig alcohol called Mahia, meaning water of life in Arabic. The neighborhood had about forty distilleries. Mahia was enjoyed throughout the southwest of Morocco.

After Morocco's independence in 1956, and the Six-Day War in 1967, almost all the Jewish population deserted the city. And the Mellah neighborhood became abandoned. 

Bayt Dakira or the House of Memory is a Jewish museum in the Jewish quarter "Mellah"  located in the old medina. The museum aims to be a spiritual space dedicated to the Jewish community of the city. It plays an important role in the preservation and valorization of the Moroccan Jewish memory.

A Torah and Quran side by side

Included in the collection are rare Judaica and torahs, photographs, textiles and texts. The museum illustrates the coexistence between Muslims and Jews in the city. Visitors are greeted by the expression "Shalom Aleykoum, Salam Lekoulam" - see top photo - a mix of Arabic and Hebrew to illustrate the friendship between Jews and Muslims. I especially enjoyed the photographs and the restored film taken in the early 1900’s both of which brought the history of the Mellah to life. 

The museum includes the Simon Attias Synagogue and the Haim and Célia Zafrani Research Center on the History of Relations between Judaism and Islam.