Israeli pop singer Shlomo Bar was born in Rabat, Morocco, and emigrated with his parents to Tel Aviv in the 1960s. He began his public career by founding a group advocating for the equal rights of Mizrahi Jews in Israel – Jews who had immigrated from Arab countries like Morocco. Meanwhile, he also formed a band called Habrera Hativit, which was the first in Israel, in the 1970s, to play pop music with folk roots. Most of their song lyrics are written by the Ashkenazi Yehoshua Sobol – an internationally acclaimed contemporary playwright and director from Tel Aviv – including the one below, featured on the band’s eighth CD released in 1994.
Shlomo Bar / Yehoshua Sobol: In Our Village, Todra. From Habrera Hativit’s David and Solomon (1994)
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Etzlenu bichfar Todra |
אצלנו בכפר טודרא |
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In our village, Todra, |
And the celebrant, |
Jewish primary schools (heder) in the Atlas, 1950s. From the Marrakesh synagogue exhibition
The custom celebrated in the song has been known among Jews since the Middle Ages. It is mentioned by the 12th-century Rabbi Eleazar of Worms and by people still alive today who started learning Hebrew reading and writing this way as children. Its origin, of course, lies in the Bible: God tells Ezekiel (3:3), “Son of man, eat this scroll, and then go and speak to the house of Israel. I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.” Biblical authors also enjoy playing with the similarity between the Hebrew words for ‘education’ חֲנֹ֣ךְ chanok and ‘palate’ חֵךְ chek, equating the former’s result, wisdom, and God’s word with honey: “Eat, my son, honey, for it is good for your palate; so is the knowledge of wisdom for your soul” (Prov 24:13-14); “Your words are sweet to my palate; sweeter than honey to the mouth” (Ps 119:103); God’s words are “sweeter than honey” (Ps 19:10).
The letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which contain all wisdom when written in order, are considered to have a magical power in themselves, frequently exploited in Jewish mysticism. According to a Hasidic story, a Jewish orphan was raised by Christian neighbors. They told him he was Jewish but could give him no more than his father’s childhood alphabet book, which he learned thoroughly. One Yom Kippur, standing at the synagogue door, he recited the Hebrew alphabet aloud since he knew no prayers. The rabbi heard him, paused the community prayer, and said: “Wait, let’s leave the Eternal One alone for a moment while he assembles the prayer from what the boy recites.”
When I first heard the song, however, it wasn’t the custom that struck me but the mention of Todra “in the heart of the Atlas.” Although neither the Ashkenazi lyricist nor the singer, who emigrated from Morocco’s capital to Israel as a child, could have seen this Jewish town, the first-person narrative turns it into a kind of Moroccan Anatevka, creating a nostalgic community around it. This was the place I wanted to see.
Todra village, however, cannot be found on maps. Only the Todra River, which originates on the eastern side of the Atlas and flows through a famous scenic canyon to the southern plain, where it makes a large arc before joining the Draa River. The large arc encircles the medieval city of Sijilmasa, which from the 8th to the 16th century marked the northern end of the “salt for gold” trade route mentioned earlier, and was one of the richest cities of its time. The gold brought from Timbuktu across the Sahara was minted here and transported to the Arab and Mediterranean worlds. Trade was concentrated in the hands of local Berber and Jewish, and even Berber-Jewish, caravan leaders.
The city of Sijilmasa in Abraham Cresques’ already mentioned Catalan Atlas: under the Atlas Mountains marked with yellow scales, surrounded by the Todra and Zaz rivers. To the left, the inscription reads: “Per aquest loch pasen los merchaders que entren en la terra dels negres de Gineua, allo qual pases appellat vall de Darcha.” – “At this place, called the Valley of the Draa, merchants pass through on their way to the land of the Ghanian blacks.” In reality, of course, the streams do not flow so briefly southward; the Draa River runs southwest parallel to the inscription. – Click the image for a higher resolution.
Sijilmasa was visited by many Muslim geographers from the 10th century onwards and described with superlatives. The last was Leo Africanus, a Granada-born Berber scholar and converted Roman courtier, who came around 1550 but found only depopulated ruins. In the surrounding villages, he learned that earlier in the century a civil war had broken out among the city’s various groups, who eventually all left, settling along the oasis rivers in about 300 small settlements. Along the Todra River lies Tinghir or Tinerhir, whose central ksar—a fortified clay town—is often referred to as Todra city. From its founding, this town was one of the largest Jewish settlements. Even 1930s French military reports list seventy Jewish families, with the mellah, the Jewish quarter, occupying the central part of the old town, while northern and southern streets were inhabited by Muslim Berbers. As in the Atlas in general, Jews here were traditionally both traders and gold- and silversmiths, inheriting a legacy of the former gold trade.
Where and when did the Jews arrive here? We know that after the 1492 expulsion from Spain, many Sephardic families moved to Morocco. However, they mostly settled in northern, mainly coastal cities, speaking Ladino—a medieval Spanish enriched with Hebrew words. The Atlas Jews, some of whom had controlled Sijilmasa trade eight centuries earlier, spoke the local Berber dialects as their mother tongue. They must have been here much earlier.
Jewish settlements in Morocco in the 1950s, before the major emigration began. The large—mostly Sephardic—Jewish centers were in the north, while the Atlas and areas to the south had many small—Berber—Jewish settlements. In the southeast, between the High Atlas and the unnamed Jebel Sagro mountains, is Tin(e)ghir, i.e., Todra, just below it in the Jebel Sagro, the Jewish silver-mining settlement of Asfalou. To the east, along the big bend of the Todra and Ziz rivers, is Sijilmasa.
The North African coast was taken over by the Romans in the mid-2nd century BCE, after the conclusion of the Punic Wars, from the Carthaginians. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, some Jews fled here from Judea. The earliest Moroccan trace is in Volubilis, a Hebrew-inscribed gravestone from the 1st century CE. From the same site comes a 4th-century bronze menorah oil lamp.
For centuries after this, there are no sources about Moroccan Jews. However, the chroniclers of the Arab conquest between 665 and 689 report that among the Atlas Berber tribes, many followed the Jewish faith. It is likely that Jews, as traders from the Romanized coast, penetrated inland and settled near the Atlas mines. Here, on the one hand, they assimilated with the Berbers, adopting their language and lifestyle while preserving their religion; on the other hand, the Jewish faith was so appealing to the animist Berbers that a few—according to 14th-century Ibn Khaldun, seven—of their tribes converted to it. This is how the Berber Jews emerged, who are Berber in language, lifestyle, and partly genetically, but Jewish in religion and core identity. Arab chronicles record, and local tradition preserves, that the hilltop fortress of Ait Ben Haddou, at the confluence of the Ounila/Mellah and Draa rivers, was the stronghold of a “Jewish princess,” who successfully united surrounding Jewish and non-Jewish Berber tribes in resisting the Arab conquerors for a long time.
Ait Ben Haddou ksar as seen from the Mellah River. According to tradition, on the left hilltop, where today the community granary stands, was the “Jewish princess” fortress.
The only major city where Berber Jews played an important role even before the arrival of the Sephardim was Marrakes. Although north of the Atlas, it lay at the foot of the mountains and served as the closest cultural center for tribes and traders living south of the mountains. The city was founded around 1070 by the southern Berber Almoravids, likely accompanied by Jewish merchants. In medieval Marrakes, several Jewish quarters existed before the Saʿadi dynasty, in 1557, consolidated them into a separate district near the newly built royal palace, placing them under royal protection. In the Mellah, the “salt” quarter—the name’s origin is debated, possibly from the salt trade—Sephardic Jews settled in 1492, founding their own synagogue. Ironically, this is today the only functioning synagogue in Marrakes: the original Berber synagogues were closed or destroyed.
One traditional trade of the Berber Jews was commerce. This was greatly facilitated by the fact that the region south of the Atlas, the bled esz-sziba, or “land of lawlessness” as it was called in the northern capital, was a world of mutually hostile tribes. The Jews, however, were outside the network of tribal conflicts, and by paying local tolls, they could freely move throughout the country.
Another traditional trade was gold and silver craftsmanship, which they held as a monopoly. One of the greatest living Moroccan collectors, Abderrahman Slaoui, from a Muslim aristocratic family in Fez, recalls the pre-war era:
“Weddings, baptisms, and circumcisions were the only occasions when women could display their fine clothes, especially their gold jewelry. Even as a child, I was captivated by these treasures: diadems, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings, where the yellow glow of gold was made even more vivid by the sparkle of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and garnets. I still remember these ladies like idols, completely covered in jewelry made by their personal goldsmiths.”
José Tapiró y Baró: Berber Jewish Bride, 1883. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
Like every jeweler in Fez at the time, ours was Jewish, a craft passed from father to son. His name was Israel Bensimon, and he had the privilege of working for the royal palace as well. I remember he often came to us, sometimes even when my father was not at home, which was a sign of great trust.”
Francisco Lameyer y Berenguer: Jewish Wedding in Morocco, 1875
Eugène Delacroix: Jewish Wedding in Morocco, 1839, Louvre. The wedding he was invited to took place in Tangier on February 21, 1832. Based on on-site sketches, Delacroix painted the work between 1835-39, and it was purchased by King Louis-Philippe at the 1841 Salon. Delacroix had a copy made with his pupil, Louis de Planet, which he kept in his studio until his death.
Slaoui spoke here of gold jewelry encrusted with gemstones, worn by their owners only on festive occasions. These were mostly made by urban jewelers. Jewish jewelers in different cities had their own traditions. In Meknès, for example, they decorated jewelry with enamel: the recessed patterns were filled with melted colored glass paste. In Ouezzane and Fez, thin gold sheets were hammered onto patterns to emboss them. In Essaouira (formerly Mogador), the specialty of jewelers was filigree work.
Muslim customers entering a Jewish goldsmith shop in Essaouira (Mogador). Below: Jewish goldsmith shop
Everyday jewelry, however, was made not of gold but of silver—especially in the Atlas, where since the 16th century the flow of Ghanaian gold had dried up, but local silver mines were still available. Berber Jewish jewelers mainly produced these. Working under puritan conditions, often sitting on bare ground with minimal tools, they could pack everything up and offer their services as traveling silversmiths at a different village market each day. For example, in Tilit in the Dadès Valley, forty Jewish families lived in 1913, all traveling jewelers.
Marrakesh Jewish silversmith workshop, 1950s. Below: traveling Jewish jewelers in the Atlas
“They set out after midnight for the next day’s market,” writes Pierre Flamand about one of them. “His route doesn’t change. This morning he left home in the Tahala mellah for the Wednesday market in Tafraout; Thursday he’ll be in Ait Oafqa, Friday in Ida, Semlal, or Tasserirt. He comes home for Shabbat to Tahala, by the market, where he opens for one day on Sunday before starting his week-long circuit again.”
Tahala Jewish jeweler, 1950s
The memory of individual masters often lasted a long time. In 1928, a French lieutenant wrote from the Middle Atlas:
“The jewelry worn in the Taza region was made by the Jewish goldsmiths of the Ait Serhrouchen tribe in Sefrou and El Mers, and sold at markets. The most renowned was Maklouf Ben Yahia, who came from Midelt around 1860, and his silver jewelry was highly sought after.”
Anezi Jewish jeweler in his market shop, 1960s
Jewish and Berber women in the Atlas wore the same clothing and the same silver jewelry. The designs often mirrored the urban gold jewelry seen earlier, but in a more rustic style. They even applied the enamel techniques brought from Andalusia to Meknès, as Henriette de Camps-Fabré notes:
“Through a strange historical aberration, an Eastern technique that originated somewhere in Northern Iran and was brought to Europe in the Middle Ages by the Germans remained for centuries in the far west of Hispania, only to reach North Africa in modern times. Even more remarkable is how quickly this technique, evolving from Sassanid to Visigothic to Mudéjar, became organically integrated here thanks to the former Berber Maghrebi Jewish jewelers.”
Traveling Jewish jeweler applying enamel, 1950s
This enameled silver jewelry is made very “Jewish” by the six-pointed star coins applied to it. But wait—what kind of coins are these, with Arabic inscriptions, and decades before the birth of the Jewish state? Moroccan coins, in fact. The six-pointed star— as I’ll explain shortly—was not considered a uniquely Jewish symbol until the First Zionist Congress in 1897, which adopted it. Before that, it was primarily a Muslim, especially royal, symbol, known as the “Seal of Solomon,” representing the wisest king who ever lived. That’s how it appeared on Moroccan flags and coins, and only after independence in 1956 was it replaced by the five-pointed variant, also a version of Solomon’s Seal. On the jewelry below, it’s still not always clear whether the symbol is Muslim or the new Jewish emblem promoted by Zionism.
Among Berber Jewish necklaces, the most prestigious often feature one or more “eggs.” These are hollow spheres, regular or elongated, assembled from silver filigree, with the spaces between the filigree filled with colored enamel. In Berber Jewish festive attire, they take the place of the large gold plates of urban Jewish jewelry. Compare the Atlas Jewish bridal ensemble below (from the Majorelle Garden jewelry exhibition in Marrakesh) with the urban Berber Jewish bride outfit painted earlier by José Tapiró y Baró.
Among Berbers—Muslim or Jewish—jewelry, an almost mandatory piece is the hamsa, a protective hand that wards off the evil eye, often featuring an eye in the center to reflect malevolent stares, the name שדי Shaddai, “the Eternal,” or, more recently, the Star of David or another powerful symbol. It is especially worn by expectant mothers, to protect the vulnerable child from a thousand magical harms. Almost every village has its own distinctive hamsa style, well known to collectors.
The only significant difference between Berber Jewish and Muslim women’s attire is in headwear. While Muslim women wore scarves even on festive occasions, married Jewish women replaced them with tall velvet crowns decorated with silver jewelry.
Berber Jewish silversmiths also worked for synagogues and other religious purposes. Only silver was suitable for such uses, since gold had been reserved for the Temple since biblical times; using it in a synagogue would have been ostentatious. Menorahs and hanukkias (which in Morocco were often not the familiar candle-holder style, but decorated metal plates holding seven or nine small oil lamps in a row) were made of silver. Silver was also used for tallit holders given at bar mitzvahs, mezuzot and mezuzah covers as wedding gifts engraved with the bride’s name and the name שדי Shaddai, “the Eternal,” Friday night candle holders, yads for reading the Torah—long pointers ending in a finger shape—and the tappuhim, “apples,” attached to the ends of the Torah scroll’s wooden rollers, referencing Song of Songs 2:3–4: “As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved; I long to sit in its shade, its fruit is sweet to my palate” (bringing us again to the sweetness of the Lord’s word).
Rabbi Haïm Serero in the Fez “Fassiyin” synagogue, with a tappuhim on either side of the teva
A distinctive product of Jewish goldsmiths was the gold thread used for embroidery. This was not a thinned gold wire, but silk thread wrapped in fine gold leaf. The embroidery was called sqalli, “Sicilian”: it was probably introduced into the region by King Roger II of Sicily (1095–1154) along with Greek craftsmen relocated during his campaigns against Byzantium, and the Jewish community adopted it, spreading it to Andalusia (where the Sephardic gold embroideries still have a dedicated room in the Córdoba museum), and later, in 1492, to the Maghreb.
The embroidery, practiced by many Jewish families, was applied to both religious items—Torah covers, Torah ark curtains, tallit and tefillin bags—and festive clothing. Its most remarkable piece was the bride’s gown called kszua el kbirá, “big dress,” or berberisca, in which all three components—the skirt hem, the vest, and the breastplate plastron (ktef, punta)—were richly embroidered with gold. Each gown was passed from mother to daughter; poorer families often borrowed from wealthier neighbors for weddings, and lending it was considered a good deed. Today, Moroccan Jewish women in diaspora typically follow local fashion for weddings, but for the pre-wedding family henna ceremony, they still wear the kszua el kbirá brought from Morocco.
Jewish woman from Tangier in a berberisca gown, 1906
A custom preserved only in Tetouan, of Andalusian origin: the mortaja, a funeral shirt embroidered in a single color, often sewn by the specialists of the chevra kadisha, the burial society. Men first wore it under their festive garments for weddings, then on every Yom Kippur, and finally it was used to dress them for burial
The Jews suddenly, almost as if by magic, disappeared from Morocco around the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. One could easily list the reasons offhand: the establishment of the State of Israel, threats from the Arab environment, and so on. However, a study conducted at Tel Aviv University * provides a surprisingly nuanced context. According to Yigal Bin-Nun, the Israeli government, in the tense atmosphere of the period, assumed that after Morocco gained independence in 1956, the Arab majority might oppress the Jewish minority and commit atrocities against them. Consequently, the Misgeret organization of Mossad, responsible for evacuating Moroccan Jews, was established in advance. Until the early 1960s, the organization—mostly operating illegally at first, but later with an agreement with the Moroccan government—brought most Jews to Europe, from where some went to Israel, others to France or Canada.
At the same time, the operation’s historian, Eliezer Shoshani, already stated in 1963 that “the period following Morocco’s independence did not confirm our catastrophic hypotheses: instead of the inevitable violence we anticipated, tolerance prevailed.” Many years later, the organizers of the operation noted that the entire evacuation was probably unnecessary: both the Moroccan government and the Muslim majority were, and remained, fully tolerant toward the Jews, and originally the Jews themselves did not want to leave. The desire to emigrate was largely a product of Israeli propaganda. Visiting the former sites of Jewish life in Morocco, and comparing the former wealth and integrity of that life to the second-class citizen status of Moroccan Jews in Israel, one must conclude that they really made a poor exchange.
What remained after the Jews left? The map below shows some of the initial stops on a journey from Marrakesh to the Todra ksar. (I am aware of many more Jewish sites, but these are the ones I have visited so far.) By clicking on the points, one can browse the photographs of each location (it is recommended to enlarge the map to view the images full-screen).
Many buildings in the cities have survived: synagogues, houses, markets. In rural areas, where buildings were mostly made of rammed earth, most have begun to deteriorate—except where Muslim neighbors or a few remaining Jews, like in Ouarzazate, took care of them, or in Todra, where the Jewish quarter is being restored with international support. (The Ouarzazate images are particularly worth browsing.) Cemeteries have survived everywhere; they are protected, and in many places are surrounded by walls funded by the descendants of those who left.
The memory of those who left still lives on: locals remember them by name, show their former homes, shops, markets, synagogues, or their locations. Many maintain contact; numerous Jewish families regularly send their children back to visit the homeland. Emigrants even maintain empty city apartments, and retired Jews occasionally return. One can still see the complexity and richness of that former life, and imagine what it was like in Todra village.
Source of images and histories of the artifacts: L’art chez les Juifs du Maroc (2018) and North African Charm. Art of the Berber Tribes (2005)
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