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Old AIU School at Taroudant, Morocco

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More information regarding Taroudant specifically located after the AIU History.

Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) History: The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) was a Jewish philanthropic organization founded in 1860 by six Jewish intellectuals in Paris, including Adolphe Crémieux, a French Jewish statesman. The Alliance established a network of schools throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Balkans, with the goal to protect and improve the lives of Jews around the world. The organization promotes the values of Jewish self-defense and self-sufficiency through education and professional development. AIU’s mission was constructed upon two pillars — “the Jewish tradition and the values ​​of the French school”² — which informed their aim of aiding Jewish emancipation, enfranchisement, protection of rights, and modernization, in order to facilitate their integration into their home countries.³ However, it was at times the case that, instead of being integrated, they became detached, with some Alliance students feeling disconnected from their non-Alliance Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as the French and European world. The Alliance established schools for both boys and girls, with the first school being constructed in 1862 in Tetouan, Morocco. By 1895, there were seventy schools with 17,000 students enrolled.⁴ Aside from the primary school system, the Alliance also established vocational schools, agricultural schools, apprenticeship programs, rabbinical seminaries, and teaching schools where they would train the next generation of Alliance teachers and directors. At AIU’s peak in 1913, there were 183 active schools with 43,700 students.⁵ The Alliance created an entire generation of educated Jews who were able to enter the workforce and experience upward social mobility, many of whom had previously not received a formal education, especially girls and young women. In the middle of the 20th century, with the mass exodus of Jews from their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Alliance schools began to close their doors. The organization, however, is still active. Known as “Alliance - Kol Israel Haverim” in Israel, it “works towards two main goals: 1) Advance educational excellence for all children regardless of socio-economic status or geographic location that in turn will lead to increased social mobility. 2) Offer a Jewish education that emphasizes social responsibility and involvement, while cultivating Jewish leadership committed to social activists."⁶

Taroudant History: The exact date of the emergence of the Jewish community in Taroudant (also Tarudant) is unclear, but it may have existed as early as the eleventh century. Located at a crossroads, Taroudant's history and economy was influenced by the sugar industry and trans-Saharan trade. Taroudant’s Jewish community numbered approximately one thousand, with its nearby smaller communities having populations between thirty and two hundred. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Taroudant was acclaimed for its Kabbala, as well as the dynasty of the Cohen Azugh family, who were venerated kabbalists.⁷

AIU in Taroudant: The Alliance Israélite Universelle opened an elementary school in Taroudant, Morocco in 1929, with hundreds of children attending for the decades to come. With the younger generation eventually moving to secondary schools in major cities such as Casablanca, families moving out of Taroudant in the hopes of obtaining better economic opportunities, and the growing migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel, the majority of the Jewish community in Taroudant left, causing the AIU to close in 1962.⁸

    Alliance Israelite School in Taroudant, Morocco 

Taroudant, Morocco

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