Cemetery at Ifrane d'Anti-Atlas, Morocco

Ifrane d’Anti-Atlas (Oufrane), Morocco

At first glance, visitors see only a field of stones reminiscent of the surface of Mars. But this lonely cemetery, perched above a wadi and below a mountain at the edge of the Sahara desert, contains hundreds of graves. Out of the initial disorder, the shapes of tombs begin to emerge and bits of Hebrew writing poke out of the rubble. The ancient Jewish cemetery of Oufrane , 2,000 years old according to legend, memorializes thousands of Berber Jews, including a group of 50 who were burned alive over 200 years ago and whose ashes are buried in a cave alongside the cemetery. Until the Jewish community left en masse in 1958, visitors were barred from accessing parts of the cemetery without an official guide. Today the cemetery is open to all who climb the narrow path past Oufrane’s Jewish quarter.

Description

Community: According to one tradition, Oufrane is named after Bene Efraim (sons of Efraim), who settled here in the wake of the first Temple in Jerusalem’s destruction. At this important trading outpost along the caravan route carrying goods from southern Africa to northern ports, the community established the capital of what was once said to be a small independent Jewish kingdom. After the area was conquered by Muslim invaders in the 7th and 8th centuries, Jews lived under the personal protection of local rulers. Many ran successful businesses as merchants and artisans, but all remained at the mercy of their Muslim rulers.

Persecution: In 1790, Sultran Mulay Yazid began a brief two-year reign of tyranny, persecuting Jewish communities across Morocco, including Oufrane. According to the community’s oral tradition, a rebel named Bou Halatza arrived at the Thursday market joined by armed bandits and chained up 50 Jewish merchants. After torturing the men, Bou Halatza gave them a choice: convert to Islam or die in a bonfire erected in the middle of town.

Jewish Cemetery in Ifrane

Martyrs’ Cave: The head of the community, Yehuda Ben-Nathan Effiat, decided to act as an example and rushed into the fire (his relatives later moved to London and became successful merchants). The remaining 49 merchants followed Effiat, jumping into the flames one by one. Later, the ashes of the 50 martyrs were gathered up by a group of Jews and Muslims and buried alongside the cemetery in a cave, which became an important pilgrimage site for Jews across the region.

Guarded: For centuries, parts of the cemetery were off-limits to Jews, particularly an inner square. In this section were tombstones with inscriptions from 2,000 years ago, including the supposed gravestone of Eli from Galilee, a disciple of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai from the 1st century CE. Even up until the 1950s, visitors had to be guided to the cemetery by a community leader, often the local cantor, Avraham Ben-David.

Status: Today, the cemetery has no guard. The “cave of the burned,” the cemetery, and a purification room are located one kilometer from the mellah (Jewish quarter). Wax from candles lit by Jewish pilgrims can sometimes be located along the trail to the cemetery. While almost all the tombs have decayed beyond recognition, some graves are discernable as a clump of rocks. Searching through the rubble yields broken bits of tombstones, most engraved in a simple, rough manner, some featuring dates over 400 years old.