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David ben Yasim Shrine, Beni Mellal, Morocco
David ben Yasim Shrine in Beni Mellal, Morocco
Description
Sharing a family complex in Beni Mellal with a small, humble synagogue, the tomb of David Ben-Yamin lies in an equally simple room. Rabbi Ben-Yamin was a Jewish saint to which several miracles have been attributed. In one telling, a woman dreaming at his grave reported seeing a seemingly dead man lying beneath a sheet on top of the Rabbi’s gravestone. This man told her that he was Ben-Yamin himself, after she inquired into his identity (Issachar Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco. Wayne State University Press, 1998, 90). His hillulah is celebrated on Lag b’Omer (Ibid, 225).
Ben-Yamin’s following is not limited to the Jewish community. Muslims venerate him as well, referring to him as Sidi Kherwi’a (Ibid). At this shrine, as well as at many others in Morocco, members of the Muslim community would tend to the tomb and would be given food and money from the Jewish population in return (Ibid., 132). For a time, even the guards of the David Ben-Yamin Shrine were followers of Islam (Ibid., 144).
