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Maison Du Quartier (former Talmud Torah), Essaouira, Morocco
The Maison Du Quartier (former Talmud Torah) in Essaouira (אסואירה ,الصويرة, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Mogador), Morocco (מרוקו, المغرب).
In Essaouira, a few meters down the street from the entrance to Derb Misi, is the Maison de Quartier, which used to be a Talmud Torah. Today the building houses several civic initiatives supporting the local population and a kindergarten as well.
Description
Background on the Mellah of Essaouira
Essaouira was established by Alaouite Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdellah in 1764 on the site of a former Portuguese fortress. [1, 2] It quickly became a major domestic and international trading post, attracting many Jewish merchants, traders, and workers. [3, 4] In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Essaouira was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the country. At one point, Jews made up about 40 percent of Essaouira’s population, growing so much that an addition to the mellah had to be built to accommodate them. [5, 6]
Mellahs, separate Jewish quarters, were established in multiple cities by an 1807 Sultan-issued dahir (decree). [7] Before then, Jews and Muslims lived together in the neighborhoods of Essaouira. [8] The name mellah comes from the salt marsh area in Fez where the first mellah was created. [9] Following the decree, poorer Jews populated the mellah while elite Jewish families resided in the casbah quarter outside the mellah walls. [10] The separation of casbah and mellah generated tensions between elite and lower-class Jews. [11] In Essaouira, “division was really a division of class and not of religion,” with intermarriage being widely accepted and places of worship were even shared amongst Muslims and Jews. [12]
Today, only a handful of Jews remain in Essaouira. [13] One of the reasons for this is the impact of French Protectorate (1912-1956), during which the French developed Casablanca and Agadir as seaports, limiting economic opportunities in Essaouira and incentivizing migration to larger hubs [14, 15]. Another larger, exodus took place following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, after which only about 2 percent of the Jewish population remained. [16, 17]
The Jewish quarter of Essaouira stands as a testament to the significant role of Jewry in the development of one of Morocco’s major port cities. Many sites of historical significance, including synagogues and old Jewish businesses, have been demolished or otherwise dilapidated over time. [18] Current Essaouira residents and others work to preserve remaining sites and redevelopment efforts are underway. [19, 20, 21]
The Maison Du Quartier
A resident’s recollection:David Bouhadana, who grew up in Essaouira,describes what the Talmud Torah was like in the 1960s: “there was a nursery at the bottom for children from 6 to 10 years old, the bottom of Talmud, had two sides, a nursery side, and food for the poor [such as] oil, flour, etc...everything worked until the years 65-69 due to lack of population, since the Jews left the Mellah...very few families remained. After 1967 this establishment was renovated and ceded to the city authorities”. [22] As Bouhadana recalled, centers such as the Maison Du Quartier would serve multiple roles within the community, acting as a community center for many to get together. [23, 24]
Today, the structure of the Maison Du Quartier still stands in the Essaouira community. Nearby it on rue Mellah, the same cannot be said for many other buildings. [25] While much has been lost from the Maison Du Quartier, residents still work to preserve the memory and Jewish history of the site and many like it across the mellahs of Morocco. [26]
Sources
Notes
1 Daniel Schroeter, “Essaouira (Mogador)”, in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 13 July 2022.
2 “Jewish Quarter of Essaouira,” World Monuments Fund, last modified March 2021, accessed July 30, 2021, https://www.wmf.org/project/jewish-quarter-essaouira.
3 Ibid.
4 Daniel Schroeter.
5 “Jewish Quarter of Essaouira.”
6 Daniel Schroeter.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Emily Gottreich, “Mallāḥ,” in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, ed. Norman A. Stillman, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill), Accessed 20 July 2021.
10 Daniel Schroeter.
11 Ibid.
12 “A Pluralistic Community,” World Monuments Fund, 2019, https://www.wmf.org/slideshow/what-it-was-pluralistic-community
13 Daniel Schroeter.
14 “Jewish Quarter of Essaouira.”
15 Carmen Ascanio-Sanchez, Miguel Suárez Bosa, and Juan Carlos Almeida Pérez, “Tradition and Modernity: The Water Sector in Morocco During the French Protectorate (1912-1956),” African Historical Review 51 (1): 67–86, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1080/17532523.2019.1628491.
16 David Schroeter.
17 Shlomo Deshen, “Israel, State of,” in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman, accessed July 30, 2022.
18 “Jewish Quarter of Essaouira.”
19 Ibid.
20 “Wandering Through the Mellah,” World Monuments Fund, 2018, https://www.wmf.org/blog/wandering-through-mellah#:~:text=The%20Mellah%20is%20the%20old,its%20story%20before%20it%20disappears
21 Aomar Boum. Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco,
Stanford University Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucsc/detail.action?docID=1358595.
22“Jewish Quarter of Essaouira.”
23 Ibid
24 Harvey E Goldberg. "The Mellahs of southern Morocco: report of a survey." The Maghreb Review 8, no. 3 (1983): 61-69.
25 “ Jewish Quarter of Essaouira.”
26 Shalom Sabar. “The Preservation and Continuation of Sephardi Art in Morocco.” European Judaism 52, no. 2 (September 22, 2019): 59. doi:10.3167/ej.2019.520206.
Photographs courtesy of World Monuments Fund, Stories of the Mellah Cultural Mapping project. All photography by Amine Bennour, Laura Brandt, and Yousef El Miadi.
Works Cited
Ascanio-Sanchez, Carmen, Miguel Suárez Bosa, and Juan Carlos Almeida Pérez. “Tradition and Modernity: The Water Sector in Morocco During the French Protectorate (1912-1956).” African Historical Review 51 (1): 67–86. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/17532523.2019.1628491.
Boum, Aomar. Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco,
Stanford University Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucsc/detail.action?docID=1358595.
Deshen, Shlomo. “Israel, State of.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Accessed July 30, 2022.
Goldberg, Harvey E. "The Mellahs of southern Morocco: report of a survey." The Maghreb Review 8, no. 3 (1983): 61-69.
Gottreich, Emily. “Mallāḥ. ” in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, ed. Norman A. Stillman, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill), Accessed 20 July 2021.
“Jewish Quarter of Essaouira.” World Monuments Fund. Last modified March 2021. Accessed July 30, 2021. https://www.wmf.org/project/jewish-quarter-essaouira.
Sabar, Shalom. “The Preservation and Continuation of Sephardi Art in Morocco.” European Judaism 52, no. 2 (September 22, 2019): 59. doi:10.3167/ej.2019.520206.
Schroeter, Daniel. “Essaouira (Mogador).” In: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic
World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 13 July 2022.
“Wandering Through the Mellah,” World Monuments Fund, 2018, https://www.wmf.org/blog/wandering-through-mellah#:~:text=The%20Mellah%20is%20the%20old,its%20story%20before%20it%20disappears