Disclaimer
This entry contains information known to us from a variety of sources but may not include all the information currently available. Please be in touch if you notice any inadvertent mistakes in our presentation or have additional knowledge or sources to share. Thank you.
Archive
Cinema Skala (former), Essaouira, Morocco
The former location of Cinema Skala in Essaouira (אסואירה ,الصويرة, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Mogador), Morocco (מרוקו, المغرب).
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 acepted 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]
Cinema Scala
Essaouira in Film History: Although Essaouira was on the decline as a shipping port by the 20th century, the city still held many charms and attracted multiple filmmakers to shoot on location. [22] Possibly the most famous of those filmakers was Orson Welles, who used Essaouira as one of the filming locations for his award wining movie, Othello (1951). [23, 24, 25, 26] The mid-sized Hotel Orson Welles, bearing the famous actor-director’s name, commemorates his time here, as does a plaza named in his honor. [27, 28]
The Cinema: Like many people all across the world, Essaouira’s residents were eager to experience the new talking pictures in the twentieth century. Cinema Scala, which opened its doors in the 1940s, was created by a Jewish businessman, Mr. Kakon. [29] All kinds of films, from Bollywood hits to French arthouse and American Westerns, were screened here. [30] In particular, Egyptian Arabic films and their singing actors, such as Abdel Halim Hafez and Farid El Atrash, were big hits at Cinema Scala. [31] It was one of two cinemas in Essaouira, both of which are closed today. Cinema Scala closed its doors in 1999. [32] The building was used as the German Consulate. Madame Mesouda was known for visiting the cinema regularly. The building is currently mostly closed off, but the ground floor is used as a shop.
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 “Cinemas,” Essaouira, n.d., accessed August 4, 2022, https://www.essaouira.nu/architekture_cinemas.html.
23 Kevin Tierney, "Orson Welles: Ten Years After His Death," Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media (1995). https://ojs.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/view/768/626
24 Susanne Bauer, Anton Escher, and Sebastian Knieper. "Essaouira," The Wind City" as a" Cultural Product"(Essaouira," The Wind City" als kulturelles Produkt)," Erdkunde (2006): 31. https://www.essaouira.nu/architekture_cinemas.htm
25 Brian Edwards, After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East. New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.7312/edwa17400
26 Bersani, Eleonora. "Essaouira e la sua Medina." (2015): 57-70.
27 Bauer, Escher, and Knieper, "Essaouira," 31
28 “Orson Welles,” Visit Essaouira, n.d., accessed August 4, 2022, https://visitessaouira.com/en/place/orson-welles/
29 “Cinema”
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
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.
Bauer, Susanne, Anton Escher, and Sebastian Knieper. "Essaouira," The Wind City" as a" Cultural Product"(Essaouira," The Wind City" als kulturelles Produkt)." Erdkunde (2006): 25-39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25647801.
Bersani, Eleonora. "Essaouira e la sua Medina." (2015): 57-70.
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.
“Cinemas.” Essaouira. n.d., accessed August 4, 2022. https://www.essaouira.nu/architekture_cinemas.htm
Deshen, Shlomo. “Israel, State of.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Accessed July 30, 2022.
Edwards, Brian. After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East. New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.7312/edwa17400
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.
“Orson Welles.” Visit Essaouir. n.d., accessed August 4, 2022. https://visitessaouira.com/en/place/orson-welles/.
Schroeter, Daniel. “Essaouira (Mogador).” In: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic
World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 13 July 2022.
Tierney, Kevin. "Orson Welles: Ten Years After His Death." Kinema: A Journal for Film and Audiovisual Media (1995). https://ojs.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/view/768/626
“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
Photographs courtesy of World Monuments Fund, Stories of the Mellah Cultural Mapping project. All photography by Amine Bennour, Laura Brandt, and Yousef El Miadi.