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Silversmith Workshop - Said Attar, Essaouira, Morocco

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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] 

The Silversmith Workshop
Craftsmanship: In a city with much of its tangible Jewish heritage dilapidated and demolished, craftsmen and artisans are constantly creating pieces that are not just beautiful to look at, but which carry centuries of Jewish and Muslim collaboration in Essaouira with their intricacies. The long history of collaboration and its continued importance to those that remain in Essaouira is apparent if one so much as looks at the door of the Complex Commercial Bin Al Awar, a communal workshop and jewelry store in the Mellah. [22] A list with the names of both Jewish and Muslim jewlers assosciated with the workshop is up on the door. [23] The recollections and stories of the  craftsmen who work in Essaouira today illustrate how interconnected the Muslim and Jewish communities were. Many of the artisans, such as Maalam Sedik, an instrumental crasftsmen who discovered his love of music in the workshop of a Jewish family, had stories about working with and learning from Jews [24]. Of the Jewish workshop owner, Maalam said: 

“[Athia Cohen’s] door was open to me and all other people unlike today we are adding doors and chains to doors. We miss the peace of those days where we didnt have to close the door.. They were our neighbors, trustworthy people and they served their country with heart. The day they were leaving we all cried, Muslims and Jews.” [25]

Inter-religious connections among craftsmen and builders (amomg many others in Essaouira) were so common that a Muslim carpenter and boat builder even moved the family to the Mellah due to his strong relationship with Jewish captains. [26] His son, carpenter Abdelmajid Bahraoui, recalls that there were no rules separating the communities. [27] He remembers the close-knit ties between Muslims and Jews and is “craving the peace of those times.” [28]

The Words of a Local Jeweler: The topic of Jewish craftsmanship comes up repeatedly when talking to people in Essaouira about the past. The incidental interview with a local jeweler, Said Attar, shows how the history that is today hardly visible in its tangible form lives on in the memory of many older residents. When passing by his workshop and asking about his work, Said shared some of it with us:

“The silver work is being revolutionized by using machinery but the old work still remains, and it needs to be saved. These works can’t be done by the machines. I have been doing this since 1975.

This [his workshop location] is the border of the Mellah Qdim, the old Mellah. I grew up here and I worked with masters who worked with some of the Jewish masters or learned under them. Back then, most of the Jewish masters had already left to Casablanca or Fes. That is since 1974, they started leaving earlier. At that point only traders remained, the masters had mostly left already. Soon after that, only four remained in Essaouira: Athya, Mier, Cohen, and I forgot the name of the other.

They were jewelry sellers and kept the filigree, which is a traditional Jewish craft, while other techniques such as montage weren’t much practiced by the Jews. The difference is that filigree work requires help because it has a lot of smaller parts that are made of thin pieces that are then included in the bigger piece such as belts, Berber pins and heavy bracelets.

Most of the time Muslim and Jewish craftsmen would work in the same spaces. Now you can say that the Jewish community is completely gone and so are their artisans.” [29]

Essaouira, Morocco

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