New Jewish Cemetery at Tangiers, Morocco

A visitor walks into the New Jewish Cemetery of Tangier to find an unruly, unkept piece of land housing the graves of Jewish people dating back to the 1950s. The sight of the ignored cemetery is angering and frustrating: the local government has clearly neglected this area, which is one of the only two Jewish cemeteries in all of Tangier, a port city in the North African country of Morocco. Thanks to an urgent campaign by diasporic Jews living in Canada whom were enraged at the state of the cemetery, the cemetery has been cleaned up in recent years. Although a visitor can now walk through the cemetery without encountering weeds, snakes, or people living in the cemetery,¹ the Jews with ties to Tangier are still concerned about the future of this piece of land. Several Jews fear that the cemetery will just fall back into disrepair once more, or worse - taken over by local government due to its enticing location close to the ports of Tangier and destroyed as a burial ground. In 2010, the oldest Jewish hospital in Morocco was demolished, which only heightened the fears of the Jews leading the campaign. Since 1956 - the last largest wave of Jewish emmigration from Morocco - Jews' relationship to the crown has not been as strong as it had been pre-revolution. Though several kings, such as Muhommad V, have been credited with encouraging and maintaining positive relations with the Jews of Morocco, advocacy for Maghrebi Jews has deteriorated as anti-semetism has increased in the last 50+ years.²

The New Jewish Cemetery: The Cimetiere Israelite Route de Rabat - Tanger, otherwise known as the “New Jewish Cemetery,” is one of two Jewish cemeteries located in Tangier, Morocco³; the cemetery is located on the highway heading to Rabat, on the outskirts of the city.⁴ Tangier, located only about 9 miles south of Spain, situated on the northern coast of Morocco along the Mediterranean Sea, has seen influences from the Spanish, the French, and the Moors. In the Western World, it is perhaps most well-known as the home to several artists of the Beat Generation; most famously William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Peter Bowles.⁵ The writers of the Beat Generation made Tangier their home while it was an international territory⁶ and created a reputation for Tangier as an expatriate city of leisure and hashish.

Jews in Morocco: The Jewish communities of Morocco largely arrived in two major waves: the first, at the time of the fall of the second temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the second, during the Inquisition of the 15th century and the Reconquista of 1492 in Spain; the Jews of Morocco that came from the Iberian Peninsula identify as Sephardic. Mass emigration of Jews from Morocco also occurred in two waves: the first in 1948, with the creation of the state of Israel, and the second in 1956 with the revolution against the French in Morocco and the creation of the independent state. Today, there are only approximately 150 Jews left in the city of Tangier.⁷