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AIU School at Akka, Morocco

Description

More information regarding Akka specifically located after the AIU History.

Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) History: The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) was a Jewish philanthropic organization founded in 1860 by six Jewish intellectuals in Paris, including Adolphe Crémieux, a French Jewish statesman. The Alliance established a network of schools throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Balkans, with the goal to protect and improve the lives of Jews around the world. The organization promotes the values of Jewish self-defense and self-sufficiency through education and professional development. AIU’s mission was constructed upon two pillars — “the Jewish tradition and the values ​​of the French school”¹ — which informed their aim of aiding Jewish emancipation, enfranchisement, protection of rights, and modernization, in order to facilitate their integration into their home countries.² However, it was at times the case that, instead of being integrated, they became detached, with some Alliance students feeling disconnected from their non-Alliance Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as the French and European world. The Alliance established schools for both boys and girls, with the first school being constructed in 1862 in Tetouan, Morocco. By 1895, there were seventy schools with 17,000 students enrolled.³ Aside from the primary school system, the Alliance also established vocational schools, agricultural schools, apprenticeship programs, rabbinical seminaries, and teaching schools where they would train the next generation of Alliance teachers and directors. At AIU’s peak in 1913, there were 183 active schools with 43,700 students.⁴ The Alliance created an entire generation of educated Jews who were able to enter the workforce and experience upward social mobility, many of whom had previously not received a formal education, especially girls and young women. In the middle of the 20th century, with the mass exodus of Jews from their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Alliance schools began to close their doors. The organization, however, is still active. Known as “Alliance - Kol Israel Haverim” in Israel, it “works towards two main goals: 1) Advance educational excellence for all children regardless of socio-economic status or geographic location that in turn will lead to increased social mobility. 2) Offer a Jewish education that emphasizes social responsibility and involvement, while cultivating Jewish leadership committed to social activists."⁵

Akka (Aqqā) History: Akka (Aqqā)’s Jewish community can be traced back to the eighteenth century, when Jews from Ifrane (Oufrane, Ar. Ifrān) left in 1792 due to persecution. It was home to four mellahs (an established Jewish quarter, named after the salt marsh area in Fez where the first mellah was created⁶), with the main settlements being located in Irahalan, Tagadirt, Taourirt (Tawrirt), and Agadir Ouzrou (Agādīr Uzrū).⁷ Gradually growing, one could see more than 200 Jewish quarters in the region in the mid-twentieth century. The Jewish community was vital to Akka (Aqqā)’s economic flourishment, through peddling and forming strong relations with the Muslim community, with a common saying being "a market without Jews is like bread without salt."⁸ The Jews’ dhimmi status (protected peoples) allowed them to be protected by the governors and be able to maintain their positions.

AIU in Akka (Aqqā): While the implementation of the Alliance schools began in the mid-nineteenth century, not every city felt the AIU’s reach as early. In the 1940s and 1950s, the AIU created schools in the remote villages of Morocco.⁹  One of the late bloomers was the city of Akka (Aqqā), which had an AIU school established in 1952. Akka (Aqqā) is located in southwest Morocco, in what is known as the bled siba, described as the areas outside governmental control. Two reasons for the late introduction of the AIU to Akka (Aqqā) is that one, the French colonial authorities only gained control over the area in the 1930s, as well as the fact AIU graduates with their roots in the bled put forward a concerted effort to expand the AIU southward.¹⁰ After the growth of the AIU, Jewish children began to attend the AIU instead of the synagogues and other French primary schools like they did prior. This acceptance was due to their need to combat the political and economic crises that came during the wake of World War II. A difference between the AIU schools in the urban cities of Morocco versus in the bled was that the bled schools were mixed, instead of them being segregated by boys and girls. In 1956, Akka (Aqqā)’s Alliance school has twenty-six students, seventeen being boys and eight being girls.¹¹

Closure and Emigration: Akka (Aqqā)’s AIU school closed its doors in 1962, which was brought on by the mass migration of Akka (Aqqā)’s Jewish community, and Morocco’s in general, to Israel and Europe. Almost all of the Jews of Akka (Aqqā) migrated to Israel in 1962.¹² More than 90,000 Moroccan Jews migrated between 1948-1956.¹³ The population of Jews in Morocco in 1948 was 265,000, but the population of Jews in Morocco in 2019 was 2,100.¹⁴ Today, Akka's synagogue in Tagadirt has fallen into disrepair, yet the three Jewish cemeteries have been protected by Akka's Muslim community.¹⁵ Today, Morocco is one of the safest countries for Jews in the Arab world, and a close ally to Israel.¹⁶

Akka, Morocco

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