Moroccan Culture

“Nass dyal Mellah koulhoum mlah.” If roughly translated, this old Moroccan proverb tells us that all the inhabitants of the Mellahs are good people. When I heard elderly family members using this saying I was fascinated. Who knew Arabs and Jews used to get along and live in peace? This same interrogation led me to conduct a thorough research to deepen my knowledge about Moroccan Jewry and their impact on our culture. As our teachers made us understand over the years, the lands of Morocco have welcomed a variety of ethnicities. Arabs, Berbers and Jews have shared a common ground for several centuries, making Morocco a culturally diverse civilization. Each of those races contributed in shaping a rich and valuable heritage.

Some say they have lived in Morocco since the destruction of the Temple in 70 B.C. For centuries Moroccan Jews have lived freely in cities like Fes and Marrakesh, but starting the fifteenth century they were bound to reside in secluded quarters called Mellahs. They were built, usually near the king’s palace, to ensure the security and well-being of the Jewish community which was exposed to repetitive attacks and riots. Mellahs represent an important deal of the Moroccan culture. For instance, in the second half of nineteenth century, the number of Jews had reached a hundred-thousand (over seven thousand families). At that time, Morocco’s general population was close to five million. In the last decades, many anthropologists and historians have tried to unravel the mystery surrounding the origin of the word. Mellah derives from the Arabic Melh (salt) and the most common interpretation is that the first Mellah, which was founded in Fes in 1438 under the reign of Almohades dynasty and was considered the largest Jewish neighborhood in Morocco, was built on a site called Al Mellah which means “saline ground”. The other explanation says that Moroccan Jews were forced to put salt on the heads of decapitated rebels in order to conserve

Nowadays, Mellahs are just random and forgotten neiborhoods inhabited by poor and modest Muslims. The majority of the remaining Moroccan Jews moved to Casablanca and is now living in modern quarters. Morocco played a considerable role in shaping the modern history of the Jewish culture. That is reason why every year over five thousand Jews come from all around the world to accomplish a pilgrimage and pay honors to their ancestors. The major sites of pilgrimage are the tombs of Rabbis buried around the country. The most popular are Rabbi Yehouda Benatar in Fes, Rabbi Chaim Pinto in El Jadida and Rabbi Amram Ben Diwane in Ouezzan. Although the Jewish population has now dropped to around three thousand, Morocco has kept a tight relationship with the Jewish community and Israel. For instance, in 1986, Hassan II was the second Arab leader to invite an Israeli prime minister to talk about peace, demonstrating therefore a profound belief in a peaceful Muslim-Jewish