Best known as the guide of Charles de Foucault during his exploration of southern Morocco between 1883 and 1884, Mordechai Abisrur was born around 1830 to one of the oldest Jewish families in Akka (Ar. Aqqā), where he learned how to read and write in the primary religious school (Jud.-Ar. ṣlā) of the Jewish Quarter (Ar. mallāḥ). A gifted and talented child, Abisrur earned the admiration of the community's elders, who sent him to study in Marrakesh in the hope that he would become a rabbi and return to the village to teach the young, preach in the local synagogue, slaugh…