Born in Tangier in 1876, Hassiba Benchimol, like her sisters Claire Benchimol and Alégrina Benchimol Lévy, studied at the local Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Tetouan before departing for Paris to train as an Alliance teacher. After working as an assistant in the Alliance school in Tunis from 1895 to 1897 and then in the Tangier school from 1897 to 1899, Hassiba left for Fez, where she opened the Alliance school for girls in 1899. Although her native tongue was Haketia, the Judeo-Spanish of northern Morocco, and she bemoaned her lack of facility in Arabic, she ne…