Debdou (Dubdū) is a town in northeastern Morocco, near the Algerian border, in the Oued Debdou Valley at the base of the right flank of a straight cliff rising 80 meters (263 feet) above the valley. The town is situated on the route from the Sahara to Taza, and was famous for its Jewish community, which in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries constituted three-fourths of its inhabitants, making it one of the few towns where Jews actually outnumbered Muslims.

From its early years, the rulers of Fez demonstrated an interest in controlling Debdou, and it was part of the terri…