The execution of Sol Ḥatchuel, a young Jewish girl from Tangier, shocked Jewish communities throughout Morocco. It was the subject of at least one French painting (Alfred Dehodencq, Exécution de la Juive, 1852) and was written about in both Jewish and European languages.

Sol, or Solika as she was also known, lived with her family in Tangier on a street shared by Muslims and Jews. According to European sources, she was given sole responsibility for housework and her mother was a strict disciplinarian whose wrath she often escaped by taking refuge with…