It was known in antiquity as Tingis or Tinga, a name most likely derived from the local Berber (Tamazight) language. Jews probably lived in Tangier during the Roman and Byzantine periods, when the town was a commercial center, but we have no record of their presence.  Nor do we have evidence of their reaction to the arrival of the Muslim armies in the seventh century, or to the upheavals that accompanied the process of Islamization. The negative impact of the Almohad persecutions on the Jews of Morocco in the twelfth century undoubtedly affected the Jews of the North, driv…