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see SousDaniel Schroeter

see MoroccoDaniel Schroeter

see Grana (Livornese), Tunis, TunisiaDaniel Schroeter

The École Normale Hébraïque (ENH) was founded inCasablanca in 1946 by the Alliance Israélite Universelle to train teachers in modern Hebrew and Jewish Studies. It was part of an effort to modernize the Jewish and Hebrew curriculum in Morocco, as well as to replace the more traditionalist rabbi-teachers who taught Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the Alliance schools, and to serve as a testing ground for the organization’s post–World War II program of reform. Its founders were Jules Braunschvig, the vice-president of the Alliance, Isaac Rouche, a rabbi from Oran and supporter of the AIU, and Re…

see Dra’aDaniel Schroeter

Situated in Northwest Africa on the Mediterranean coast, Algeria (Ar. al-Jazā’ir) borders Morocco to the west, Tunisia and Libya to the east, and Niger, Mali, and Mauritania to the south. The name Algeria is relatively late; during the Middle Ages, much of the region that would later be called Algeria was designated simply as al-Maghrib al-Awsaṭ (the Central Maghreb) by Arab geographers. Jews have lived in the region since antiquity, with the earliest evidence dating from the late Roman period. Little is known of the Jewish communities at the time of the Arab conquest in t…

Zarzis is a town on the coast of southeastern Tunisia, about 50 kilometers (32 miles) south of Jerba and close to the Libyan border. A Jewish community was established in Zarzis in 1883 after French settlers began developing olive oil production in the town and region during the French protectorate (1881–1956). Nearly the entire Jewish community was made up of Jerban Jews from Hara Kebira who, seeking opportunities in the colonial economy, formed a network of satellite communities together with other towns in the region (Ben Gardane, Medenine, Matmata). The large synagogue, modeled on…

The Renacimento de Israel (Renaissance of Israel) was a bimonthly Spanish-language review published in Tangier but printed in Algeciras, Spain. The paper described itself on its masthead as Defensor de los intereses politicos y nacionales de la colectividad Israelite de Marruecos (Defender of the political and national interests of the Jewish collectivity in Morocco).  It was founded in 1924 by Asher Perl (known as “Rabbi Asher”), who was born in Poland around 1868 or 1869, lived in Palestine for time, and settled in Algeciras after traveling widely in N…

See TunisDaniel Schroeter

Agadir (Berb. Agadīr, fortified enclosure) is a seaport on the Atlantic coast of southwestern Morocco near the mouth of the Sous River. Founded as a fortified post by a Portuguese nobleman in 1505, and acquired by the Portuguese crown in 1513, Santa Cruz do Cabo de Guer was renamed Agadir when it was conquered by the Saʿdi dynasty in 1541. The town became Morocco’s principal southern seaport, and much of the country’s trade with Europe, especially Amsterdam, was conducted by Jews who settled there. The Dutch relied on Jewish merchants in Agadir for ostrich feathers, indigo, wax, gu…

see Atlas MountainsDaniel Schroeter

see ZionismDaniel Schroeter

The city of Casablanca ([al-]Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, Sp. and Ar. white house), Morocco’s principal seaport, was home to the largest Jewish community in the Maghreb in the twentieth century. Situated on the central Atlantic coast, it was known as Anfā in the Middle Ages. During the decline of the Marinid dynasty, its relative autonomy made it a safe haven for corsairs. The Portuguese destroyed the town in 1468 or 1469, and it was only rebuilt in the latter half of the eighteenth century by Sultan Sīdī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who renamed it al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ. Grain was its principal expor…

Yomtob Sémach(1869–1940) was one of the most influential educators of the Alliance Israelite Universelle(AIU) system in Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Morocco over a period spanning fifty years. He was born in Yambol, Bulgaria, in 1869 into a wealthy merchant family originally from Edirne (Adrianople) and was educated at the local AIU schools and then at the École Normale Israélite Orientale in Paris. He began his teaching career at an AIU school in Sousse, Tunisia, in 1891, but returned to Bulgaria two years later following the death of his father, and was appointed f…

1. Until 1912Origins of the Jews of MoroccoMorocco (Ar. al-Maghrib) is a country in the northwestern part of Africa, along the Mediterranean coast to the north, and stretching along the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The origins of Jewish settlement in al-Maghrib al-Aqṣā (Ar. far west, far Maghreb), as the westernmost country of North Africa was called by Arab geographers, is unknown. The Jewish communities of Morocco traced their roots back to ancient Israel; legends recount that the first Jews arrived e…