Published in Casablanca from 1932 to 1940 in French, L’Union Marocaine was founded by members of the local Jewish establishment, with the help of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) and French Jewish leaders, to counteract the influence of the pro-Zionist L’Avenir Illustré . Edited by Elie Nataf, the Tunisian-born secretary of the Casablanca community and a former principal of AIU schools, L’Union Marocaine defended Yahya Zagury and the small group of notables who comprised the communal leadership against attacks accusing them of being undemocratic, pa…

After outbreaks of antisemitic violence in Tunisia in 1917 and 1918, members of the country’s Jewish and Muslim intelligentsia attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the two communities. They were motivated in part by President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Versailles Treaty, which had aroused hopes of emancipation from the French colonial yoke. The Jewish and Muslim elites who came together to discuss the country’s future were motivated by the crisis situation in Tunisia at the end of World War I. They began meeting in late 191…

A native of the city of Meknes in Morocco, Joseph (Jo) Ohana (1914–1995) was a wealthy Casablanca businessman and political activist. In 1955 he founded the Mouvement National Marocain, a small Jewish group connected to the nationalist Istiqlal Party, whose objective was to mobilize Jewish support for the Moroccan nationalist cause and demonstrate the loyalty of Moroccan Jewry to Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef, the future King Mohammed V. Following Moroccan independence in 1956, Mohammed V appointed Ohana as one of the five Jews among the seventy-six members of the first National Co…

Published in Casablanca from 1926 to 1940 in French,  L’Avenir Illustré was the first long-lasting Jewish periodical in Morocco. It advocated reforms in the Jewish community and sought to instill the ideals of Jewish nationalism among the increasingly Westernized Jewish elite that had come into being in Morocco during the French protectorate. Its founder and editor was an Ashkenazi Jew, Jonathan Thursz (1895–1976), a native of Poland who was educated in Belgium and settled in Morocco in 1923. The French colonial authorities disapproved of Zionism but were unable to object to L’Avenir…

Mardochée Smadja (Mardoché Smaja)was born into a traditional Jewish family in Tunis in 1864 and was named for his grandfather, who was chief rabbi of Tunisia from 1898 to 1900. After taking an accelerated course at the Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Tunis when he was fifteen, Smadja subsequently continued his education on his own.Attracted by French culture and the ideals of the French Revolution, Smadja concluded that assimilation to French institutions and ways was the path to Jewish social and political emancipation. He became a leading advocate of …

Nasrid dynasty, Malaga rule of Granada, Granada naṣṣ (uninterrupted transmission of innate spiritual authority through specific designation), Shiʽa and the Jews, Shiʽa and the JewsNasser, Gamal Abdel, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Egypt, Zionism Among Sephardi/Mizraḥi Jewry, Politi, Elie antisemitism of, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-ZionismNāsṭūnā seeBustanayNataf, Elie, Casablanca, Journalism, Alliance Judéo-Musulmane (Comité de l’Union judéo-musulmane), Nataf, Elie, L’Union Marocaine (Casablanca)Nataf, Félix, Toledano, MeyerNataf, Vi…

Caprotti, Giuseppe, Manuscripts and manuscript collectionsCapsali, Elijah, Greece (pre-1824), Music, Sambari, Joseph ben Isaac, Capsali, Elijah, Crete, Vital, David Ben Solomon Ha-RofeCapsali, Moses ben Elijah (1420–1495), Anatolia, Millet, Ottoman Empire, Romaniots (Bene Romania), Sephardim/Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Capsali, Elijah, Capsali, Moses ben Elijah, Crete, Rav Akçesi (Rabbi's Tax), Saporta, ḤanokhCapsali family, Greece (pre-1824)captives  ransoming of, Algeria, Charity, Charitable Institutions and Societies in the Medieval Peri…

Between 1955 and 1967, most North African Jews settled in France. Today, Sephardi/Mizraḥi Jews represent a majority of the approximately 600,000 Jews living there. They include many talented filmmakers and artists who displayed, forgot, or rejected their Jewish roots.The first filmmaker to include North African Jewish characters was Alexandre Arcady. Born in 1947 in Algiers, he directed Le Coup de Sirocco in 1979, which dealt with Jews and Catholic settlers (so-called pieds noirs) in Algeria before independence. In 1982, Le Grand Pardon (Eng. title: Day of Atonement) was rem…

Patrick Bruel (né Benguigui), born May 14, 1959 in Tlemcen, Algeria, is a French actor, singer, and human rights activist. He grew up in France, where his family settled when Algeria became independent, and after his parents divorced was greatly influenced by the secular and leftist leanings of his mother’s male relatives. Bruel actively supported the anti-racist organization SOS Racisme from its inception in 1984 and was an outspoken opponent of the extreme right-wing Front National. In his aut…

Albert Memmi, one of the best-known North African Jewish writers of the twentieth century, was born on December 15, 1920 in a poor Jewish neighborhood of Tunis, to a father of Italian-Jewish descent and a mother of Berber-Jewish origins. As the son of an artisan, Memmi experienced a sense of alienation from the richer Jewish community which surrounded him. In his first and perhaps most famous work, the autobiographical La statue de sel ( Pillar of Salt), published in 1952 with an introduction by Albert Camus, Memmi explains this feeling of difference as one of the many layers o…

Tripolis (Three Cities, area on Libyan coast with Phoenician settlements), LibyaTripolitania region (Libya), Libya  ​anti-Jewish violence in (Tripolitania Riots, 1945 and 1948), Benghazi, Tripoli, Libya, Tripolitania Riots (1945 and 1948), Amrus, Arbib, Lillo, Yefren, Zawiya, Zliten concentration camps in, Libya history of, Tripoli, Libya Jewish communities in, Tripoli, Libya  deportation of, Libya  leadership of, Libya  modernization of, Tripoli, Libya  in Roman times, Libya  Zionism, Circolo Sion (Tripoli) in Karamanli period, Tripoli, Libya Ottoman peri…

Morocco  Alawid rule of, Morocco, Tafilalet, Tafilalet, Ben ʿAṭṭār (or Ibn ʿAṭṭār) Family, Ben Qīqī, Reuben and David American military bases in, Zionism Among Sephardi/Mizraḥi Jewry amulets from, Amulets, Amulets anti-Jewish measures in, in World War II, Morocco, Ayache, Germain anti-Jewish violence in, Ben Ḥassin, David, Morocco, Romanelli, Samuel, Toshavim, Ibn Baṭash, Aaron (Hārūn), Maghīli, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-  Almohad period, Tangier anti-Jewish writings in, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Islāmī Berber population in, autonomy of, Morocco civil rights movement…

anti-Judaism/antisemitism  in Algeria, Algiers, Crémieux Decree, Mostaganem, Médéa, Hanin, Roger  fights against, Aboulker, Henri  French colonial period, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Constantine Riots (1934), Algeria, Algeria, Oran, Tiaret (Tahert), Batna   Crémieux Decree, Tlemcen, Sidi Bel Abbès   Vichy regime, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Algeria, Derrida, Jacques, Internment Camps (WWII), Internment Camps (WWII), Béchar (Colomb-Béchar)  Miliana, Miliana  Oran, Oran, Oran, Oran  Souk-Ahras, Souk-Ahras in Balkans, Ba…

Longo, Sa‘adya ben Abraham, Balkans, Ibn Yaḥya, Gedaliah ben Jacob Tam, Levi (Le-Vet Ha-Levi) Family, Salonica, Levi (Le-Vet Ha-Levi) Family, Salonica, Longo, SaʿadyaLonzano, Menahem ben Judah de, Lonzano, Menahem Ben Judah De commentaries and poems by, Lonzano, Menahem Ben Judah DeLopez, Roderigo, Ben Yaʿesh (also Ibn Yaʿish or Abenæs), SolomonLópez de Marondon, Juan, LaracheLópez Penha, Abraham, ColombiaLorca (Spain), Jewish community in, LorcaLoreley, Angèle (Angela Ruto), Carasso (Karasu), Albert, Le Journal d’OrientLoria, Jacques, La Nation (Salonica)Loria, Zhak…

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…

Ne’ot Midbar (Pastures of the Wilderness, Raphael Aaron (I) Monsonego), Monsonego Family Ne’ot Ya‘aqov (Jacob’s Pastures, Yom Ṭov Algazi), Algazi, Yom Ṭov ben Israel Jacobnepotism, acceptance of, Saʿd al-Dawla Ner ha-Ma‘aravi (The Western Light, Jacob Malka), Monsonego Family Ner Miṣva (The Commandment Is a Lamp, Joseph Mesas), Mesas (Meshash), Joseph Nés à Bagdad (Born in Baghdad, poetry collection, Jabani and Someck), Someck, Ronny ​ nesi’im (Jewish community leaders), Yeshiva of Palestine, Court Jews dynasties of, Exilarch and Exilarchate  see also nasi titleNesry, Carlo…

La Tunisie Nouvelle (The New Tunisia, journal), Alliance Judéo-Musulmane (Comité de l’Union judéo-musulmane) Ṭur see Arba‘a Ṭurim Tūrān Shāh al-Ayyūbī, TaʿizzTuranism, Vambery, Arminiusturbans, Clothing, Jewelry and Make-up, Clothing, Jewelry and Make-upTurcoman tribes, Ismāʽīl I, Shāh in Iran, ʿAbbās I, Shāh, ʿAbbās II, Shah turcos, Uruguay Les Turcs à la recherche d’une ƒme nationale (P. Risal/Moïse Kohen), Kohen, Moïse (Tekinalp, Munis)Turgul, Yavuz, Medina, Cefi (Jeffi)Turgut, Serdar, Tuvi, YusufTurhan Valide Sultan (mother of Ottoman sultan), Abravanel, …

Bene Aharon (The Sons of Aaron, Aaron Lapapa), Lapapa, Aaron Ben Isaac Bene Binyamin ve-Qerev Ish (The Sons of Benjamin and the Inner [Thought] of [Every] Man, Benjamin Navon), Navon family bene ‘edot ha-mizraḥ (members of the ‘edot from the East), usage of term, Mizraḥim (‘Edot ha-Mizraḥ; names of Mizraḥim in Israel)Bene Israel (Children of Israel) Jews, India, India in Bombay, Bombay (present day Mumbai) in Maharashtra, PakistanBene Israel (Children of Israel) party (Ottoman Empire), Nahoum (Nahum), Haim (Ḥayyim) Bene Melakhim (The Sons of Kings, Eliahou Raphael Marcian…

U-mi-Ṣur Devash (And with Honey Out of the Rock, Raphael Aaron Ben-Shim‘on), Ben-Shimʿon, David, Ben-Simeon, Raphael Aaron‘Ubayd Allāh al-Mahdī (Fatimid caliph, 909-934), Tunisia, Southern Italy and Bari, Mahdiyya, al- Uçurtmayi Vurmasinlar (Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite, film), Hubeş, Rozetal-‘Udhrī, MurciaUdovitch, Abraham, Academic Study of Islamicate Jewry Ufuq-i Binā (Horizon of Knowledge, newspaper, Tehran), Tehran, Sionit, Mojdeh Ughnīyāt li-Bilādī (Melodies to My Country, poetry collection, Sha‘shū‘a), Sha‘shū‘a, SalīmUkraine, Jews in, forced deportatio…

muslim sources seeIslamic sources/texts ​Muslim-Christian relations  Sephardic Jews involved in diplomacy in, Rosales, Jacob  see alsointerfaith relations ​Muslim-Jewish relations  in Algeria, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Algeria, Algeria, Mzab, Tlemcen, Sidi Bel Abbès, Aïn-Beida, Aïn Témouchent, Bénichou, Raymond-Joseph  Algiers, Algiers  Annaba, Annaba (Bône)  Batna, Batna  Constantine, Constantine  Sétif, Sétif  Tiaret, Tiaret (Tahert)  and war of independence, Oran in Andalusia/Spain, A…