Jewish Morocco : a history from pre-Islamic to postcolonial times
Emily Gottreich (Author)
"Morocco was once home to the largest Jewish community in the Arab world. Jews are also among Morocco's oldest inhabitants: the Jewish presence in Northwest Africa predates the rise of Islam in the seventh century and continues to the present day, combining elements of Berber (Amazigh), Arab, Sephardi, and European culture. In this setting, Muslim-Jewish relations have long been recognized as uncommonly intimate. For these reasons alone--and many more besides--the history of Morocco simply cannot be told without the history of its Jews. In Jewish Morocco, Emily Gottreich examines the history of Jews in Morocco from the pre-Islamic period to postcolonial times, drawing on newly acquired evidence from archival materials in Rabat. The book traces the development of five thematic "pillars" of Moroccan identity: Malikism (the dominant school of Islamic jurisprudence), Amazighity ("Berber" identity), Sharifism (ideology of genealogical privilege), Europeanization, and Arabness. But the book is unique in doing so from the original perspective of the Jewish historical experience. Fitting into a growing body of scholarship that consciously strives to integrate Jewish and Middle Eastern studies, this book is as much a history of Jews of Morocco as a history of Morocco from the point of view of its Jews. Emily Gottreich also places pressing issues in contemporary Moroccan society into their historical, and in their Jewish, contexts."--Back cover
Print Book, English, 2021
Paperback edition
I.B. Tauris, London, 2021