2020/01/01 by Emily Benichou Gottreich · 12 citations
Social Sciences · #African Studies and Geopolitics #African history and culture analysis #African history and culture studies #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies
paper · doi:10.5040/9781838603601
openalex publication_date 2020/02/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
The history of Morocco cannot effectively be told without the history of its Jewish inhabitants. Their presence in Northwest Africa pre-dates the rise of Islam and continues to the present day, combining elements of Berber (Amazigh), Arab, Sephardi and European culture. Emily Gottreich examines the history of Jews in Morocco from the pre-Islamic period to post-colonial times, drawing on newly acquired evidence from archival materials in Rabat. Providing an important reassessment of the impact of the French protectorate over Morocco, the author overturns widely accepted views on Jews' participation in Moroccan nationalism - an issue often marginalized by both Zionist and Arab nationalist narratives - and breaks new ground in her analysis of Jewish involvement in the istiqlal and its aftermath. Fitting into a growing body of scholarship that consciously strives to integrate Jewish and Middle Eastern studies, Emily Gottreich here provides an original perspective by placing pressing issues in contemporary Moroccan society into their historical, and in their Jewish, contexts.