Jews and Muslims of Morocco collects accounts of the intersecting worlds and emergent shared customs and culture, suggesting that the unique atmosphere in Morocco allowed for Rabbinic empowerment and a more practical approach to halakhah.
Capturing the dialectics and historical vicissitudes of Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco in all their intricacy and multivocality is a challenging project. This comprehensive volume, which brings together the contributions of 18 leading scholars from a wide gamut of disciplines, faces up to this challenge admirably. The breadth of knowledge conveyed in this interdisciplinary volume will prove of lasting interest to scholars of both Moroccan and Jewish history as well those interested in cross-cultural connections and intragroup relations more broadly. This collection of studies by some of the world's leading scholars from a variety of disciplines offers a wide-ranging peregrination through Moroccan Jewish history and culture and its intricate and complex connection with the surrounding Islamic Arab and Berber cultural matrix. Readers are provided with in-depth, nuanced expositions of social and political interaction between Moroccan Jews and non-Jews and their shared cultural elements of language, literature, music, and popular beliefs and practices. It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on what was once the world's largest non-Ashkenazi Jewish community with a unique and rich cultural heritage. This volume weaves a rich tapestry of Jewish life in Morocco in pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial times. Topics include the role played by Jewish exiles from the Iberian Peninsula; Jewish-Muslim relations; and interaction with the French during the Protectorate (1912-1956). Developments in popular religion, folklore, poetry, music, liturgy, and law make this volume a fascinating introduction to the history and culture of this important and diverse community in the Islamic world. Two thrusts have enriched the study of North African Jewish communities in recent decades. One is the deepening grasp of how scholarly, mystical, and liturgical developments in other Jewish centers were absorbed, preserved, and cultivated in the Maghreb. Second is the expanding appreciation of how Muslim society--both as the empowered majority and as quotidian neighbors--interpenetrated Jewish life. Jews and Muslims in Morocco weaves together these perspectives, providing a striking tapestry that both enhances our knowledge and invites continued research.
