Though the origins and early evolution of the Jewish communities of Tarudant and the surrounding region are not documented, it can be asserted that Jewish rural or semi-rural communities existed at least since the eleventh-century in Tarudant and its surroundings. In the mid-twelfth century, *Abraham Ibn Ezra’s famous qina (elegy), which evoked the destruction of Jewish communities in North Africa and Andalusia under the Almohads, mentioned the *Sous region; Tarudant was one of the largest communities there. Extant sources demonstrate that Tarudant, a town located 83 km inland from the southern Atlantic port of Agadir, was part of a network Jewish communities situated in the region, which were influenced by similar factors throughout history until their dispersion resulting from emigration, mainly to Israel in 1962-1963. In certain periods, such as from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, in times of famine or major disturbances, the small communities of Tiout, igli, Arazan Ait Iyub, Oulad Hassan, Tinzert, Lulaiza, Oulad Berrḥil, Talamt, Id Agwai̯lal, Tamast, Oulad Burii̯s or even *Akka far into the Sahara, supplied food to the Tarudant residents, and maintained the population at about 1,000, although most of these smaller communities in the vicinity ranged between 30 and 200 members. In other circumstances, such as the early seventeenth century after a plague epidemic, Jews from Tarudant found refuge in Akka and its surroundings. Tarudant and its neighboring communities were also united since the eighteenth century through intense Kabbalah-related activities and through the cult of saints—especially those who stemmed from the Cohen *Azugh family—who are buried among the Imin Taga (Mintagah), Mnabha, or in Tarudant.

The fact that these communities mixed was also visible in the Judeo-Arabic language spoken in Tarudant, which still used Berber terms in relation to everyday life, the human body, and the household. This hybridization came from the fact that at least some speakers were bilingual in previous centuries—those coming from rural communities spoke Judeo-Arabic and (Judeo-)Berber, whereas Jews in nineteenth-century and twentieth-centuries Tarudant used only Judeo-Arabic as their main language. Significantly, as a stronghold for the Moroccan central government (Makhzan) in the Sous region, most of Muslim residents spoke Arabic while the surrounding regions were Berber-speaking.

The communities from the surrounding Sous plain were often caught up in social and political turmoil, a constant factor of life in southern Morocco since the Middle Ages. During this long period, conflicts between successive Berber or Arab dynasties caused chronic instability in the region; revolts against central power in Fez, Marrakesh or Meknes and local potentates or candidates to the throne were frequent. During the rise to power of the Sa‘di dynasty in the sixteenth century, the Sa‘di ruler Aḥmad al-A‘raj was established in Tarudant for a period of time.  Tarudant was often the seat of power in the Sous for the ‘Alawid dynasty, in their effort to control the dissident regions of the Sous.

At the same time, Tarudant and the other communities, at the crossroads of important trade routes, benefited from new economic opportunities that enriched local Jewish residents; for example, the sugar industry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or the trans-Saharan trade that passed through the Sous to *Marrakesh, *Essaouira (Mogador) or *Agadir, continuing until the early twentieth-century. The expansion of trade with Europe along the coast, especially from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, afforded new opportunities and greater prosperity for the Jews of Tarudant. Under the sultan, Mawlāy Sulayman, in the early nineteenth century, the mellah (mallāḥ) was expanded, and during the course of the nineteenth century Jews were able to acquire lands outside the city walls, to the consternation of the local Muslim authorities. Besides long-distance trade, Jews of Tarudant and its region minted coins, and like their coreligionists throughout the Sous, made a living as suppliers of fabrics and staple products,  a niche which they monopolized. Jews worked in various handicrafts, especially as jewelers, tinsmiths, mattress makers, and cobblers; some itinerant peddlers sold their meager merchandise or services in the weekly markets in various locations, often spending months away from home. At the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth centuries, the wealthiest members of these communities formed agricultural associations with Muslim, Arab, or Berber farmers, raising cattle, sheep, growing cereal, or taking care of orchards and olive trees. These agricultural partnerships with Muslims influenced the Jewish festival of *Mimuna in Tarudant; on the last day of Passover, Jews would bring baskets of matzos and Jewish culinary specialties to their Muslim acquaintances, who would give them milk, honey, eggs, wheat, barley, and green beans to fill their traditional holiday table.

From a Jewish cultural and religious perspective, Tarudant was renowned as a center of Kabbalah in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The exegetical work of the main thinkers, some of which has been published and studied, such as Moses ben Maimon Elbaz and his disciple Jacob Ifergan, or Rabbi Isaac Ha-Cohen who probably paved the way to a dynasty of kabbalists in the Cohen Azugh family and whose work remains unpublished. Since the eighteenth-century and up to this day, the leaders of this family have become venerated in Tarudant and neighboring communities. The *hillula for *David ben Barukh Cohen Azugh continues to unite hundreds of pilgrims in Aghzu n-Bahamu, near Oulad Berrhil, every winter, on the last day of Hanukkah. Other family saints included *Barukh Cohen al-Kabir, buried in Mentagah; rabbi David Ha-Cohen Azugh (1888?-1953), known as Baba Doudou, buried in Marrakesh. Other saints venerated in the area included Moses ben Maimon Elbaz, Shalom Zafrani and Pinhas Al-Cohen, buried in Tarudant, Rabbi Abraham ben Maimon in Tiout, Rabbi Isaac Luria in the Houara, and Rabbi Khlifa Malka in *Agadir.

Modern education was brought to Tarudant only in 1929, when the Alliance Israélite Universelle opened an elementary school , which trained hundreds of pupils until it closed in 1963 after emigration to Israel. Only after World War II could young people go to *Casablanca to enroll in secondary school, particularly in the *Ecole Normale Hébraïque. During the period of the French protectorate and until the early 1950s, the total number of Jews remained steady at nearly 1,000.  However, before emigration to Israel, a number of families and individual youngsters settled in Agadir, *Marrakesh and *Casablanca, and even in *Salé and *Rabat to look for a better economic situation. Others continued all the way to Paris, where a small immigrant community of people from Tarudant is located. Most members live scattered in Israel, where efforts have been made to organize and preserve the Jewish memory of their former community; many hillulot, celebrating saints in the region of Tarudant, continue to unite Jews originating from Tarudant and its surroundings in the twenty-first century.

 

Bibliographie

Joseph Chetrit, “Our Celebration of the Mimuna Festival in Tarudant, the Sus Valley” (Hebrew), in  M. Elkayam (ed.), Mimuna 1982, Tel-Aviv 1982 (and 1983), pp. 21-24.

Joseph Chetrit, “The Jewish Marriage in Tarudant: Customs, Ceremonies and Songs” (Hebrew), in Joseph Chetrit et alii, The Jewish Traditional Marriage in Morocco: Interpretive and Documetary Chapters, University of Haifa, Haifa 2003 [=Miqqedem Umiyyam, vol.  8), pp. 493-551.

Joseph Chetrit, “Diglossic Formulae and Proverbs: The Integration of Hebrew Elements Into the Formulaic Discourse of the Jews of Tarudant” (Hebrew), Ha-‘Ivrit ve-‘Ahyoteha 4 (2005), pp. 247-294.

Joseph Chetrit, “Les rapports trimestriels des instituteurs de l’Alliance comme source ethnographique sur le judaïsme marocain. Les Juifs de Taroudant, leurs métiers et leurs saints”, in Brit 30 (2011), pp. 12-28.

Pierre Flamand, Diaspora en terre d’Islam. I: Les communautees israélites du sud marocain, Casablanca 1959.

Djinn Jacques-Meunié, Le Maroc saharien des origines à 1670, 2 volumes, Editions Klincksick, Paris 1982.