Jewish community of Fes
The Jewish community of Fes was a community that existed in the city of Fes in Morocco for the last thousand years. Throughout the years, there were rabbis, poets and famous linguists in this community, who greatly influenced Jewish communities in Morocco and throughout the world.
History
Fez had long hosted the largest and one of the oldest Jewish communities in Morocco, present since the city's foundation by the Idrisids. They lived in many parts of the city alongside the Muslim population, as evidenced by the fact that Jewish houses were purchased and demolished for the Almoravid expansion of the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque, and by the claims of Maimonides' residence in what later became the Dar al-Magana. Nonetheless, since the time of Idris II the Jewish community was more or less concentrated in the neighbourhood known as Foundouk el-Yihoudi near Bab Guissa in the northeast of the city. The city's original Jewish cemetery was also located near here, just outside the gate of Bab Guissa.As elsewhere in the Muslim world, the Jewish population lived under the protected but subordinate status of dhimmi, required to pay a jizya tax but able to move relatively freely and cultivate relations in other countries. Fez, along with Cordoba, was one of the centers of a Jewish intellectual and cultural renaissance taking place in the 10th and 11th centuries in Morocco and al-Andalus. A number of major figures such as Dunash Ben Labrat, Judah ben David Hayyuj, and the great Talmudist Isaac al-Fasi were all born or spent time in Fez. Maimonides also lived in Fez from 1159 to 1165 after fleeing al-Andalus. This age of prosperity came to an end, however, with the advent of Almohad rule in Morocco and Al-Andalus. The Almohads, who officially followed the radical reformist ideology of Ibn Tumart, abolished the jizya and the status of dhimmi, enforcing repressive measures against non-Muslims and other reforms. Jews under their rule were widely forced to convert or be exiled, with some converting but continuing to practice their Jewish faith in secret.
The decline of the Almohads and the rise of the Marinid dynasty's rule over Morocco in the 13th century brought a more tolerant climate in which the Jewish community was able to recover and grow again. Following the pogroms of 1391 under Spanish rule, in places like Seville and Catalonia, a large number of Spanish Jews fled to North Africa and settled in cities like Fez.
Construction of The Mellah
In 1276 the Marinids had founded Fes el-Jdid, a new fortified administrative city to house their royal palace and army barracks, located to the west of Fes el-Bali. Later in the Marinid period the Jewish inhabitants of Fes el-Bali were all moved to a new district in the southern part of Fes el-Jdid. This district, possibly created after the 1276 foundation, was located between the inner and outer southern walls of the city and was initially inhabited by Muslim garrisons, notably by the Sultan's mercenary contingents of Syrian archers. These regiments were disbanded around 1325 under Sultan Abu Sa'id. The district was first known as Hims, but also by the name Mellah due to either a saline water source in the area or to the former presence of a salt warehouse. This second name was later retained as the name of the Jewish quarter. This was the first "mellah" in Morocco; a name and phenomenon that came to be replicated in many other cities such as Marrakech.File:باب السمارين.jpg|thumb|Bab Semmarine, the main southern gate of Fes el-Jdid|left
Both the exact reasons and the exact date for the creation of the Jewish Mellah of Fez are not firmly established. Historical accounts confirm that in the mid-14th century the Jews of Fez were still living in Fes el-Bali but that by the end of the 16th century they were well-established in the Mellah of Fes el-Jdid. Moroccan scholar Hicham Rguig, for example, states that the transfer is not precisely dated and argues that it likely happened in stages across the Marinid period, particularly following episodes of violence or repression against Jews in the old city. One of the earliest such instances of violence was a revolt in 1276 against the new Marinid dynasty, right before Sultan Abu Yusuf Ya'qub decided to found Fes el-Jdid. The revolt shook the whole city but also resulted in much violence against the Jewish inhabitants, which may have incited Abu Yusuf Ya'qub to intervene in some way to protect the community. Susan Gilson Miller, a scholar of Moroccan and Jewish history, has also noted that the urban fabric of the Mellah appears to have developed progressively and it's thus possible that a small Jewish population settled here right after the foundation of Fes el-Jdid and that other Jews fleeing the old city joined them later. Many authors, citing historical Jewish chronicles, attribute the main transfer more specifically to the "rediscovery" of Idris II's body in his old mosque at the center of the city in 1437. The area around the mosque, located in the middle of the city's main commercial districts, was turned into a ḥurm where non-Muslims were not allowed to enter, resulting in the expulsion of the Jewish inhabitants and merchants there. At least several authors claim that the expulsion was further enforced to all of Fes el-Bali because it was given the status of a "holy" city as a result of the discovery. Other scholars also date the move generally to the mid-15th century, without arguing for a specific date. In any case, the transfer occurred with some violence and hardship.
Broader political motivations for moving the Jewish community to Fes el-Jdid, closer to the royal palace, may have included the rulers' desire to take more direct advantage of their artisan skills and of their commercial relations with Jewish communities in Europe and other countries. The Mellah's Jewish cemetery was established at its southwestern edge on land which was donated to the Jewish community by a Marinid princess named Lalla Mina in the 15th century.
1465 assault on the Mellah
The 15th century was also a time of political instability, with the Wattasid viziers taking over effective control from the Marinid dynasty and competing with other local factions in Fez. In 1465, the Mellah was attacked by the Muslim population of Fes el-Bali during a revolt led by the shurafa against the Marinid sultan Abd al-Haqq II and his Jewish vizier Harun ibn Battash. The attack resulted in thousands of Jewish inhabitants being killed, with many others having to openly renounce their faith. The community took at least a decade to recover from this, growing again under the rule of the Wattasid Sultan Muhammad al-Shaykh.''Bildī'' converts
Although numerous Fessi Jews converted to Islam throughout the premodern period, the conversions spiked in the mid-fifteenth century. Many Jewish households—including powerful merchant families, such as the Bannānī, Ibn Shaqrūn, Bannīs, Barrāda, and Gassūs families—chose to convert rather than leave their homes and their businesses in the heart of the old city. These new Muslims, often retaining Jewish surnames, were referred to as Bildiyīn as they did not have a traditional Arabic nisba, a surname indicating lineage or tribal affiliation, though some were given al-Islāmī as a nisba.In the 16th century, tensions between Jews and Muslims in Fes flared due to marketplace competition in the Qaysariya. The recent converts, unlike the Conversos in contemporary Iberia, were not accused of crypto-Judaism or disloyalty to Islam, though they did face discrimination. Under pressure from the shurafā, or Arab-Muslim nobles claiming Muhammadan lineage, Sultan Aḥmad al-Waṭṭāsī asked the city's Muslim jurists about the permissibility of discrimination among Muslims on the basis of origin. Seventeen of the jurists declared it illegal; merchants could be expelled from the Qaysariya for malpractice or dishonesty, but a Muslim could not be discriminated against based on origins or lineage.
File:Slat El Fassiyine Synagogue 18022021 007.jpg|thumb|The Al Fassiyine Synagogue was one of the few synagogues where the non-Sephardic rituals of the toshavim continued up until the 20th century.
Arrival of Megorashim from Spain
In subsequent centuries the fortunes of the Mellah and the Jewish community of Fez varied according to circumstances, including general circumstances that affected all inhabitants of Fez such as famine or war. The Mellah's location inside the more heavily fortified Fes el-Jdid and close to the Royal Palace made it relatively secure, but the Jewish community nonetheless suffered disasters at various periods.Major changes to the community occurred when in 1492 the Spanish crown expelled all Jews from Spain, with Portugal doing the same in 1497. The following waves of Spanish Jews migrating to Fez and North Africa increased the Jewish population and also altered its social, ethnic, and linguistic makeup.
According to a Belgian scholar who visited the Mellah in the mid-16th century, the Jewish quarter had an estimated population of 4000 at this time. The influx of migrants also revitalized Jewish cultural activity in the following years, while splitting the community along ethnic lines for many generations. The Megorashim of Spanish origin retained their heritage and their Spanish language while the indigenous Moroccan Toshavim, who spoke Arabic and were of Arab and Berber heritage, followed their own traditions. Members of the two communities worshiped in separate synagogues and were even buried separately.
The Toshavim and Megorashim had different religious practices and views. There were differences with regard to shehita, or ritual kosher slaughter, and to ketuba, or the marriage contract, obstructing their ability to eat together and marry, and therefore to assimilate. In the 16th century, a group of rabbis known as the "Sages from Castille" gained dominance in the interpretation of rabbinical law, but cultural and linguistic differences persisted. It was only in the 18th century that the two communities eventually blended together, with Arabic eventually becoming the main language of the entire community while the Spanish minhag became dominant in religious practice.