Emily R. Gottreich (Berkeley)
Informed by recent trends and debates in the field of Islamic Urban Studies, this paper proposes an integrated approach to the ethnic quarter generally and Jewish space specifically within the context of Moroccan urban history. It does this by arguing that Moroccan society (like any society) acts on its environment in real, readable ways, one of which is the disposition of space. The ethnic quarter, long considered the foundation of city life in the Arab-Islamic world, is one such space. Of the 24 quarters (hawma) that historically comprised Marrakesh, few were more explicitly "ethnic" than the mellah, the Jewish quarter, at least insofar as the Jews have long constituted Morocco's only indigenous religious minority. Thus an inquiry into the circumstances of the mellah-'s creation - exactly when and why it came into being - not only reveals valuable information about the relationship between Jews and Muslims (as well as many resident Christians) in a major Moroccan capital and trade emporium, it also more broadly suggests that Jewish space can be read as a manifestation of the underlying social order of the so-called "Islamic city" model. As such, the mellah is not merely an exception to the model's rule of religious homogeneity, as many scholars of Moroccan urban history suggest, but rather must be understood as an organic expression of its logic.
Ultimately, the mellah-'s origins are found to be inextricable from the evolution of the Sa'dis, the dynasty responsible for single-handedly transforming Marrakesh from what Le Tourneau called "a phantom capital, a moribund city of nostalgia" (Deverdun, 1959) into one of the largest and most glorious capitals in all sixteenth-century Africa, and themselves into Marrakshi-s par excellence in the process. As this paper goes on to show, the creation of the mellah played an integral part in both of these transformations. It was intertwined with all the exigencies of sharifian rule in Marrakesh: tumultuous relations with Europe and locally resident Europeans, particularly the Iberians; the struggle for legitimacy against the prevailing image of Fassi orthodoxy; the creation of a royal capital worthy of the title. Though locally manifest, the origins of the mellah are also shown to be linked to many of the larger historical themes of the Mediterranean world in the sixteenth century. A general rise in population, the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain, and the gradual institutionalization of the walled Jewish quarter all had a hand in its creation. Moreover, once in existence, the mellah continued to reverberate with the defining events of the period. Epidemics, famines, and earthquakes did not stop at its gate, nor were the opportunities of the trans-Saharan trade or the early mercantilist exchanges with Europe foregone by the mellah-'s capable merchants.
The paper concludes by outlining how the Jews of Marrakesh not only withstood the difficulties of relocation, but also managed to invest the mellah with Jewish meaning, transforming it into Morocco's "capitale juive." Firmly grounded in space and endowed with meaning by its early history, the mellah gave Marrakesh Jewry a distinctive locus - indeed a home - from which they would interact with the rest of the city, region, country, and even the larger Mediterranean, European, and Jewish worlds for the next four centuries.