page_title: History of the Jews in Morocco
section_title: The Spanish Expulsion of the Jews
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Morocco / History / The Spanish Expulsion of the Jews
caption_attribution_description: English: Synagogue Danan sanae:560001
context_page_description: Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community. Before the founding of Israel in 1948, there were about 250,000 to 350,000 Jews in the country, which gave Morocco the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, but by 2017 only 2,000 or so remain. Jews in Morocco, originally speakers of Berber languages, Judeo-Moroccan Arabic or Judaeo-Spanish, were the first in the country to adopt the French language, and unlike the general population French remains the main language of members of the Jewish community there.
context_section_description: By 1249, the Spanish Reconquista had concluded its main phase. During the murderous scenes enacted in 1391 in Spain, Spanish-controlled Seville, and Majorca, the Sephardi Jews of Spain seized the opportunity to emigrate to North Africa in order to escape persecution. A hundred years later, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile issued the Alhambra Decree - an edict ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from Spain. Consequently, the Jews were driven from Spain in 1492, and later from Portugal in 1496 following a similar decree by King Manuel I of Portugal. The sudden inroad of Jews into Morocco and the whole of North Africa was then repeated on a much larger scale.
  
  Following the 1465 Moroccan revolt under the Marinid dynasty, the native Jewish community in Morocco had shrunken substantially, having been massacred and marginalized. The Moroccan Jewry began to recover from the pogroms of 1465 under the Wattasid dynasty, a ruling group of Zenata Berbers which had gained control during the fall of the Marinid in 1472. The Jewish community in Morocco then swelled with the waves of refugees arriving from Spain and Portugal after 1492, increasing the cultural and economic power of the Moroccan Jewish community considerably. Incoming Sephardi Jews tended to be economically better off than their native counterparts, bringing with them specific ideas of culture shaped by centuries of life on the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the Sephardic scholarly mercantile elite were quick to dominate Jewish communal life in Morocco.
  A number of natives from Fez fled to Spain over the course of the fifteenth century and returned to Fez following 1492, acting as a unique bridge between the native Jews of Morocco and the newly arrived Sephardim. Among this group, the most outstanding representatives were the Ibn Danan family. Fleeing from Fez in either 1438 or 1465, the Ibn Danans settled in Granada where Rabbi Moses Maimon Ibn Danan and his son Saadiah achieved fame as scholars. Saadiah returned to Fez after the Spanish expulsion and served as a spiritual guide for other exiles, whilst identifying himself with the native Jews. The Ibn Danan family was among the intellectual and financial elite of Fez for centuries, creating alliances across Sephardi families and maintaining a prominent synagogue in Fez.
  The arrival of Spanish Jewish refugees brought important changes in city life and within the preexisting Jewish community. Jewish life in the Muslim interior of Morocco became dominated by the Sephardic plutocracy that continued to maintain control of the Moroccan Jewry up until modern times. Each local community had a rigid, or shaykh al-Yahud, who was appointed by the government. The chief figure in the larger Jewish community was the Nagid of the capital, who was invariably a court Jew. Throughout the Moroccan Jewish community, there were famous Sephardic dayyanim such as the Ibn Danans whose authority was largely recognized by Jews within the whole country. However, the influx of refugees also caused overcrowding in the larger cities of Morocco and aroused uneasiness among both the Muslims, who feared an increase in the price of necessities, and the Jews already settled there, who had hitherto barely succeeded in creating a livelihood in handicrafts and petty commerce.
  While many Spanish Jewish exiles to Morocco were able to successfully integrate into the larger community in part due to their relative wealth, the problem of poverty among exiles still left a significant number of Jewish refugees vulnerable. Many died of hunger and some returned to Spain; most fled to Fez, where new challenges awaited them. More than 20,000 Jews died in and around Fez following a terrible fire and subsequent famine in the Jewish quarter of the city.
  Despite the trials faced by Jews in Morocco, numerous "New Christians" - also referred to as "Marranos" - that still remained in Spain and Portugal following the expulsions endeavored to make their way to North Africa. In response to this, King Manuel I issued a number of ordinances in 14
caption: The Ibn Danan Synagogue in Fes.
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