Fes is probably my favorite Moroccan city, and I regret that I was only able to spend about 12 days there total. It is considered the religious and cultural center of Morocco, and is the home of the largest and oldest medina in North Africa, the oldest university in the world, and a beautifully modern, developed, and European Ville Nouvelle.

While in Fes I met many Jewish and Muslim people who were willing to talk about the Jewish history in Fes, and the relations amongst the two communities, historically and into the present day. In 1947, the official Jewish population of Fes numbered 14,140, while some people claim that at its peak, the population reached 25,000. Today, the Jewish population consists of about 70 or 80 Jews, most over the age of 60 years old. Despite this, the community still maintains all of the historical Jewish sites including a few old synagogues, the vast Jewish cemetery and the accompanying museum (under construction when I visited), a synagogue for regular use, a community center that houses not only a butcher shop, but also a kosher restaurant, and a mikveh. Much of the information I will provide in this post actually comes from many meetings with one man, who is the city’s Rabbi, Chazan, Shochet, and Sopher and who also has an extensive private collection of Jewish artifacts from all over Morocco.

The Jewish narrative in Fes reflects many of the other cities on which I have researched, but there are a few particularities worth mentioning. Like Jews in other cities, and other Jews in Fes, the Rabbi argued that the Jewish migration from Fes increased after every war between Arabs and Israelis. These decisions were partly based on a fear of instability in Morocco, which he claimed was unfounded because the Moroccans not only were good to the Jews, but also let them decide whether they wanted to stay or leave. Interestingly, in conversations with some elderly women still residing in Fes, I learned that many couples with children decided to move with their children when they left for university because they did not want to constantly travel back and forth. While I had heard this reason for migration in the past, I heard it many more times and more pronouncedly in Fes, leading me to believe that perhaps an attachment to family and a fear of a dwindling Jewish community played a more significant role than of fear of threats from Muslims. This was further reinforced by each interviewee consistently claiming that in the past the relations between the communities were more than just safe, but friendly and fluid; one woman reported that when she would play as a young child in her neighborhood she never even knew the difference between the Jews and Muslims.

As in the case of the other cities, the destination of the earlier waves of migration (in the 50s and early 60s) was Israel, whereas beginning in the mid 1960s, the Jews began emigrating more to France and Canada. However, the role of money and financial stability seems to have played a less clear role in Fes than in other cities. It was often a factor not mentioned or less discussed (than in interviews in other cities) in interviews with Jewish Fassis. What I did lear was that after 1973 some rich Jews left for Canada and France, but many stayed because they had established lives here. Overall, it seems that the connection to a Jewish community and families was the driving force behind the Jewish Fassi migration, and as more Jews began to leave, more followed because they desired and required the type of vibrant Jewish life that Fes used to provide its Jewish population.

I want to tell one last story, told to me by a Muslim woman, in order to highlight some important issues facing this community in the present day.  About 7 years ago, a poor, Muslim man saw a rich man and decided to steal his belongings and kill him afterward.  After the investigation, it was discovered that the rich man was Jewish, and many people in Fes construed the crime as a religious hate crime.  However, this woman contends that this man was just poor, looking for anyone who had money, and probably did not even know that the man was Jewish.  She argued that in his state of desperation, he would have stolen from and murdered a Muslim, that religion did not play a factor, and that sometimes, people look to blame problems on the issues highlighted in the media.  However, she argued, violence against Jews, for being Jewish, has never existed in Fes, ad there was no reason to believe that his motives were anything but monetary.