today, historically known as
Funduq el-Yihoudi, was the original Jewish neighbourhood of
Fes el-Bali. The original Jewish cemetery of the city was located outside the city gate (now occupied by later Muslim cemeteries). Fez had long hosted the largest and one of the oldest
Jewish communities in Morocco, present since the city's foundation by the
Idrisids (in the late 8th or early 9th century). 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 (located at the center of the city), and by the claims of
Maimonides' residence in what later became the
Dar al-Magana (in the western part of the city). Nonetheless, since the time of
Idris II (early 9th century) the Jewish community was more or less concentrated in the neighbourhood known as
Foundouk el-Yihoudi ("hotel/warehouse of the Jew") near
Bab Guissa in the northeast of the city. 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 (
Spain and
Portugal under Muslim rule). 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, These regiments were disbanded around 1325 under Sultan
Abu Sa'id. due to either a saline water source in the area or to the former presence of a salt warehouse. Other scholars also date the move generally to the mid-15th century, without arguing for a specific date. Many Jewish households—including powerful merchant families, such as the
Bannānī, Ibn Shaqrūn, Bannīs, Barrāda, and Gassūs families—chose to convert (at least officially) rather than leave their homes and their businesses in the heart of the old city.
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. This time was particularly difficult for the Jewish community of Fes, who through institutions such as
Tujjar as-Sultan, had important ties with the
Sharifi Saadi Makhzen.
Under ʿAlawī rule (1666–present) The community continued to thrive or suffer depending on conditions. In the 17th century a significant influx of Jews from the
Tadla region and from the
Sous Valley arrived under the reigns of the
ʿAlawī sultans
Moulay Rashid and
Moulay Isma'il, respectively.
Zionism in Fes Zionism spread slowly in Morocco and in the Jewish community of Fes. The first Zionist association in Fes, the Hibbat-Zion Society, was established in 1908, after others some years before in the coastal cities of
Tetuan,
Essaouira, and
Asfi. The following year, it expanded to Meknes and Sefrou. Because the
Zionist Organization would not be able to sponsor the association, it sought the support of the . The movement drew the attention of Westernized elites, affluent merchants, and some influential rabbis in the beginning, but it did not have widespread popularity. After the
Balfour Declaration in 1917, there was an increase in Zionist activity and propaganda in Morocco. A man named Joseph Levy of the
Maccabean Land Company of London went to Fes to distribute Zionist literature and sell land in Palestine to some Fessi Jews. Fez and its Royal Palace ceased to be the center of power in Morocco as the capital was moved to
Rabat. A number of social and physical changes took place at this period and across the 20th century. Starting under
Lyautey, the creation of the French
Ville Nouvelle ("New City") to the west also had a wider impact on the entire city's development. in 1912 behind
Bab al-AmerIn the area around the
Bab al-Amer gate, on the southwestern edge of the Mellah, the French administration judged the old gate too narrow and inconvenient for traffic and demolished a nearby aqueduct and some of the surrounding wall in order to improve access. The former shops were replaced with more ostentatious boutiques built in the architectural style of the Jewish houses of the Mellah, with many open balconies and outward ornamentation. In the late 1940s, estimates of the Jewish population include 15,150 in the Mellah and 22,000 in all of Fez. Major waves of emigration after this depleted the Jewish population. The district was progressively taken over instead by other Muslim residents, who make up its population today. In 1997 there were reportedly only 150 Jews in all of Fez and no functioning synagogues remained in the Mellah. == Culture ==