With only a small remnant of Jews still living in the Maghrib at the beginning of the 21st century, the vast majority of today's inhabitants of North Africa have never met a Jew. Yet as this volume reveals, Jews were an integral part of the North African landscape from antiquity. Scholars from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, and the United States shed new light on Jewish life and Muslim-Jewish relations in North Africa through the lenses of history, anthropology, language, and literature. The history and life stories told in this book illuminate the close cultural affinities and poignant relationships between Muslims and Jews, and the uneasy coexistence that both united and divided them throughout the history of the Maghrib.

Jewish communities of the Maghrib from ancient to modern times

About the Author

Emily Benichou Gottreich is Vice Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Adjunct Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California Berkeley. She is author of The Mellah of Marrakesh: Jewish and Muslim Space in Morocco's Red City (IUP, 2006).

Daniel J. Schroeter is the Amos S. Denard Memorial Chair in Jewish History and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is author of The Sultan's Jew: Morocco and the Sephardi World and Merchants of Essaouira.

Reviews

[This] volume as a whole demonstrates the ways in which both Jewish studies and Maghrib studies are emerging from their historic marginalization and into broader discussions of regional history.March 2013

* Journal of African History *

[T]his collection goes a long way to increasing our understanding of North African Jewish history and encourages new lines of inquiry into the subject.

* Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online *

[This] is a highly informative and thought-provoking collection of essays, from which the reader is certain to derive satisfaction and knowledge of a region made all the more significant in light of the revolutionary changes that have taken place in North Africa since the spring of 2011.

* AJL Reviews *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253222251
Author Emily Benichou Gottreich
Format Paperback
Page Count 386
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 544g