The Shifting Boundaries of Moroccan Jewish Identities

Literature on the Jews of Morocco often imagines a Jewish community that is rooted in the ancient past, defined as “Moroccan,” or as “Sephardi” in the post-1492 period. In tracing the often shifting and multiple identities of the Jews who inhabited the northwestern region of Africa from the fifteenth century until today, this article analyzes how a distinctive Moroccan Jewish identity was formed, defined as “Moroccan” Jewry on a national scale in the colonial and post-colonial era.