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CHAPTER VIII: The Jews and the Muslims: Comparative Aspects of Education and Problems of Social Conflict
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CHAPTER VIII The Jews and the Muslims: Comparative Aspects of Education and Problems of Social Conflict Education Jewish and Muslim traditional education was similar: the Jews attended the la/mude lora and s/iis, while the Muslims attended Quranic schools. Both "Were taught by indigenous teachers: rabbi-teachers in the Jewish schools and Jqihs in their Muslim counterparts. The educational approach of both was basically the same, recitation and repetition of biblical passages for the Jews, and Quranic verses for the Muslims. One taught Hebrew and the other Arabic, following basically similar pedagogical approaches. Like the Jewish schools, the msids were largely attended by poorer children, whereas Muslim leaders, like their Jewish counterparts, often hired private tutors for religious and traditional studies. Moreover, like the rabbis in the Jewish schools, the Jqihs were often pedagogically outmoded but well informed about the religious traditions and language. Similar to the rabbiteachers , the Jqihs were socially inferior in their communities. Roger Gaudefroy-Demombynes argued that although the msidteacher was vital to the community, he was not sufficiently paid by the youths' parents, and often, like his Jewish counterpart, had to supplement his earnings by becoming a small merchant or a craftsman.! Both types of traditional schools were community sponsored for the most part. Some Jewish schools received the benefits of the religious endowments known as heqdesh, while the msids were subsidized from the benefits of the Islamic endowment known in Moroccco as hubus and in the Middle East as waqf. Once primary education was completed the youths coming from rabbinic and other infIuentical families were usually admitted to yeshlvol. The youths belonging to prominent Muslim families and the religious scholarly elite (the 'u/amii') would proceed to the reputable madrasas of Fez and Marrakesh , and some would continue their higher education at the QarawlYln in Fez, the most noted high Islamic studies university in the Maghrib. The 303 304 The Jewish Communities and the Alliance between 1912 and 1956 youths of the masses in both communities would usually follow their fathers' footsteps in traditional jobs. An evolution of ht:reditary social, economic, cultural, and intellectual hierarchies occurred first among the Jews. The penetration of the AIU to Morocco beginning in 1862 opened new horizons for Jews of all classes. The Muslims did not fare as well as the Jews, partly because they did not have the advantage of modern schools in their communities fifty years before the coming of the protectorates. After 1912 when the protectorates set up modern schools for Muslims in all three zones, many Muslims were at first suspicious of European intentions, particularly of French policies. Their suspicions, though diminishing somewhat in the 1920s and 1930s, were attributed in part to great misgivings about sending their youths to modern schools whose teachers-until the 1930s-were mostly French, with the exception of the personnel responsible for Arabic and Islamic studies. For the Jews, however, the AIU, both through the schools and through political efforts on their behalf, became a guide for positive changes and contacts with the West. Its teachl~rs, moreover, were Jewish. And whereas the French, especially during the 1920s, did not wish to see the Jews advance too far along the path of French civilization, the Jews felt encouraged to adapt to European education in order to better their social and economic conditions. The Muslims, on the other hand, were considered more dangerous by the Europeans in general and the French in particular. They were not particularly encouraged to attend modern schools in considerable numbers and consequently, with traditional opposition to secular schools emanating from indigenous circles, and the French policy of maintaining the status quo, Muslims laggfd considerably behind the Jews in European acculturation . Despite French advocacy in its colonies and protectorates of the mission civilisatrice and the conquete morale, French eduation and its benefits influenced a small dite among the Muslims. In fact, the French policy toward Muslims was contrary to what the AIU was permitted to aCI~omplish among the Jews. The French, due to Lyautey's and Gaston Loth's planning, set up franco-Muslim schools on the elementary level for the youths of prominent families, known as ecoles des fils de notables; ecoles urbaines for the youths of Muslim artisans; and ecoles rurales for Arab and Berber youths coming from the rural and agricultural sectors. Lyautey's idea was to maintain a belle hierarchie, a system of preserving the social and political status quo of Moroccan Muslim society and therefore, he and...