The Mellah: Marrakech's Historic Jewish Quarter

Overview

The Mellah is Marrakech's historic Jewish quarter, walled off in 1558 beside the royal Kasbah and, for four centuries, home to one of Morocco's largest Jewish communities. Though most families emigrated after 1948, their legacy lingers in the tight lanes, the balconied houses, the spice and jewellery trades, and the synagogues and cemetery that survive. Walking it is one of the medina's most atmospheric history lessons.

The quarter was created by the Saadian sultan Moulay Abdallah al-Ghalib, who moved the city's Jews here from around the Ben Youssef area to a district next to his palace — placing the community under royal protection while keeping it close to the treasury and the trades it ran. The name mellah is usually linked to the Arabic for salt (melh); one grim tradition holds that Jews were once tasked with salting the heads of executed rebels. Uniquely in the medina, the houses here were allowed balconies and upper floors overlooking the street.

For centuries the Mellah was the beating commercial heart of Marrakech — its goldsmiths, jewellers, spice merchants, tailors and moneylenders serving the whole city. At its peak in the early 20th century tens of thousands lived packed into the district. Today the population is overwhelmingly Muslim and much of it is a working spice and produce market, but the built fabric, the old synagogues and the enormous walled cemetery keep the memory vivid.

A visit usually strings together the restored Lazama synagogue, still an active house of worship with a small museum of Jewish Marrakech; the Miâara cemetery just outside the walls; and the spice square with its pyramids of cumin, saffron, dried roses and traditional cosmetics. It sits right beside the Bahia Palace and Place des Ferblantiers, so it slots naturally into a southern-medina morning.