The Jews of Tetuan are members of a community founded by Jews who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal to Morocco, along with Muslims who had also been expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. They were distinguished by the characteristics of the Spanish-Andalusian culture that they brought with them: language, manners, appearance, dress, education and occupation. The community was called "Jerusalem de Maroco" (Jerusalem of Morocco), or "Pequeña Jerusalem" (Little Jerusalem). It was served by renowned rabbis and dayanim, and the synagogues had a large collection of ancient holy books.

The Jews of Tetuan, like the rest of the Jews of northern Morocco, used to speak a specifically Tetuani dialect of Ladino called Haketia, which combines words from Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic.

History Tetuan (; 'the springs') is situated at the mouth of the Martil River and the flanks of of the Rif, near the ancient Berbero-Roman city of Tamuda in Northern Morocco. Little is known about the garrison town or its Jewish community before the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. It was left abandoned after a Portuguese raid in 1437.Tetuan was re-established in the late 15th century by Jewish and Muslim refugees from the Iberian Peninsula. The founder of Chefchaouen around the time of the Fall of Granada, Sharīf ʿAlī b. Rāshid al-ʿAlamī, welcomed Andalusi refugees. The Gharnati refugee Abū ʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Manẓarī re-established Tetuan as many Sephardic Jews were arriving following the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Haketia, or Spanish as spoken by Sephardic Jews in North Africa, remained the mother tongue of the Tetuani Jewish community into the 20th century, according to Jessica Marglin.

The Jewish community in Tetuan was formally established in 1530 with Rabbi Ḥayyim ben Abraham Bibas, who came from a Sephardic family that had originally settled in Fes. He founded a yeshiva and established the taqqanot of the Spanish Jews in Fes, which remained a major source of customary law in the city. His synagogue was destroyed in 1610, but by 1727 the city had seven synagogues. One of his descendants is Rabbi Yehuda Bibas, considered one of the forerunners of Zionism. Among the founders of Jewish customs in the city was Rabbi , the city's rabbi in the 17th century. Among the prominent Jews in the city during the 17th century was the poet and halachic arbiter , who later moved to Italy. Rabbi (1640–1727) served as a judge in the city. He later moved his seat to Gibraltar. He is known for his books "Mishmeret Hakodesh" on Rashi's commentary on the Torah and "Chesed El".

The Sephardic Jewish refugees from Iberia were referred to within the wider Moroccan Jewish community as Rūmiyīn () or Megorashim ( "expelled"), in contrast with the Bildiyīn () or Toshavim (, "residents"). The descendants of the Megorashim in Tetuan (as in Tangier and other cities) maintained their own unique identity. According to Moisés Orfali, these Spanish-speaking Tetuani Jews would refer to all other Moroccan Jews—including Toshavim as well as Megorashim that became Arabized and lost the ability to speak Ladino—as 'outsiders'.

The Jewish community grew in the 16th century as the city became an international commercial center. Jewish merchants established trade relations with Algiers, Tunis, Livorno, Lisbon, Gibraltar, and Amsterdam. Tetuan also became a center of piracy, an activity in which Jews participated mostly as intermediaries in the sale of Christian captives.In the 19th century, the city was home to the Dayan Rabbi Yitzhak ben Walid (1789–1870), author of the book "And Yitzhak Said" () which includes information about the social, economic, and religious life of the city's residents. He supported the Alliance Israélite Universelle. In 1862, this organization established a Jewish school for boys in the city, the first Alliance school in Morocco, and in 1868 it also founded a school for girls. The schools provided modern education in Spanish and French, and also included Jewish subjects and Hebrew studies.

Attitudes of the authorities Following Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah's death in 1789, Mulay Yazid ascended to the throne, which resulted in a horrific slaughter of Moroccan Jews who had refused to back him in his struggle with his brother for the crown. When he entered the city of Tétouan, the city's wealthy Jews were punished by being tied to horses and dragged through the streets, and his soldiers broke into the Jewish quarter and disrupted the community. Observers remarked that Yazid authorized his black troops to plunder Tétouan's Jewish quarter.William Lempriere, A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier, Sallee, Mogodore, Santa Cruz, Tarudant..., 2nd ed. (London: J. Walter, 1793), 464

At the beginning of the 19th century, around 1807, Sultan Sulayman forced Jews to move to mellahs in the towns of the coastal region, in Rabat, Salé, Essaouira, and Tétouan.Houtsma, M. Th. E.J. Brill’s First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. Vol. 5. BRILL, 1993. In Tétouan, the Spanish word judería was later used as the name of the district.

In 1860, during the Hispano-Moroccan War, and before the city fell after the Moroccan defeat in the Battle of Tétouan, disorganized Moroccan troops stormed the city's Jewish quarter, killing about 400 of them. Most of the others fled for their lives.

Following the 1859–1860 Hispano-Moroccan War, a significant exodus of Jewish residents from Tétouan occurred due to economic collapse, insecurity, and fear of retaliation after the Spanish withdrawal in 1862. Thousands migrated to Oran (French Algeria), Ceuta, Melilla, and Gibraltar to join existing Sephardic networks, or to America, mainly to Brazil (see Amazonian Jews) and to the United States.The European Intervention (1860S) - Visiting Jewish MoroccoThe Jews of Tetuan, Morocco: Genealogy and IconographyTetoaun - Brill Reference Works

Spread of Zionism

Zionism in Morocco dates back to the period just before colonization, around 1900–1912 due to the influence of European Zionist activists, and it was mostly limited to coastal cities, which had more direct contact with Europe as well as populations of Jews who received a European education, especially from the . Among these coastal cities was Tetuan, where the Russian physician Dr. Ya'akov Barliawsky settled and established the Shivat-Zion ( 'Return to Zion') Association around 1900. The AIU facilitated the arrival of Dr. Jacques Berliowsky (Yaʿaqov Barliawsky) in 1891. , a rabbi in Tetuan, wrote to Theodor Herzl of the establishment of the Shivat-Zion society as early as 1900. The society did not last long, but it started a Hebrew library with modern Hebrew literature.

Zionist activity in Morocco was stifled after the formal establishment of French and Spanish colonial rule in Morocco in 1912, with the activity of local Zionist associations mostly limited to the dissemination of Zionist literature and the popularization of the shekel. In 1919, the Tetuani Rabbi , a pillar of Zionism in the Spanish zone, published an article in support of Zionism in El Eco de Tetuán, a Spanish newspaper, in which he fuses political and religious Zionism, described Zion (Palestine) as the birthplace of the Jewish nation, and described Zionism as "the idea of a people living in their free homeland."

In the early and mid-1920s, envoys from Zionist organizations Keren Hayesod and the Jewish National Fund, such as Avraham Elmalih, Nathan Halpern, and Ariel Bension, encountered difficulties in soliciting donations and support from Northern Moroccan Jews in cities such as Tetuan and Tangier. According to Ariel Bension, the main reasons for resistance to Zionism among Northern Moroccan Jews were that they saw it as an irreligious movement and not concerned with the interests of Sephardim. In 1921, Zionists in Spanish Morocco elected to send Ariel Bension as their delegate to the Zionist Congress, marking the first time Moroccan Jews were represented at any Zionist Congress. The influential Zionist activist Samuel-Daniel Levy was born to a Sephardic family in Tetuan in 1874.

Spanish rule

By a treatyTreaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco, in: The American Journal of International Law, vol.7, no.2, Apr. 1913 between France and Spain on 27 November 1912, Tetuan and its Jewish community came under Spanish rule with the establishment of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, which had Tetuan as its capital. Spanish Africanists in the Spanish military and Ministry of Foreign Affairs espoused political (), which sought to sponsor the Sephardic community in Morocco, pursue its Hispanicization, and promote within it a sense of loyalty to Spain. The policy of philosephardism was welcomed by part of the Sephardic elite, especially those who had been Spanish protégés, had business ties with Spain, or held Spanish citizenship. Unlike the territory to the south under French colonial rule, there were no antisemitic laws passed in the territory under Spanish colonial rule. In colonial documents, Jews were referred to as 'Hebrews' or 'Israelites' and were considered neither "indigenous" nor "locals"; they were instead viewed by colonial authorities as "mediators" between the Spanish colonial authorities and the local population.

In 1913, in compliance with the dahir of Khalifa Muley el Mehdi Ben Ismail, the population census and housing statistics were carried out, resulting in a population of 18,533 inhabitants, of whom 11,623 practiced Islam, 4250 Judaism and 3006 Roman Catholicism.Hemeroteca Digital. Biblioteca Nacional de España — Boletín oficial de la zona de influencia española en Marruecos. 10/2/1914, n.º 21, página 2.: En cumplimiento del Dahir de S. A. I. el Jalifa Muley el Mehdi Ben Ismail de 7 de julio de 1913

Quarter Population Muslims Jews Catholics Protestants Others El Bled 4 435 4 154 0 278 3 0 El Rabat Es-Sefli 3 878 3 032 40 802 1 3 El Trancats 2 201 1 775 18 407 1 0 El Aiun 2 707 2 252 0 455 0 0 El Mellah 4 799 2 4186 605 3 3 Outside the walls 513 48 6 459 0 0 Total 18 533 11 623 4 250 3 006 8 6

In 1940, the Jewish population reached its historic peak at 8,058 individuals, making Tétouan the largest Jewish community within the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco. However, this demographic peak was followed by a sharp and steady decline in the mid-20th century due to mass emigration. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the independence of Morocco, large waves of Tétouani Jews emigrated to Israel, the Tangier International Zone, South America, and Europe. By 1951, the community had nearly halved to 4,122 residents, a figure that plummeted further to 3,103 by 1960, leaving only a handful of Jewish residents in the city today.

Culture

Language Into the 20th century, the mother tongue of the Jewish community of Tetuan was a distinct Tetuani dialect of Haketia or Ladino, Ibero-Romance as spoken by Sephardic Jews. In discussion of the Talmud, Tetuani scholars would use Haketia in Hebrew script.

Nina Pinto-Abecasis has studied the use of humor in nickname culture among Tetuani Jews.

Music Musical genres in the musical traditions of Jewish communities in northern Morocco included romances, ballads, and coplas, or "praliturgical poems in rhyming couplets and triplets," among other genres.

Education

Rabbinical scholars in Tetuan did not study only in local synagogues; many Tetuani scholars went to study in Fes, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In those centuries, unlike nearby cities under European rule, such as Tangier or Ceuta, there was no Jewish religious education and no evidence of use of Jewish languages—Hebrew and Haketia or Ladino—Tetuan had active Jewish religious schools and Hebrew and Haketia were spoken as a part of daily life.

Literature In the late 1940s, Rabbi Dr. Salomon Ben Shabbat established the Instituto Maimonides (Maimonides Institute) in the city, which researched the poetry and literature of Sephardic Jewry.

Synagogues