The tombs of three revered rabbis from the 17th and 18th centuries—Jacob Ben Malca, Hasday Almosino, and Jacob Marrache—were rediscovered in the northern Moroccan town of Tétouan after being lost for more than 60 years. This rekindled interest in excavating the country’s largest Jewish cemetery, which is more than 500 years old.

This ancient Jewish cemetery is located in Tétouan, a location recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage Site. The unearthing of these tombs has given a campaign led by the Sephardi genealogy group Adafina, based in London, new life.

“These were certainly esteemed men,” Jacob Marrache, chair of Adafina, pointing out their teachings continue to inspire generations of scholars and students to JNS.

In order to rule over the religious court, Ben Malca, a famous religious judge, moved to Tétouan from Fez in 1734.

Almosnino, a Tétouan native, was a renowned judge of Jewish law with a large body of works that have been made available. The tomb of Jacob Marrache, a Kabbalist renowned for his outstanding commentary on the Zohar, the key scripture of the Kabbalah, was uncovered, and it belonged to one of his ancestors.

“His commentary on the Zohar earned him fame, and his teachings inspired a generation of devoted students whose thoughts remain influential today,” Marrache said when speaking of his ancestor.

“My family left Morocco for Gibraltar in 1758, but like many Jewish families, we kept close contact with Tétouan for many generations, as different communities would look to one another for halachic guidance,” Marrache said.

“We even call Tétouan ‘Pepquena Jerusalen’ [Little Jerusalem] because of its former significance as a center of Sephardic life,” Alberto Hayon, the Tétouan community’s president, told JNS.

Morocco’s Jewish community, dating back to antiquity, saw a dramatic decline in its population from 270,000 in 1948 to an estimated 2,300 in 2015, due to emigration and travel restrictions.

“The tradition was that if somebody was married and had children, they wouldn’t put a name on the grave because it was the duty of their descendants to teach the next generations where ancestors were buried and to return there on the date of their death,” Marrache explained.

Many of the tombstones in the cemetery had things like the Star of David or Trees of Life on them, including tombstones of the rabbis buried there.”The six-pointed star probably did not have the same meaning as today’s Magen David star, which only became a major Jewish symbol in the Habsburg Empire,” Marrache explained. “A lot of the tombs also have the Tree of Life on them.”

In 1956, Morocco gained sovereignty from France, putting a halt to Jewish emigration and international travel. Once these restrictions were lifted in 1963,  over 100,000 Moroccan Jews migrated, predominantly to Israel.

As the population declined progressively, awareness of the whereabouts of the tombs of the three venerated rabbis seemed to fade away.

“My seventh cousin Andrew Strum heard of this firsthand from relatives in the 1980s who had left Tétouan for Israel in the 1960s,” Marrache told JNS. “For years, my family members have wanted to find the tomb of Rabbi Jacob Marrache, and in early 2000, we sent someone to check in Tétouan, but there was no one who could find it.”

The rediscovery of the tombs is a significant achievement given that many of the tombstones lack inscriptions, adding to the difficulty of tracing Jewish ancestry in Morocco.

This momentous discovery was facilitated by Rabbi Joseph Israel, a Tétouan native currently residing in Casablanca. He recalled a tradition of the community praying at these tombs on the eve of significant Jewish holidays and led a team to the tombs during a visit on Purim this year.

Though Tétouan’s Jewish history often takes a back seat to larger metropolitan areas such as Casablanca, Marrache hopes that the Abraham Accords and the recent discoveries will attract more visitors and scholars to explore this historic site.

“We are very grateful that Morocco now has a much-improved relationship with its remaining Jewish community, and since normalization with Israel, more of us are able to come back and visit our synagogues and our cemeteries,” Marrache said. “The difference in opportunity in neighboring Algeria and Libya is quite tragic.”

Marrache and other people have worked to restore most of the graves and are planning to start cleaning off the vegetation growth around the tombstones and clearing the walkways. around the 16th-century tombs.

“We are also keen to identify more of these tombs, whether or not they can be linked to surviving family lines,” he said.

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Seville – “We are gathered at the Hassan II Pavilion in Seville so that each and every one of us can reaffirm his or her commitment to preserving and prolonging, over the course of generations, the irreducible, irrefragable and universal memory of the Holocaust,” said André Azoulay, Advisor to His Majesty the King and current President of the Foundation of the Three Cultures and the Three Religions.

Speaking at the Ceremony of Remembrance, which was held to commemorate International Holocaust Day as it has done annually, Azoulay emphasized “the importance of the Holocaust in the history of humanity.” Azoulay emphasized “the extraordinary political, social and spiritual consensus embodied by this ceremony which brought together, in the same emotion and same contemplation, the members of the Andalusian government, the President of the Andalusian Parliament, the leaders of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities, and, for the first time, more than fifty students, sentinels, committed and attentive to ensure, over the generations, and without compromise”

In his historic message to the Community of Nations on March 18, 2009, HM King Mohammed VI stated that “His reading of the Holocaust is not that of amnesia but that of a memorial wound that We have inscribed in one of the most painful chapters in the Pantheon of Universal Heritage.” In welcoming his presence and the testimony of one of the last Holocaust survivors, Mr. Robert Wolfberg, HM the King’s Advisor, urged the audience to take the right measure of those words.

Andre Azoulay emphasized that after being spoken in the Islamic country, the Commander of the Faithful’s words “reverberate here and now in Seville to the Lights of Andalusia of all possibilities and tell everyone the ethical, moral, and political contours to which Morocco has chosen to identify its Word.”

“The Holocaust was the result of thousands of years of hatred and discrimination against the Jews, what we call today anti-Semitism,” said Antonio Sanz, Minister of the Presidency of the Andalusian Autonomous Government.

“Despite the fact that history is still being written, anti-Semitism persists. We must continue to be vigilant,” Sanz emphasized, adding that “society urgently needs organizations like the Three Cultures Foundation to carry on with determination in the areas of awareness and youth.

“The Andalusian leader stated, “We need to strengthen social cohesion so that people perceive diversity as an asset rather than a threat.

According to Jess Aguirre, President of the Andalusian Parliament, practicing memory is the best way to honor all those who perished as a result of Nazi cruelty during the Second World War. A people that forgets its history is doomed to repeat it.

”We all have the duty to denounce any form of violence for reasons of belief, ethnicity, ideologies or sexual condition. Let us never forget, let us not turn our backs on those who have had the strength to survive such cruel moments in history as the one suffered by the Jewish people,” added Aguirre.

“Today, we must work from education to prevent this situation from happening again in any corner of the world,” he concluded.

Read Also: Spain, Morocco sign19 agreements to strengthen economic and bilateral cooperation.

Ricardo Sánchez Antnez, the representative of the Andalusian government, Sidi Sidi Abbah, the Consul General of Morocco in Seville, Tomás Burgos, Noa Hakim, the spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Isaac Benzaquén, the director of the Centro Sefarad-Israel, Jaime Moreno, and the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain were among the dignitaries present at the ceremony.

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The US ambassador to Morocco, Puneet Talwar, said on Sunday in Casablanca that His Majesty King Mohammed VI has spoken out strongly against Holocaust denial and in favor of the ideals of tolerance in Morocco and around the world.

On the International Day honoring the memory of the Holocaust victims, Talwar said, “HM has spoken out strongly against Holocaust denial and has supported and encouraged tolerance and coexistence in Morocco, in the region, and around the world.” Talwar made this statement in a statement to MAP TV channel M24.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we honor more than 6 million Jews and millions of others who were brutally murdered by the Nazis, and those who endured and survived the Holocaust. Together, it is our duty to ensure such atrocities are #NeverAgain allowed to happen.

— Ambassador Puneet Talwar (@USAmbMorocco) January 27, 2023

At the conclusion of the celebration with the theme “Mohammed V: Savior of Moroccan Jews during the Holocaust,” the American ambassador praised His Majesty King Mohammed VI for carrying on “the strong legacy” of the late HM King Mohammed V and the late HM King Hassan II.

“This is a very solemn occasion, Talwar continued, lamenting that “one of the greatest tragedies of this era (the Holocaust) is that many people, millions of people, remained silent and allowed this murder to occur.”

In this regard, he emphasized, “Morocco was not indifferent to that time, thanks to His Majesty Sultan Mohammed V, who played a key role in protecting the Jewish community in Morocco,” applauding the fact that Morocco “was not indifferent to that time.” “Today, HM Sultan Mohammed V’s legacy is still very strong.

For the first time, Morocco commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a special ceremony at Casablanca's Beith El Synagoguehttps://t.co/xaGSJ5odcV pic.twitter.com/JyNvVY3egy

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) January 30, 2023

Talwar stated that the United States is “very proud to stand with the Kingdom of Morocco on this issue” and added, “This is something we are very happy to see.”

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Mr. Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccans Living Abroad, welcomed Ms. Deborah Lipstadt, Ambassador, Special Envoy of the United States in charge of monitoring and combating anti-Semitism, on November 15, 2022, in Rabat.

MFA Nasser Bourita received, today in Rabat, the Ambassador, U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Ms. Deborah Lipstadt. pic.twitter.com/A0vbSGo2ZX

— Moroccan Diplomacy 🇲🇦 (@Marocdiplo_EN) November 15, 2022

Ms. Lipstadt complimented Morocco’s efforts in combating “anti-Semitism, bigotry, and prejudice” in a press release issued following her meeting with Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation, and Moroccans Living Abroad, Mr. Nasser Bourita.

The American diplomat welcomed the Kingdom’s special involvement in this issue, pointing out that it stems from the role of the Jewish community in Moroccan history.

Ms. Lipstadt, who is currently in the Kingdom, attended a reception hosted by the Consulate General of the United States of America on Monday in the presence of members of the Kingdom’s Jewish community.

Ms. Lipstadt, a professional historian and professor, was nominated by the US Senate on March 30 as a special envoy with the status of ambassador to lead efforts and advance US foreign policy focused on combating anti-Semitism across the world.

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Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nasser Bourita, received Wednesday in Rabat a delegation from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

At the conclusion of the discussions, AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer Jason Isaacson told reporters that the meeting focused on various issues related to regional stability, peace, and the importance of the US-Morocco relationship, “a country that has the longest diplomatic relationship with our country” and “shares the same values as our country.”

“We spoke about common concerns of our community and the people of Morocco and the sovereignty of Morocco in the Moroccan Sahara,” he added.

Jason Isaacson stressed that “Morocco has just, under his Majesty King Mohammed VI, made history through the re-establishment of relationships with Israel.”

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Simon Keslassy, the president of the Moroccan Jewish Community of Toronto (MJCT) has firmly expressed their support for the rigorous response of Morocco Royal Armed Forces in dealing with the blockade of Guerguerat crossing by separatist “Polisario” militia.

Simon Keslassy also calls for a peaceful and negotiable solution to this artificial conflict under the aegis of the United Nations following the proposal for extended autonomy under Moroccan Sovereignty.

While recalling the adoption by the UN Security Council of resolution 2548 on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, the Jewish community reaffirmed its firm support for the territorial integrity of Morocco and “its unconditional solidarity” with the Kingdom.

The Jewish Community also expressed their pride at the initiative of various African and Arab countries which have opened their consulates in the cities of Laâyoune and Dakhla, affirming that this is “a testimony of firm support to our dear country Morocco ”.

The members of the (CJMT) reiterate “as usual, as citizens of this great country which gave birth to us, his loyalty and support to our Sovereign His Majesty Mohammed VI, may God assist him, and his eternal bond to the nation, Morocco our native country forever ”, concluded Mr. Keslassy.

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