Mimouna in the Mellah: Moroccan and French Government Policies and Their Impacts on Jewish-Muslim Relations in Morocco

84 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of International Studies and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2017Issues that arise between Muslims and Jews around the world are often, today, linked automatically to the political divide between Arabs and Jews in Israel and Palestine. In 20th and 21st century Morocco, tensions between Muslims and Jews have surely escalated along climbing intensity in Israel-Palestine; however, attempting to directly correlate Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco to dynamics in Israel-Palestine would undermine the far-reaching role that various historical factors in Morocco have had in impacting relations between the two groups. This thesis examines some of the most influential governmental policies in Morocco, looking primarily at pre-Protectorate policies under the Muslim sultans and at French policies during the Protectorate era. Looking at how these policies have historically influenced, and often reduced, the degree of accommodation between the Muslim and Jewish communities in Morocco, this paper then explores the effectiveness of various movements in present-day Morocco that seek to counter the harmful legacies of these policies