Debdou () is a town in
Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
. It is known for its multi-ethnic population, including Berbers and Moroccan Jews.
The Ait Urtajjen, a Berber family related to the Moroccan dynasty of the
Wattasids, had their own
semi-independent state here from 1430 until 1563.
Jewish centre
Debdou was a major Jewish centre in Morocco. The town was settled by many
Sephardic Jews
Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...
from
Seville
Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...
, fleeing the wave of
anti-Jewish riots in Spain in 1391. The earliest to settle were the clan of Cohen-Scali-Benzhor who reached Debdou in the 11th century, fleeing Sicily, a family of Jewish priests said to trace their lineage to
Zadok
Zadok (), also spelled á¹¢adok, á¹¢adoc, Zadoq, Tzadok or Tsadoq (; lit. 'righteous, justified'), was a Kohen (priest), biblically recorded to be a descendant of Eleazar the son of Aaron. He was the High Priest of Israel during the reigns of Dav ...
, the High Priest.
[Shlomo bar Yosef ha-Cohen Atzvan, ''Ma'alot le'Shlomo'', Jerusalem 1985]
p. 56
in PDF (Hebrew)
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century the town was briefly renowned as a centre of Jewish learning, exporting rabbis to many cities in Morocco.
At the end of the 19th century the town's population was estimated at 2000 inhabitants, most of them Jews.
At the beginning of the 20th century the number of Jews was estimated at 1600, who formed roughly a third of the population.
Following the establishment of the
French protectorate, with the concomitant rise in security, the majority of the Jewish population gradually emigrated to nearby towns in the plains.
Gallery
File:Debdou ancien cimetière 002.JPG, Former Marinid
The Marinid dynasty ( ) was a Berber Muslim dynasty that controlled present-day Morocco from the mid-13th to the 15th century and intermittently controlled other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula ...
cemetery.
File:Debdou architecture 005.JPG, The door of the typical Jewish house.
File:Debdou casbah 001.JPG, Former Marinid
The Marinid dynasty ( ) was a Berber Muslim dynasty that controlled present-day Morocco from the mid-13th to the 15th century and intermittently controlled other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula ...
kasbah
A kasbah (, also ; , , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasbah, qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term in Spanish (), which is derived from the same ...
.
File:Debdou architecture 002.JPG, Typical street in Debdou.
References
External links
* C. El Briga, Â
Debdou», Encyclopédie berbère, vol.15, Edisud 1995, p. 2254-2255
Populated places in Taourirt Province
Municipalities of Morocco
Historic Jewish communities
Jews and Judaism in Morocco
Morocco geography articles needing translation from French Wikipedia
{{OrientalMA-geo-stub