The Jewish population

When the Jews began to disperse throughout the Roman empire after the dissolution of the Jewish state in 70, many settled in Mauretania including part of modern-day Morocco.
In the 7th century the Jewish population of Mauretania received as a further accession from Iberian peninsula those who wished to escape west-Gothic legislation. At the end of the same century, at the time of the great Arab conquests in northwestern Africa, there were in Mauretania, according to the Arab historians, many Jews.

More about the history of the Jews in Morocco is found in External links and The Jews and "Mellah"

The Star of David, a Jewish symbol carved in sandstone on this portal in Jrayfat

"The accession to the throne of Yazid, on the death of Mohammed III in 1789, led to a terrible massacre of the Moroccan Jews, having refused him their support in his fight with his brother for the succession".....

......... "In Mogador, strife arose between the Jews and the city judge on the one hand, and the Moorish citizens on the other; the dispute was over the question of Jewish garb. Finally the Jews were ordered to pay 100,000 piasters and three shiploads of gunpowder; and most of them were arrested and beaten daily until the payment was made. Many fled beforehand to Gibraltar or other places; some died as martyrs; and some accepted Islam."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Morocco

"The condition of the Jews has always been better in Mogador than in many other parts of the empire, as the sultans—especially those of the Sherifian dynasty—in many instances favored them. An exception, however, was made in this respect by the sultan Muley Yazid, who in order to convert ten Jews of Mogador tortured them for ten days by repeatedly hanging them head downward in a dry cistern and bastinadoing them. When the news of the death of Muley Yazid came, some of them had expired and one had embraced Islam; the rest were set free."
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?
artid=695&letter=M#ixzz1QHtFFHNb

Rabbis in Mogador

Yahya, from Agadir
Jacob Bibaz, from Rabat;
Abraham Coriat, author of "Sefer Zekut Abot" (went to Leghorn in 1793)
Hayyim Pinto (d. 1845)
David ibn al-Hazzan (d. 1828)
Joseph ben Jacob Almalih, called Joseph al-Kabir
(d. Jerusalem 1837)
Abraham Coriat II., author of "Sefer Berit Abot"
Joseph ben Aaron Almalih
Abraham ibn 'Attar (d. 1882)
Moses Cohen (emigrated to the city of Morocco)
Abraham Sabah (d. 1903)
Judah ben Maniel, Mas'ud Knafo Joseph ibn 'Attar
(1904)

Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.
jsp?artid=695&letter=M#ixzz1QHu7O62m

 

 

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A famous inhabitant of Essaouira, the adviser of the king to the foreign affairs, André Azoulay who is of Jewish confession, has said that his birthplace Essaouira is, “the single place in the Arab world equipped with a population mainly Jewish until 1930, could be used today as example for the dialogue between the Jews and the Moslems throughout the world”

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Today the State of Israel is home to nearly 1,000,000 Jews of Moroccan descent, around 15% of the nation's total population.