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MOROCCO · 33.6°N 7.6°W · CITY

Casablanca

Dar el-Beida / Anfa

Dar el-Beida - the modern migrant port city that became Morocco's Jewish demographic center and home of the only Jewish museum in the Arab world (1997).

Modern locality anchor

Casablanca

Morocco · City · 33.6°N 7.6°W

This anchor orients the sourced locality record. It is not a reconstructed historical position or border; the single map below provides geographic context.

View location

Where is Casablanca?

Land geometry: Natural Earth 1:50m via world-atlas. Pins mark modern localities or representative regional anchors stored on Atlas place records, not historical borders and not reconstructed positions. · Sources & methods

THE COMMUNITY TIMELINE · EVERY NODE DATED

What happened to the Jewish community of Casablanca?

1850–1956

Modern growth from the 19th century (migrant port city)

This section addresses destruction and loss. It is one chapter, not the whole story — continue to what survives and what was created after
1940–1970

Mid-20th-century peak; exodus

1970–present

Morocco's largest remaining community; normalization-era cultural revival

Today

Today

Morocco's living Jewish center.

LANGUAGES & COMMUNITY

What did Casablanca sound like?

Judeo-ArabicHebrew (עברית, Ivrit)

Judeo-Arabic is a language with its own grammar, literature, and history — not “broken” anything, and not a dialect of Hebrew.

AFTER · IN FULL COLOR

What survives today?

In Casablanca

Morocco's living Jewish center.

  • Museum of Moroccan Judaism

    museum · museum

    Opened 1997; the only Jewish museum in the Arab world.

  • Beth-El Synagogue

    synagogue · public landmark

  • Mellah

    historic quarter · public landmark

In Israel & the diaspora

The community's story continued elsewhere — these places carry it now.

FezAlgiersTunisDjerbaTripoliCairoAlexandriaTel AvivJerusalemBeershebaParisMarseille

KEEP GOING

Related places & stories

Fez

Morocco

Fas - the spiritual capital of Moroccan Jewry: Rabbi Isaac Alfasi (the Rif), Maimonides' refuge years, Morocco's first mellah (1438), and the 1912 Tritl pogrom; restored synagogues and the mellah anchor its memory.

Open the place story

Algiers

Algeria

Refuge of the 14th-century Spanish exiles (Rivash, Rashbatz) and pivot of the 1870 Cremieux Decree granting French citizenship; the 1961-62 near-total exodus to France and Israel ended the community.

Open the place story

Tunis

Tunisia

Tunisia's capital community - the Hara quarter, the Twansa/Grana (Livornese) dual communities, a six-month Nazi occupation in 1942-43 - today North Africa's largest remaining community outside Morocco.

Open the place story

SOURCES & REVIEW

  • Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (place entry)

    Macmillan Reference USA · 2007

  • Morocco - Virtual Jewish History Tour

    Jewish Virtual Library · open source

Reviewed 2026-07-30

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