ABSTRACT
Moroccan Jews became “modern” through a complex process of cultural and legal changes resulting in large part from their close encounter with imperial Europe. Institutions like the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the protégé system had an undeniable influence on the transformation of Moroccan Jewish identity and expectations during this period. In order to fully historicize Moroccan Jewish modernity, however—to locate its beginnings as well as its ending (not to mention its myriad meanings)—this article argues for broadening our inquiry to encompass earlier time periods, alternative geographies, and deeper registers of change than those imposed by an exclusive focus on a European impact followed by a local response. To that end, it analyses a cataclysmic event in Jewish history during the period prior to colonial penetration: the rise and fall of the messianic movement known as Sabbateanism, so-named after its founder, Shabbatai Zevi the “false Messiah” [1626–1676] of Izmir. Inspired by current trends in Ottoman history, this article attempts to locate Sabbateanism within contemporary social and political developments in Morocco during a formative period that witnessed both the integration of the Sephardim and the rise of the Alawi state. Such a contextualization begins sketching the parameters of an early modern period in Moroccan Jewish history at the same time as it compels us to recognize the consistencies in Moroccan Jewish society that survived the subsequent colonial period in North Africa, when seemingly everything changed.
