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Images of Daily Life in Morocco
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| As we look down this street in the old city, or medina, or Marrakech, we see a very ordinary-looking neighborhood. People are out to shop, pass the time of day with their neighbors, and visit friends. You see a street ahead of you with a room and its window that cross over the street. This indicates that a single house straddles the street, and is located somewhere on the right as well as the left. The door to this house may be the small door on the left. We don't know unless we ask.
This part of the medina is the old Jewish section, or mellah (as Jewish sections are called). Most of Morocco's Jews have emigrated to Israel or France, although a small Jewish population still lives here. The traditional Moroccan city had special sections, or quarters, reserved for specific ethnic groups. The most important minority ethnic group were the Moroccan Jews, who, like their Muslim neighbors, lived in a quarter with its own municipal council, schools, and places of worship; in the case of the Jews, of course, synagogues. |