Many would describe Fez as the Jerusalem of the Maghreb. Up until 1925, the city of Fez was the capital of the Moroccan Kingdom and retains its prestige as one of the most enchanting and enriching cities in the country. Home to the world’s largest car-free old medinas and the world’s oldest functioning university, it’s no surprise that Fez is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site and a must-visit on tourist radars. Fez is an excellent example of medieval Jewish history and heritage, as it was home to Rabbi Isaac Al Fassi and Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimoun, two of the most influential Talmud scholars in the history of Judaism. On a guided Jewish heritage tour of Fes, tourists will discover remarkable synagogues, the Mellah of Fez, the Maimonides Jewish community center and the cemetery where a plethora of notable Jewish religious figures now live … for eternity.
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The Saadoun Synagogue in Fez is one of the two currently-operating synagogues situated in the new city of Fez, offering prayer services from Passover through the high holidays season. The building’s humble exterior, which blends in easily with its surroundings, conceals its religious-nature. Yet its intricately decorated Interior, which includes the walls that are completely covered in stucco with tinted glass panes in the windows above them.
Slat Al Fassiyine synagogue, which was born of Toshavic rite, is one of the oldest synagogues of Fez. After two years of restoration, Slat El Fassiyine, whose construction dates back to the 17th century. After years of neglection, this synagogue was transformed into a carpet-making workshop and then a gym, but it has never lost any of its aura as a place of worship or its beauty as an architectural work. Thanks to the efforts of late Simon Levy, a founder and later Secretary General of the Moroccan Judaism Foundation and with the support and encouragement of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, it was decided to restore this synagogue. The synagogue was reopened in February 2013 in the heart of the famous El Mellah district. Today, it has nothing to envy to other synagogues on the planet.
Located inside the Jewish community center of Fez, Talmud Torah is one of the functioning synagogues of the city. The synagogue consists of a single large room with windows looking inwards to the synagogue’s ark. The synagogue room underwent a modern renovation thanks to Devico’s family.
One of the most established and most significant temples in North Africa. Initially constructed and claimed by a well-known Moroccan Jewish family during the seventeenth century and remodeled in its current structure toward the finish of the nineteenth century. The construction, which is located in Derb Djaj at the heart of the Mellah, is a testament of the rich Moroccan Jewish history. The synagogue contains the complete set of a Moroccan place of worship fittings in existence, including the wooden Tevah with its wrought iron canopy platform, the Heichal or the twin wooden-cut Arks for the Torah, The wooden seats, Eliyahu’s Chair, the oil lamps and the weaved hangings. Access to site is through a subtle way to a little vestibule prompting a two-nave supplication lobby separated by three octagonal docks. The floor is tiled in green and white coated block in a herringbone design. For a long time, the Medieval temple was progressively falling into decline and required prompt preservation. The Moroccan Kahal of Fez battled to restore the structure as a fundamental piece of the Jewish and Moroccan legacy and as a significant social, religious and cultural heritage. Finally, the renovation was carried out with the kind assistance of private and public bodies including the Moroccan government and descendants of the Ibn Danan family. Its inauguration was celebrated during the month of May 1999.
In the southwest corner of The Mellah and next to Em Habanim primary school, a sea of white tombs stretching down the hill, and it is easy to spot some graves of rabbis, tombs of families buried together, and the Cohen section. some have engraved inscriptions, the more recent in French and older ones in Hebrew. There are small chambers for burning candles in some of these tombs, which explains the black soot appearing in stark contrast to the white of the stones. As this is one of the oldest cemeteries in Morocco, tourists will find the tombs of a few notables, such as the 19th-century martyr Solica, venerated by Jews and Muslims alike, and assorted tombs of rabbis like the black-and-white tomb with a large fireplace for burning candles that belongs to Rabbi Yehuda Ben Attar, one of the community's chief rabbis, and a tsadik that attracts thousands of pilgrims every year.
