Tangier is located near Cape Spartel, at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean. After the fall of the First Temple in Jerusalem, the first Jews went to Tangier (formerly known as Tanja or Tingus) and resided among the Berbers. During the 1492 Alhambra Decree, the Jews of Tangier were confronted by a second wave of migration from the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula. During WWII, the Jewish community of Tangier made a concerted effort to settle the large number of Eastern European Jews who sought sanctuary in the city. Many artists and authors from America and Europe used it as a meeting spot – and sometimes as a retreat – in the 1950s. Famous literary figures, poets, painters and actors have been drawn to this sea-shaped port city. Tangier, unlike the other Imperial cities in Morocco, did not have a formal Jewish Mellah. Yet, there are multiple synagogues, cemeteries, monuments, and communal organizations which demonstrate the city's historical significance to the Jewish Moroccan population
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In 1863, Moses Nahon, the president of the Junta, received Sir Moses Montefiore to his home and accompanied him to Mogador, then to Marrakech, where he served as his interpreter in front of a royal audience. The Nahon synagogue is unquestionably Tangier's most prestigious and, without a doubt, Morocco's most beautiful. Exceptionally well-decorated in a Hispano-Moorish style. It was a distinguished congregation, with about fifty silver oil lamps suspended from the ceiling. The building was recently repaired and reopened to the public. Tangier's Jewish community has turned the Nahon synagogue into a museum.
In a narrow alley in the Jewelry quarter of Tangier, Synagogue Akiba was built in the middle of the 19th century by Rabbi Moshe Laredo, one of the well-known Jewish families of Tangier. In 1912, the synagogue was renovated by Rabbi Laredo’s son; Mimoun Laredo, to honor his late father. Despite being one of the smallest synagogues in Tangier, Synagogue Akiba is characterized by its picturesque architecture that represents the Moroccan Andalusian culture. Until the 1980s, Synagogue Akiba was still functioning. Recently, it was turned into a museum visited by all the tourists flocking to Tangier.
In the Eighteen century, a piece of land was offered by the sultan of Morocco to Abraham Serruya, a Moroccan Jewish public figure who was the interpreter of the Danish consulate, to build a new Jewish cemetery. This cemetery, which was decommissioned in 1935, went through the restoration process which was part of the rehabilitation policy of all Jewish cemeteries and shrines initiated by HM king Mohamed VI. In this cemetery, several tombs of important Jewish figures contributed to Tangier's remarkable development and its Jewish community, such as Rabbi Habib Toledano, Rabbi Mordechai Bengio, and Rabbi Abraham Toledano who was the head of the Dayanim of Tangier.
