[1912:] IN MOROCCO Terrible Sufferings of the Jews (centennial to 1912 Fez Massacre)

Bay Of Plenty Times, Volume XL, Issue 5849, 23 August 1912, Page 3

IN MOROCCO Terrible Sufferings of the Jews

The Jews appear to have suffered exceptionally in Fez during the recent trouble there. The correspondent of a French paper wired recently as follows from...

Fez is quiet. French troops hold the town, and several mutineers have already been shot, but the situation in the neighbourhood does not look promising all the same. The descriptions of the fate of the Jews in Fez are gruesome. Their quarter, in which 12,000 inhabitants lived, has been entirely laid waste, and not a soul is left. Not a house has been spared, not a stick of furniture but what has been smashed or burned.
The wretched people sought refuge in the Palace of the Sultan, who had one of its gates opened to let them in. They are now huddled together, half starving. Hundreds were massacred, but there is not food or even bread enough to go round among survivors. Scores of women and children have found no other refuge but in the Sultan's menagerie...
From another correspondent in Tangier: Nearly all the native troops under French officers in the Gharb district have deserted. The news of the massacre of Frenchmen at Fez has been received with great satisfaction by the tribes, and a feeling of unrest prevails all over the country between Tangier and Fez.
A friend writes from Fez that the acts of cruelty committed by the frantic mob in the Jewish quarter were simply horrible. Children had their heads chopped off in their parents' presence, while others were tortured to death in ways too awful to describe. Over 200 bodies have been buried, and there are a good tally still missing.
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=BOPT19120823.2.5

In Morocco - Edith Wharton - C. Scribner's Sons, 1920 - Morocco - 290 pages
pp. 113-4
It was our first sight of a typical Jewish quarter in Africa. The Mellah of Fez was almost entirely destroyed during the massacre of 1912 (which incidentally included a pogrom), and its distinctive character, happily for the inhabitants, has disappeared in the rebuilding. North African Jews are still compelled to live in ghettoes, into which they are locked at night, as in France and Germany in the Middle Ages; and until lately the men have been compelled to go unarmed, to wear black gabardines and black slippers, to take off their shoes when they passed near a mosque or a saint's tomb, and in various other ways to manifest their subjection to the ruling race...
http://books.google.com/books?id=VKwKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113
Scribner's magazine: Volume 66 - Page 337 - Edward Livermore -Burlingame, Robert Bridges, Harlan Logan - 1919
http://books.google.com/books?id=tl8AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337
Morocco (Mobi Classics) - Edith Wharton - MobileReference, Dec 15, 2009 - 204 pages
http://books.google.com/books?id=0TMtH96iXkEC&pg=PT64&lpg=PT64

Jews and Arabs - Page 32 - Albert Memmi - J. P. O'Hara, 1975 - 220 pages
Can it be that you seriously believe in the myth, deliberately invented for the sake of reassuring Westerners, that the Jews led idyllic lives in the Arab countries? As recently as 1912, Jews who dared to leave their districts in Morocco were compelled to take off their shoes, as if all of Moroccan soil was holy for them and they desecrated it if they touched it. Also in Morocco, in 1907, a huge massacre of Jews took place in Casablanca, along with the usual embellishments - rape, women carried away into the mountains, hundreds of homes and shops burned, etc.; in 1912, a big massacre in Fez; 1948, in Oujda and other cities.
http://books.google.com/books?&id=2_4vAQAAIAAJ&&q=%22in+1912%2C+a+big+massacre%22
http://books.google.com/books?id=2_4vAQAAIAAJ&q=%22and+two+thirds+of+the+stores+had+been+sacked+and+burned

One state, two states: resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict - Page 192 - Benny Morris - 2009 - 240 pages
Elsewhere, pogroms were more frequent and deadly. In Fez, Morocco, some six thousand were slaughtered in 1033, and many others died in the city in pogroms in 1276, 1465, and 1912.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6RelhRR-9RUC&pg=PA192

Andrew Bostom [Wednesday, 10 August 2011 05:38]
Bernard Lewis: What Went Wrong?
...the pillage of the ghetto of Fez Morocco in 1912...
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011081014262/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/bernard-lewis-pied-piper-of-islamic-confusion.html

The Expulsion of the Jews from Muslim Countries, 1920-1970: A History of Ongoing Cruelty and Discrimination
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - Nov 15, 2010
In Morocco, the Jewish quarter of Fez was ransacked in 1912...
http://jcpa.org/article/the-expulsion-of-the-jews-from-muslim-countries-1920-1970-a-history-of-ongoing-cruelty-and-discrimination/

Holocaust Denial, Version 2.0 - Op-Eds - Israel National News
Arutz Sheva - Feb 7, 2008
Here are some important dates in Arab-Jewish history: 627, 1066, 1465, 1828, 1912, 1920, 1929, 1934, 1938, 1941 and 1967. These dates correspond to massacres of Jews by Arabs in Medina, Granada, Fez, Baghdad, Fez again, Jerusalem, Hebron, Constantine, ... Jews under Arab rule had to wear identifying clothing, pay special taxes,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8080

Fez [JVL]
FEZ, city in *Morocco, one of the most important in the Islamic world; founded by Idris I...
In 1912, two weeks after the establishment of the French Protectorate, a revolt broke out in Fez. The mellah with a population of 12,000 was completely ransacked and set on fire by the mob; about 45 were killed and 27 were wounded. Under the pretext of munitions smuggling, the French military authorities had previously confiscated all the weapons of the Jews, who were left defenseless. The Sharif received them within the precincts of the palace and ordered the distribution of food and clothes among them. From 1925 many Jews established themselves in the new town of Fez, together with the Europeans; it was only the poor and some Orthodox families who remained in the mellah where in 1942 the Vichy laws sought to reintegrate all those who had left it. In 1947 there were 22,484 Jews living in Fez and its surroundings. These included several physicians, lawyers, industrialists, and owners of agricultural estates. The traditional occupations disappeared with modernization, and commerce came under Muslim domination, with the exception of the precious metals and cereals businesses in which the Jews retained the leading role.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0007_0_06432.html

Solomonia: The Jewish Nakba: Expulsions, Massacres and Forced
May 20, 2009 - In 1912, there was another massacre in Fez in which 60 Jews were killed and about 10,000 were left homeless.
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/05/ben-dror-yemini-the-jewish-nakba-expulsi/

To understand the context, it was shortly after the Arabs-Muslims massacred French subjects (where even foreign journalists were poured with hot oil on their heads) and an all out anti-whites and anti-non-Muslims wave erupted, then they turned on the Jews. Always a convenient scapegoat. Yet, the sheer animalistic brutality is shocking.

ARAB-ISLAMIC MASSACRE OF THE FRENCH - TARGETING WHITES/CHRISTIANS - APRIL-JUNE 1912

THE FEZ MASSACRE. Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12745, 24 April 1912, Page 5.
TERRIBLE - SCENE AT WIRELESS STATION.
STUBBORN FIGHT FOR LIFE.
MOORS POUR BOILING OIL FROM ROOF.
(Press Assn.- By Telegraph)
Eventually the floors climbed on to the roof, and poured down, boiling oil, one wireless operator committed suicide, after killing three comrades, to avoid their falling alive into the natives' hands.
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=PBH19120424.2.44

ORGANISER OF FRANCE.
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14285, 30 April 1917, Page 4
Fez became a danger spot... short years ago no Christian's life was safe... and the massacre of the white residents at Fez brought matters to a crisis...
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=PBH19170430.2.17

Fanaticism is French Danger
Native Uprising In Morocco May Come Of Riff Action
Times Daily - Jun 18, 1925
[...] Moslem uprising against colonial powers...
One recalls the Fez massacre of 1912 when the natives massacred virtually the French population.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rxgsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=A7oEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2171,5851298&hl=en

French General Bans Memory Of Massacre
Reading Eagle - Jun 9, 1929
Fez, Morocco - In June 1912 a thousand Arab horsemen swooped down upon the European city here and slaughtered 61 Frenchmen. In June 1929, Frenchmen here wanted to commemorate the "sacrifice" and organized a ceremony. But Gen. Count de Chambrun, descendant ofLafayette, ruled that the ceremony should not take place. "I don't see why we should want to commemorate a thing like that. I rather think we should forget it," the Governer said.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=z70hAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0JwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5460,1732631&hl=en

Moorish Atrocity Stories In Season
Berkeley Daily Gazette - Jul 24, 1925
When Lyautey was given the command of Morocco in 1912 following the Fez massacre. It took days to cover tho rough route be tween Rabat and Fez on ..
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ckspAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XwYGAAAAIBAJ&pg=906,1775014&hl=en

DEATH BEFORE SURRENDER.
Wanganui Chronicle , Issue 12856, 6 June 1912, Page 8
A thrilling story of how the three French wireless operators in Fez lost their lives during tho massacres on April 17th has been ... Then the besieging party climbed on the roof, made a hole in it, and after pouring oil into the room, set it alight.
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=WC19120606.2.81

When the Jews sheltered with the sultan's lions | Lyn Julius | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel
April 16, 2012, 8:16 pm

While much of the western world has been marking the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, another tragedy is being quietly commemorated this week by Jews from Morocco. It is 100 years since a terrible pogrom devastated the Jewish quarter, or mellah, of Fez.
Just as the Jews of Iraq have the Farhud, the Jews of Fez have a name for their pogrom: the Tritl — literally the “sack” of Fez. The irony was that the Tritl broke out as Jews had finished celebrating their Mimouna, a convivial end to Passover during which they would invite their Muslim neighbors into their homes for mouffleta pancakes.
Two weeks after Morocco became a French Protectorate on March 30, 1912, Muslim army recruits, outraged at the takeover of the infidel, mutinied against their French officers. Egged on by women standing on the rooftops, the soldiers are said to have played football with the officers' decapitated heads and decorated their chests with their victims' intestines. In no time at all, the cry went up, “To the mellah!”
The French having previously confiscated all weapons, the Jews had no means to defend themselves. Looters broke down doors and stole jewelry, furniture, crockery, dishes and clothes. They desecrated synagogues and burnt Torah scrolls. Men, women and children were murdered in cold blood, hurled from roofs, mutilated and raped.
The aftermath of the Fez pogrom (photo credit: Ben-Zvi Institute)

Sultana Elbaz was killed at an upstairs window. She was hit in the chest by a bullet fired by a soldier who had burst into the courtyard of her home. It is said that her baby survived by suckling her blood.
Escaping through a new gate from the mellah, Jews sought sanctuary in the medina, where some Arabs sheltered them. The Sultan Moulay Hafid took many starving Jews into his palace and sent them bread and olives. Throughout the time the refugees remained there, until April 28, it did not stop raining.
The abiding image of the 1912 Tritl is of Jews sheltering in the sultan's menagerie. One photo shows the sultan's lions and tigers in one cage, and Jews crammed cheek by jowl in the adjoining cage. So many Jews streamed into the palace that even the animal cages, the historical accounts suggest, had to be emptied for them. But the Jews had more than a passing familiarity with the beasts: the historian Nathan Weinstock writes that, as degraded “dhimmis,” it was the Jews' chore to feed the royal lions and tigers. He even met a man who knew a man who bore a scar on his face from one of these big cats.
The Jews of Fez find shelter In the lions' den

On April 19, in order to force the rioters away, French soldiers fired rockets and bombs, laying waste to much of the mellah. Jews abandoned the mellah, which was pillaged the next day.
During the three days of violence, 45 Jews were killed, although some estimates are higher. Over 70 were injured. French troops suffered an equal number of casualties, while almost 1,000 Muslims were killed or wounded. A third of the mellah was destroyed, and 12,000 Jews found themselves homeless.
In his report of the terrible events of Fez, the director of the local Alliance Israelite school, Amram Elmaleh, wrote:

The mellah looks as if ravaged by the worst cataclysm. Each visit I make renders me touched by the misery of these wretches, prostrated in painful silence, staring at the ruins of their humble dwellings…

Elmaleh was one of the 14-member rehabilitation commission tasked with distributing food aid to the survivors and eventually getting them back on their feet. It was only in September 1916 that the Jewish community finally received some compensation.
The Fez pogrom was not the first to befall the Jews; there had been a Berber attack the previous year on the Jewish quarter, and many others before that on various Jewish communities. The Tritl underlines the fact that the Jews in pre-colonial North Africa had neither material nor physical security. The era of the French protectorate ushered in a more stable period, but few Moroccan Jews managed to acquire French citizenship; 340 Jews from Fez were reported to have left for Palestine in 1922 alone. There would have been more if each emigrant had not been forced to deposit a guarantee of 1,000 francs.
Over 200,000 Moroccan Jews have come to Israel since 1948. They constitute the second largest wave of immigration after the Soviet aliya. In spite of the sultan's long and honorable record of protecting his Jews, it is said that the trauma of the Fez Tritl is seared into the collective memory, and constitutes the primary reason why Jews left independent Morocco in such numbers.
* * *
The Fez Tritl is being commemorated from April 16 to 18 with a conference at the Ben Zvi Institute and at Bar Ilan University, as well as a lecture at the Centre de Recherche Francais in Jerusalem.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-the-jews-sheltered-with-the-sultans-lions

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