Guarding the Sacred: Muslim Custodians of Judaism in an Inter-Religious Strife?

Simon Lévy, one of Morocco’s foremost Jewish anti-Zionist leftists, told me in an interview in 2004 that Moroccan Muslims are the saviors of Judaism. Lévy expressed his confidence that the physical absence of Jews from Jewish quarters and sanctuaries will not threaten their future existence or significance as long as they are in the hands of his Muslim co-citizens. Through this line of thinking, Lévy underlined the imbrication of Judaism and Islam in Morocco, alluding to the fact that the threat to Moroccan Judaism is not internal. Based on two decades of ethnographic research, this talk argues that the organic relationship between Moroccan Muslims and Jewish spaces—despite the existence of a long tradition of anti-Zionist discourse within Moroccan society—is rooted in a local understanding that respects the sacred as a trans-religious value. Moroccan Muslims have shown deference, if not reverence, to Jewish religious sites, symbols, and sacred spaces regardless of the volatile political situation that has pitted Jews against Muslims in Israel/Palestine. I contend that Moroccan Muslims’ care for Jewish sacred spaces is grounded in the Islamic concept of ʿimārat al-ʿarḍ (the cultivation or stewardship of Earth), which stands in opposition to al-ifsād fī al-arḍ (spread corruption on Earth). ‘imārat al-arḍ is the Muslim equivalent of the Jewish notion of Tikkun (repairing the world). Thus understood, ‘imārat al-arḍ requires being an agent of justice and construction, which has allowed Moroccans to handle both the criticism of Zionism and the care for Jewish Morocco without any contradiction or dissonance. Therefore, in an age of political violence and human destruction, the lived experience of ordinary Moroccans vis-à-vis Judaism underscores that the protection of Jewish spaces is a vital aspect of ʿimārat al-ʿarḍ.