IN THE COURTS OF THE NATIONS - DataSpace - Princeton ...

acquired foreign protection or nationality. On the other hand, because individuals in Morocco
were constantly moving among Islamic and consular courts, the nature of law as applied in
consular courts became influenced by Islamic legal practice. This legal convergence between
Islamic and consular courts stood in tension with the continued reality that the two legal systems
often offered different outcomes, and thus opportunities to engage in forum shopping.
The fact that Jews moved fluidly among Jewish, Islamic, and consular courts goes against
the prevailing wisdom about Jews’ legal choices in nineteenth-century Morocco. By the late
nineteenth century, many European Jewish activists and diplomatic officials argued that foreign
protection was necessary to prevent Moroccan Jews from being subject to the inherent bias of
Islamic courts. 11 Subsequently, many historians adopted this line of reasoning and argued that
Jews wanted to escape a discriminatory legal system for one which treated them as equals. 12
These scholars see the progression from inequality to equality before the law as partly
culminating under the French Protectorate, when Jews became exclusively subject either to
Jewish courts or non-religious (and thus theoretically non-discriminatory) “native” courts. 13
11
See, for instance, Alliance Israélite Universelle, L’Alliance Israélite Universelle; publié à l’occasion du 25ème
anniversaire de sa fondation célébré le 1er mars 1885 (Paris: Alliance Israélite Universelle, 1885); Bonsal, Morocco
as it Is, 325-6; Narcisse Leven, Cinquante ans d’histoire ; l’Alliance Israélite Universelle, 1860-1910 (Paris: F.
Alcan, 1911), 237-60. On this, see also André Chouraqui, L’Alliance Israélite Universelle et la renaissance juive
contemporaine, 1860-1960 ; cent ans d’histoire (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965), 111-13: Kenbib,
Juifs et musulmans, 214-18. There were, of course, some Europeans who professed a different view of Jews’ legal
choices; see, for instance, Maeterlinck, “Les institutions juridiques au Maroc,” 482-3, in which Maeterlinck argued
that since consuls were biased in favor of their own subjects and protégés, it was natural that Jews preferred foreign
protection to remaining Moroccan subjects: “On comprend combien les Juifs et indigènes ambitionnent d’être
soustraits à l’aimable justice indigène pour ne plus dépendre que de celle d’un consul qui étend sur eux sa
protection,” (483).
12
For a general evaluation along these lines, see Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, 4-5: Michel
Abitbol, “Jews and Arabs in Colonial North Africa,” in Israel and Ishmael: Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations, ed.
Tudor Parfitt (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000), 130, 132. On Morocco and Jews’ search for protection, see
Laskier, The Alliance Israélite Universelle, 20: Pennell, Morocco since 1830, 83: Norman Stillman, “The Moroccan
Jewish Experience: A Revisionist View,” in The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn
History, ed. Andrew G. Bostom (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008), 553; Bensoussan, Juifs en pays arabes,
55.
13
On the judicial status of Jews under the Protectorate, see Chouraqui, Condition juridique, especially 121-2. See
also David G. Littman, “Mission to Morocco,” in The Century of Moses Montefiore, ed. Sonia Lipman and V. D.
296