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non-Jewish Westerners alike, I argue against a portrayal of an abusive Makhzan as a justification
for foreigners’ intervention.
Finally, I argue that the relationships among Jews, the Makhzan, and foreign diplomats
and Jewish organizations changed in important ways during the second half of the nineteenth
century. Foreigners’ intervention on behalf of Jews did not fall entirely on deaf ears. On the
contrary, Jews’ appeals to foreigners and foreign intervention with the Makhzan on Jews’ behalf
had an important effect on how the Moroccan state portrayed itself—to foreign officials, to Jews,
and to its own functionaries. Through an examination of the changing language used in
Makhzan correspondence during the late nineteenth century, I show that foreigners’ intervention
was partly responsible for a transformation in the Makhzan’s own understanding of its
relationship to Jews.
Covering All the Bases
The first step in re-thinking the relationship among Jews, foreigners, and the Makhzan is
to view Jews’ appeals to foreigners in the context of their legal strategies more generally. As the
nineteenth century progressed, Jews increasingly wrote to foreign consuls and international
Jewish organizations when they felt they were victims of injustice; usually, these Jews hoped
foreigners would successfully apply pressure on the Makhzan to grant them redress. However,
in many instances—especially those that are better documented—Jews appealed to both
foreigners and the Makhzan, more or less simultaneously. 9 In the cases where the object of their
9
Daniel Schroeter discusses how Jews in Iligh appealed to the Makhzan as well as to foreign organizations and
diplomats: Daniel J. Schroeter, “La découverte des juifs berbères,” in Relations judéo-musulmanes au Maroc :
Perceptions et réalités, ed. Michel Abitbol (Paris: Editions Stavit, 1997), 177-9.
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