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

organizations, and the foreign press in Morocco and beyond. In the summer of 1880, not long
after representatives from Europe, the Americas, and Morocco gathered at the Conference of
Madrid, a Jew named Jacob Dahan died in the high-Atlas town of Ntifa. The circumstances
surrounding his death were unclear; some claimed he was killed by the local governor, while
others argued that he died of natural causes. Foreign officials and Jewish organizations generally
took the view that Dahan had been murdered by the qā’id and demanded the punishment of the
Makhzan official.
Much like the Safi affair, Jewish historians writing about the Ntifa case emphasize the
Makhzan’s oppression of Jews and the role of foreigners as their champions. Fenton and
Littman portray the incident only from the viewpoint of foreign officials and Jewish
organizations. 95 Martin Gilbert’s brief mention of the matter is limited to the observation that
“Jacob Dahan was then taken outside, nailed to the ground and beaten so severely that he
died.” 96
Moroccan historiography, on the other hand, largely exonerates the Makhzan from any
responsibility. In his important early work on protection, ‘Abd al-Wahhāb Ibn Manṣūr mentions
the Ntifa incident almost in passing:
The press of Europe wanted … to make the governor of Demnat responsible for the death
of the Jew Ya‘qūb al-Dahān, who died in Hantīfa [sic] under mysterious conditions …
despite the Jewish community of Demnat’s denial (takdhīb) of these claims, and their
acquitting the Moroccan governor from the allegation that he had killed him [Dahan]. 97
Ibn Manṣūr argues that Ntifa’s governor was guiltless in Dahan’s death, and that the foreign
press had unfairly framed an innocent Makhzan official. He mentions (without, however, citing
his source) that the Jews of Ntifa denied claims that Dahan was murdered by their governor.
95 Fenton and Littman, L’exil au Maghreb, 503, 519-20.
96 Gilbert, In Ishmael’s House, 117.
97 Ibn Manṣūr, Mushkilat al-ḥimāya, 55.
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