The Magical Medina of Marrakech

After a bumpy 75 minutes in the air, the E190 taxied to a stop between a Royal Air Maroc 737 and a USAF C-17. Due to a particular set of time constraints, Morocco was the fifth country on four continents in which I was setting foot in as many days and I was feeling a little wobbly. The first leg to Lisbon had us sitting in front of the worst-behaved couple I have ever seen on an airplane, with the woman (in her mid- or late twenties) sitting in her partner's lap during boarding and then eating dinner while lying down across three seats with her feet in the next passenger's face.

The immigration official showed so little interest in me that he walked away without a word and my passport was eventually stamped by another official. We ordered a taxi from the desk, a little Renault with no seatbelts, a broken first gear, and a reverse gear that took an average of 10 tries to engage. Things were looking up in Morocco.

What brings tourists to Marrakech is the Medina, the intricate knot of streets and alleyways partially surrounded by a wall that constituted the bulk of the city in the pre-colonial era. In Marrakech's case, it also happens to be fairly well integrated into the modern city surrounding it. Inside, a maze of market stalls and alleyways beckons, with mostly exciting levels of chaos – streets being resurfaced as traffic continues around the bricklayers, kids chasing each other, and donkeys making deliveries to market stalls. Above, giant stork nests dominated roofs, cell towers, and even smokestacks. Less pleasant: the huge number of motorized scooters (some with bike pedals) zooming down the narrow streets, leaving tourists and locals alike permanently on alert and choking on fumes.

On that backdrop, tranquility beckoned in the form of palaces and madrassas that were true pearls of North African architecture and beautiful gardens. Notably, the Bahia Palace which had been occupied by local rulers was taken over by the French administrators in the 1910s and left in its original form, to include its prayer room. All that originality came at a price, however, drawing crowds of Instagram influencers to gaze thoughtfully at the palace's courtyards and mosaics.

The atmosphere of the Medina continued into our accommodations, which took the form of a riad - a traditional Islamic home with rooms surrounding an interior courtyard. Keeps the interior amazingly cool throughout the day; keeps the women away from foreign eyes. Traveling with a budding anthropologist, I couldn't help but notice the invariably gendered dynamics of public space: men met in cafés to smoke and play cards, men manned nearly every stall in the market, men worked in every tourist-facing service job we would encounter. At the risk of a minor spoiler, we never interacted with a woman at any of our accommodations across the country. The local women's museum was quick to assure us that everything was in order, however: the main exhibit celebrated "wives, sisters, and mothers of chiefs" and lauded the king as a champion of women's rights.

I was in Morocco to research the causes and effects of the 2020 normalization agreement with Israel, so I set off to find some Jews. One corner of the Medina was known as the mellah, which had been designated the Jewish quarter in 1557. Local accounts disagreed just how voluntary this segregation was, but the contemporary neighborhood has neither Jews nor tourists. The original Jewish street names were restored in 2017, which makes for a rather curious site. The largest synagogue was open to visitors, and traces its existence to the Spanish Deportation of 1492. In fact, its name ("El-Azama") apparently means "deportees". The courtyard contained a timeline of Jewish Moroccan history, noting the Abraham Accords which were followed by the introduction of Jewish history into the Moroccan school curriculum and mentioning the important role of the king (I hope to write more about this in a later post). The gift shop was all souvenirs touting coexistence, including a rather odd postcard with Moroccan and Israeli city names written in Hebrew and Arabic. I wondered what a Palestinian would make of it.

Several days later was Shavuot, and the local gabbai had told me services would be held at the smaller synagogue, El-Fassayn. El-Azama was practically a tourist attraction, complete with entrance tickets, pamphlets, and a Moroccan flag out front. El-Fassayn, in contrast, was basically the first floor of an apartment building, completely hidden at the end of a narrow alley. I would have missed it entirely if not for the little plaque in Hebrew letters above the door, but we were the first people there 10 minutes after the time services were supposed to start.

Pretty quickly, an Israeli man turned up and confirmed with the custodian (who had appeared from the alley) in Arabic that services were supposed to take place there. More men slowly filtered in, chatting in a mix of Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. One of them looked exactly kike a Shia preacher and pronounced the Hebrew consonants like Arabic in a way I've occasionally heard in Sephardic synagogues in Israel. Nobody paid much attention to me, not even the Israeli gabbai who had been in Marrakech nine years but wouldn't tell me what got him to move. I didn't mind, but I was a little surprised considering I was the tenth man and Isabel the only woman.

Even with such a small community, Marrakech had fully made it onto the Jewish tourist trail. One had to look no further than the market stalls, which were selling judaica in abundance and occasionally sported signs in Hebrew. I don't think I've ever seen a Star of Davis tea set in Israel, but at least five stalls in Marrakech had them. Some of it was more confusing, like a big vase I spotted covered in random groups of Hebrew letters, possibly Kabbalistic ciphers.

The food was spectacular but predictable. Flatbread (msemen) with olive oil and cheese and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast, meat tagines and couscous for lunch and dinner, and sweet mint tea on one of countless rooftop cafés in between. My favorite meal by far was at a literal hole-in-the-wall restaurant, where an elderly woman named Naïma poured us tea and got to work making delicious couscous and chicken - no menu, no options, not a single word of English or French spoken.

An essential component of the food scene was Jemaa el Fna, Marrakech's old market square. In the evening, the square became the epicenter of the city's nightlife. 30 identical juice stands competed for customers in front of 50 identical grill stands. Comedians and performers entertained the crowds in Arabic alongside snake charmers and monkey tamers. Senegalese men circulated, selling sunglasses and Africa t-shirts. Tourists tried fending off the various food stand owners, or retreated to the relative safety of the rooftop cafés flanking the square. More than at any other point on the trip, I felt like I was experiencing a 19th-century European travel narrative come to life.

Even away from the touristy center, life was lived on the street. We spent our last night in a small riad further from the medina, in a neighborhood marking the transition between the old city and the modern apartment blocks beyond. Smoke from food carts filled the air, the sidewalks were covered in snacks and clothes for sale, and locals lined up in the evening to get fresh donuts.