Simon Levy was a MoroccanJewish intellectual, scholar, activist, and leading figure in the preservationof Morocco’s Jewish heritage. Born in Fez in 1934, he was a Hispanist, ascholar specializing in Spanish language and culture, a university professor, andone of the central figures behind the Museum of Moroccan Judaism in Casablanca.He passed away on December 1, 2011. Beyond his academic career, Levy was widelyknown for his political and civic engagement, his commitment to preservingMorocco’s cultural diversity, and his support for Association Mimouna .
Levy became involved in communist activism in 1954, initially throughstudent movements. He later joined the Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS),where he was among its early militants. His political engagement, like hisacademic work, was deeply rooted in his attachment to Moroccan culture andidentity. Throughout his life, he consistently affirmed his belonging toMorocco and viewed Jewish history as an inseparable part of Moroccan nationalhistory.
During his graduate studies, Levy focused on the Rif War under the reignof Alfonso XIII. He later completed his doctoral dissertation in 1990, entitledThe Arabic Dialects of Moroccan Jews: Specific Features and Borrowings.History, Sociolinguistics, and Dialect Geography. This work reflected hisstrong interest in sociolinguistics, language contact, and culturalinteraction.
Levy devoted much of his research to Arabic-Spanish relations,Hispanism, and Moroccan dialectology. He was a professor in the SpanishLanguage Department at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he workedextensively on the historical and linguistic links between Spanish and MoroccanArabic. He emphasized the importance of Spanish in understanding certainfeatures of the Moroccan lexicon, illustrating how geography, history, andpolitics shape linguistic exchanges between neighboring societies over time.
He paid particular attention to periods of bilingualism experienced bydifferent Moroccan communities and to the influence of Spanish language andculture in Morocco. Levy also maintained strong intellectual connections withSpanish scholars, particularly in Zaragoza, where he conducted a significantpart of his research outside Morocco.
Known for his discreet and distinctive personality, Levy had a uniqueworking style. He preferred handwriting to digital tools and often wrote usinga mixture of Arabic and Hebrew. His research involved extensive fieldwork amongJewish communities across Morocco, including Fez, Meknes, Rabat, Salé, Sefrou,Tafilalt, Marrakech, Essaouira, and other regions. His aim was to document andpreserve fading memories, linguistic diversity, oral traditions, and regionalhistories.
At the heart of this work was a conviction that remained constantthroughout his life: the history of Morocco’s Jewish communities was not aseparate history, but an integral part of the history of Morocco itself.
Levy identified and analyzed the remarkable diversity of Judeo-Moroccandialects, highlighting both their regional variations and the characteristicsthey shared. He examined how centuries of interaction, adaptation, andcoexistence shaped these languages while preserving distinctive Jewish elementsconnected to religious and cultural traditions. Through this work, he helped documenta linguistic world that was rapidly changing as Moroccan Jewish communitiesbecame increasingly dispersed around the world.
Beyond academia, Simon Levy was known for his moral integrity,intellectual rigor, and strong convictions. He influenced generations ofstudents and colleagues through his critical thinking and his insistence oncareful research and historical evidence. His intellectual and civic engagementreflected a broader commitment to social justice and human rights, includinghis belief in the rights of the Palestinian people, alongside his deepattachment to Morocco and his commitment to the country’s cultural andreligious diversity.
Levy also took a strong interest in Moroccan political history,particularly in the figure of Abdelkrim El Khattabi, to whose legacy he devotedsignificant intellectual and memorial efforts. His commitment extended topublic service: he served as a city councilor in Casablanca, participated inthe Green March, and strongly supported Morocco’s territorial integrity.Throughout his life, his academic, civic, and political engagement remainedclosely connected to his profound sense of Moroccan belonging.
Levy was also an important figure in Moroccan-Spanish intellectual andcultural dialogue. Through his academic work and relationships with Spanishscholars and institutions, he contributed to a deeper understanding of thehistorical connections between Morocco and Spain and worked to strengthencultural dialogue between the two countries.
His most enduring legacy, however, remains his extraordinary commitmentto the preservation of Moroccan Jewish heritage. As Secretary General of theFoundation of Moroccan Jewish Cultural Heritage and Director of the Museum ofMoroccan Judaism in Casablanca, Levy played a crucial role in documenting andsafeguarding synagogues, cemeteries, ritual objects, archives, traditions, andcommunal memory.
He was closely involved in efforts to preserve and restore importantJewish heritage sites, including the Slat Al Fassiyine and Ibn Danan synagoguesin Fez, the city of his birth and a place to which he remained deeply attached.For Levy, preserving these places was not simply about protecting monumentsfrom the past. It was about ensuring that the centuries-long Jewish presence inMorocco remained visible and understood as part of the country’s collectivememory.
His vision continues to resonate strongly with the work of AssociationMimouna. Levy understood that preserving Moroccan Jewish heritage required morethan nostalgia: it required research, documentation, education, transmission,and the involvement of new generations. His support for Mimouna reflected hisbelief in the importance of ensuring that young Moroccans could discover andtake responsibility for this shared history.
Simon Levy dedicated much of his life to studying, documenting, andpreserving Morocco’s Jewish history and heritage. As a scholar, activist,educator, and guardian of Moroccan Jewish memory, he helped establish a deeperunderstanding of Jewish history as an integral part of Morocco’s nationalstory. His research, his work in heritage preservation, and his commitment totransmitting this history to new generations remain an important part of hislegacy.
A resident of the Mellah
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