Boundaries within intimacy: Jewish women in Moroccan spaces

Abstract

This article explores the complex interplay of differentiation and cultural intimacy in the interactions between Moroccan Jews and their Muslim neighbors. While the Jewish community in Morocco emphasizes its distinct identity by maintaining clear boundaries between Jewish and Muslim spaces, this effort paradoxically highlights shared cultural understandings between the two groups, facilitated by a tacit Muslim agreement to the existence of Jewish enclaves. Jewish women, marginalized both as Jews in a Muslim-majority society and as women in a patriarchal Jewish community, navigate this duality not by uniting these forms of marginalization, but by focusing on the existential threat of being a Jewish minority. This perceived threat is counterbalanced by the cultural intimacy between the groups. The article illustrates how Jewish women strategically use their unique position to negotiate and manage cultural boundaries.