Morocco Jewish Heritage Tour 12 Days

Welcome to Morocco. Your private driver meets you at Casablanca airport and takes you to your hotel. If you land early, we start gently with the Hassan II Mosque, built over the Atlantic, and a walk along the Corniche.

In the evening, our team calls you to go through the journey together: the synagogues and cemeteries you would like to see, family names or towns you are tracing, and any kosher meal or Shabbat arrangements you need.

With a local guide, discover the Jewish story of Casablanca, once home to the largest Jewish community in Morocco. Visit the Museum of Moroccan Judaism, the only museum of its kind in the Arab world, with its Torah scrolls, ketubot, costumes and reconstructed synagogue. Continue to the Beth-El Synagogue and the old mellah streets near the medina, where visits are arranged in advance with the community.

In the afternoon, drive to Rabat, the capital, for your first night by the Bou Regreg river.

Start in the mellah of Rabat and its Jewish cemetery by the river, then the Kasbah of the Udayas and the Hassan Tower. Across the river in Salé, we can stop at the cemetery where the tomb of Rabbi Raphael Encaoua still draws pilgrims each year, when access allows.

Continue to Meknes, the city of Moulay Ismail, whose mellah was once one of the busiest in the country, and arrive in Fes in the late afternoon.

Today is for Fes, where the first mellah of Morocco was founded in the 15th century, beside the Royal Palace. With your guide, walk its balconied streets, visit the restored Ibn Danan Synagogue and the white tombs of the Jewish cemetery, where Lalla Solika, the young heroine of Fes, is buried. The small Habarim museum keeps the memory of the families who lived here.

In the afternoon, enter the medina of Fes el-Bali: the Al Quaraouiyine, the medersas, the tanneries and the craftsmen.

Leave Fes for Sefrou, a small town once called the little Jerusalem of Morocco, where Jews made up almost half of the population. Walk its mellah and the old quarter by the river with a local guide.

Nearby, visit Bhalil, a village where families still live in houses built into the rock, and share mint tea in one of them. Continue through the Middle Atlas and its cedar forests to Midelt, at the foot of the Ayachi mountains, for the night.

Cross the Tizi n’Talghemt pass and follow the Ziz gorges and palm groves south to the Tafilalet, where Jewish families lived for centuries in the ksour and traded along the caravan routes. Stop in Rissani before reaching Merzouga and the dunes of Erg Chebbi.

Watch the sunset over the dunes and spend the night in a kasbah hotel at the edge of the desert.

Explore the desert by 4×4: nomad families, the village of Khamlia and its Gnawa musicians, and the black volcanic plains around the dunes. Lunch in the desert.

Late afternoon, ride a camel into the dunes to your private luxury camp. Dinner by the fire and a sky full of stars.

Drive west to Tinghir, where the old mellah, built of earth among the palm groves, has been partly restored and tells the story of the Jews of the south. Walk into the Todra Gorges, then continue to the Dades Valley and its kasbahs.

Follow the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs through Skoura and Ouarzazate to the UNESCO ksar of Ait Ben Haddou. Cross the High Atlas over the Tizi n’Tichka pass and arrive in Marrakech in the evening.

With your guide, discover the mellah of Marrakech: the Slat al-Azama Synagogue, still used today, its courtyard and small museum, the spice market and the Miâara cemetery, the largest Jewish cemetery in Morocco.

Continue with the Bahia Palace, the souks and the Jemaa el-Fna square at sunset.

Drive to Essaouira, a port town where Jewish merchants once made up half of the population. Visit the mellah, the Slat Lkahal and Haim Pinto synagogues and Bayt Dakira, the house of memory that tells the shared Jewish and Muslim history of the city. Outside the walls, the old cemetery holds the tomb of Rabbi Haim Pinto, visited by pilgrims from all over the world.

Evening free by the ramparts and the harbour.

After breakfast, your driver takes you to Marrakech airport, or to Casablanca if you fly from there. Your journey ends here, with our team still a message away if you need anything.