A Study of Jewish Communal Leadership in Meknes, 1750–1912 r 311non-Jews in both Europe and the Middle East; many community leaders
believed that the conspicuous display of luxury incensed Gentiles against
Jews and thus endangered them.^86 Finally, communal leaders attempted
to stave off financial crisis for individuals and the community as a whole
by regulating consumption.^87
The language and nature of Meknes’s sumptuary laws reveal that the
city’s Jewish leaders were primarily concerned with the regulation of con-
sumption in order to prevent financial disaster. A common justification
for the passing of sumptuary laws included in the body of the taqanot
explained that lavish spending caused the wealthy to waste money and
further devastated those who already hovered near poverty. The conclu-
sion of a taqanah passed in 1907 put this reasoning succinctly: “All this
[sumptuary legislation] we saw fit to pass for the sake of the poor who are
unable to do as the rich.”^88 Although the language of the taqanot uses the
term poor, its authors were not referring to the poorest members of the
community; such people would have been unable to afford even basic ne-
cessities, much less luxuries. Rather, they meant the middling sorts living
on the edge of poverty.
These middling householders’ efforts to “keep up with the Joneses”
caused them to lavish increasing amounts on holidays and family cel-
ebrations, which could easily result in financial disaster. In 1806, a taqa-
nah was passed limiting the number of eggs one could send to friends
and relatives on the Sabbath of a family celebration. The authors wrote
that this regulation “gladdened all the householders and all those with
celebrations,” since it stifled the competition to send more eggs than one’s
neighbor.^89 In 1897, another taqanah limiting spending on festive occa-
sions concluded with the warning that many, including the wealthy, were
losing a great deal of money.^90 Especially among the poorer members of
the community, their inability to reciprocate the gifts of their rich neigh-
bors caused shame and even strife between husbands and wives. Leaders
feared that the poor would try to imitate the rich by sending equivalent
gifts on festive occasions and throwing similarly lavish celebrations in
spite of their far more limited means. In order to afford these luxuries,
householders took out loans and fell into debt.^91
The economic motivations cited in the taqanot are corroborated by the
lack of other concerns normally at play in sumptuary legislation. There
is no evidence in the taqanot from Meknes that the leadership attempted
to delineate social classes through regulations on spending, since all