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regulations applied equally to rich and poor.^92 Neither did the community
of Meknes enact limitations on consumption for fear of non-Jews’ jeal-
ousy. Such taqanot from other communities emphasized limits on public
displays of wealth that would attract unwanted attention from non-Jews.^93
Yet only one taqanah from Meknes specified what individuals could wear
outside of the house;^94 the vast majority concerned strictly intra-commu-
nal affairs.
Although laws limiting consumption were the most common ways
in which Meknes’s Jewish leaders attempted to protect their community
from slipping into poverty, they were not the only means exercised to
this end. First in 1825 and again in 1855, the leaders of Meknes enacted
taqanot prohibiting the sale or purchase of goods through middlemen.^95
They explained that as the community was experiencing hard times, sell-
ing goods through middlemen was causing a number of householders to
lose money and go bankrupt.^96 In 1855, communal leaders deemed the
taqanah sufficiently important that they ordered it read aloud in all the
courtyards of the millāh so that women, children, and the elderly—who
did not regularly attend synagogue—would also hear it.
While the Jews of Meknes viewed poverty as a fact of life that was not
within their power to eliminate, they nevertheless attempted to protect
their flock from avoidable impoverishment—a measure of control both
symbolic and practical. This strategy unsettles the dichotomy of “modern”
versus “traditional” Jewish approaches to poor relief. Nonetheless, at the
end of the nineteenth century, Meknes’s Jews confronted new ideas about
how to respond to the needs of the poor.
Changing Strategies of Charity
Morocco in the second half of the nineteenth century played host to the
drama of Europe’s steadily growing involvement in the Middle East. While
Europeans’ impact was primarily political and economic in the precolo-
nial period, cultural norms—including medical practices and ideas about
the social order—were increasingly filtering into local communities. The
presence of European diplomats in more and more Moroccan cities af-
fected communal leadership structures and introduced new ideas about
administrative responsibilities. European notions were often available to
Moroccan Jews relatively early thanks to the presence of the Alliance Is-
raélite Universelle. The AIU was a Paris-based international organization