Morocco—The Red-Light District in Casablanca—A Young Israelite Woman
Stretching Out in the Sun
Jews did not settle in Casablanca in significant numbers until the nineteenth century. On the eve of the First World War, roughly five thousand Jews lived in the city—making up a quarter of its population. Casablanca grew considerably in subsequent decades, and the number of Jews increased to 20,000 in 1926 and the best part of 40,000 ten years later. In this period, the wealthier Moroccan Jews increasingly moved out of the mellah, joining their Algerian and European brethren and the bulk of the non-Jewish European population in the ville nouvelle, the new neighbourhood recently constructed alongside the Old City and mellah. At its height, the Jewish community maintained no fewer than 80 synagogues in the city. Casablanca hosted the Moroccan headquarter of the Alliance Israélite Universelle which, alongside various other charitable activities, ran the Jewish school system in the French Protectorate. The overwhelming majority of Moroccan Jews now live in the city, making its Jewish community the largest in the country and, by extension, in the Arab world. Among the modernization measures the French implemented after the First World War was the creation, from scratch, of a purpose-built red-light district, Bousbir, which opened in 1924. Ironically, while entirely failing to fulfil its intended purposes—the monitoring and containment of prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases in the city—it became Casablanca’s principal tourist attraction. It was designed by the Frenchborn architect Edmond Brion as an entirely self-contained, gated entity to match what Western tourists would expect an authentic “Oriental” quarter to look like. Alongside a number of brothels, it also housed a sauna, a cinema, restaurants and various other leisure facilities and, much like today’s red-light district in Amsterdam, it attracted not only actual customers but large numbers of tourists who came to gawp and enjoy the titillation—on the postcard one can see several men in the street below staring up at the woman.
Published by Mars Éditions, Photo Flandrin, Rue Gay-Lussac 128, Casablanca.
Postcard from the book: Jews in Old Postcards and Prints
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