Food culture
Jewish Moroccan Cuisine
For much of its history, Morocco was home to one of the largest and oldest Jewish communities in the Muslim world, concentrated in dedicated quarters called the Mellah in cities like Fez, Marrakech and Essaouira. Its culinary legacy — one slow Saturday stew above all — remains woven into Morocco's food identity.
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- 8 min
- Topic
- Food culture
- Updated
- 20 July 2026
At a glance
- Morocco's Jewish communities lived largely in Mellah quarters within major cities for centuries.
- Dafina (also called skhina) is the signature Sabbath stew, cooked overnight since cooking is forbidden on Saturday.
- Many dishes, like pastel pastries, closely parallel Muslim Moroccan cooking such as briouats.
- Emigration has moved much of the community abroad, but the cuisine persists in Morocco and in the diaspora.
The Mellah and a centuries-old community
Jewish communities are documented in Morocco going back well over a thousand years, growing substantially over time and settling in dedicated urban quarters known as the Mellah, found in Fez, Marrakech, Essaouira and elsewhere. These neighbourhoods developed their own markets, bakeries and food customs, shaped by religious dietary law (kashrut) alongside the surrounding Moroccan Muslim food culture, producing a genuinely hybrid cuisine rather than two separate ones.
Dafina: the dish built around a religious rule
The single most emblematic Jewish Moroccan dish is dafina, also known as skhina, a direct answer to the Sabbath prohibition on cooking. Assembled Friday before sundown — typically meat, chickpeas, wheat berries, potatoes, and whole eggs left in their shells (which slow-cook into a distinctive creamy, brown-tinted 'beid hamin') — the pot is sealed and left to cook overnight at a very low, steady heat, traditionally in a communal oven, and served warm for Saturday's midday meal without anyone having lit a fire that day. It shares its slow, one-pot logic with the tagine, but exists specifically to solve a religious constraint rather than a cooking preference.
Dishes shared across communities
Much of the culinary crossover between Jewish and Muslim Moroccan cooking runs both directions rather than one borrowing from the other.
- Pastels: small fried meat-filled pastries closely paralleling the Muslim briouat — see briouat explained.
- Chraime: a spicy tomato-and-garlic braised fish dish, a Jewish Moroccan specialty often served for festive meals.
- Preserved lemon and olive dishes: both communities share a deep reliance on preserved lemon — see preserved lemons and smen — reflecting a shared regional pantry rather than a single origin.
- Almond and orange sweets: featured in both traditions' festive tables, particularly around Passover in Jewish households, which avoids leavened grain.
The legacy today
The majority of Morocco's Jewish population emigrated over the twentieth century, mainly to Israel, France and Canada, and the community within Morocco today is much smaller than its historic peak. Even so, its culinary fingerprints remain clearly visible in Moroccan cooking generally, and Jewish Moroccan cuisine continues to be actively cooked both within Morocco's remaining community and across a large diaspora that still identifies strongly with dishes like dafina as a marker of Moroccan-Jewish identity, regardless of where in the world it is served.
Frequently asked questions
What is dafina?
Dafina, also called skhina, is the Jewish Moroccan Sabbath stew — meat, chickpeas, wheat berries, potatoes and whole eggs cooked overnight at low heat, prepared before sundown Friday and served Saturday, since cooking is not permitted on the Sabbath itself.
What is the Mellah?
The Mellah was the historic Jewish quarter found in Moroccan cities such as Fez, Marrakech and Essaouira, where Jewish communities lived, traded and developed their own markets and food customs for centuries.
How is Jewish Moroccan food different from Muslim Moroccan food?
The two traditions overlap heavily, sharing a pantry of preserved lemon, olives, warm spices and slow-cooked stews. The clearest distinction is dishes shaped by Jewish religious law, most notably dafina, cooked specifically to avoid work on the Sabbath — a constraint that does not apply to the wider Moroccan kitchen.
Is Jewish Moroccan cuisine still cooked in Morocco today?
Yes, though the community is smaller than its historic peak after large-scale twentieth-century emigration. It remains present within Morocco's remaining Jewish community and is strongly kept alive by the large Moroccan-Jewish diaspora abroad, for whom dishes like dafina are an important marker of identity.