The Mekies Family

The name Mekies presents itself from the outset as an etymological node where tribal memory and occupational memory converge. Judeo-Moroccan onomastics, as established by Abraham Laredo in his reference work, systematically catalogues names derived from Berber ethnic and tribal designations, which constitute one of the oldest layers of Jewish nomenclature in Morocco [Les Noms des Juifs du Maroc]. From this perspective, Mekies would derive from the name of a Berber tribe, the Mékies, whose traditional homeland is situated in the vicinity of Oujda, in the far east of the country, on the border with Algeria [Les noms de famille des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord — Dafina].

The attribution of a Berber tribal name to a Jewish family is by no means exceptional in the Moroccan context. Long before Arabization and long before the arrival of the Sephardic exiles of 1492, Jewish communities lived in close symbiosis with the Berber tribes of the Atlas, the Sous, and the eastern regions, sharing their language, their dress, and sometimes their clan structure. The name borne by a Jewish family could thus designate the Berber tribe on whose territory it resided, or with which it maintained bonds of protection and commerce. This deep interweaving of Moroccan Judaism within the Berber world has been underscored by anthropologists and historians who have studied pre-colonial Jewish life [Les Gens du Mellah : la vie juive au Maroc à l'époque précoloniale].

The second etymological hypothesis, complementary to the first, connects the name to the dialectal Arabic mqâys, plural of maqiyâsa, a term designating gold or silver bracelets. Under this interpretation, Mekies would originally have been an occupational name: that of the bracelet-maker, that is to say, the goldsmith [Les noms de famille des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord — Dafina]. And indeed, goldsmithing — the working of silver and gold — ranked among the emblematic trades of Moroccan Jews, to the point that in many Berber regions, the jeweler was almost by definition Jewish. Joseph Chetrit, in his studies on Judeo-Arabic culture in the Maghreb, has demonstrated how spoken language and professional designations structured communal identity and became sedimented in family surnames [Judeo-Arabic Literature in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco].

These two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive: it is even probable that the Berber tribe and the goldsmith's trade reinforced one another in collective memory, as a family of precious metalworkers may well have carried a name with tribal resonance, or conversely. Historical honesty requires that these etymologies be presented as hypotheses solidly attested by the onomastic tradition, without definitively adjudicating between them [Les Noms des Juifs du Maroc].

If one follows the tribal trail, the cradle of the Mekies lineage lies in eastern Morocco, around Oujda. This border city, long contested between Moroccan and Algerian spheres of influence, occupies a singular position in the history of North African Judaism. A caravan crossroads between Fès and Tlemcen, between Morocco and Ottoman then French Algeria, Oujda was a passage point for people, goods, and Jewish families, who formed there a modest but ancient community.

The Jewish presence in eastern Morocco followed the general logic of the mellah and Jewish quarters, but also one of great regional mobility. Families circulated between the border towns, between Oujda, the surrounding ksour, and the neighboring Algerian cities such as Tlemcen and Nedroma. This porousness of the eastern border explains why many Jewish family names were common on both sides, and why a lineage of Moroccan origin could spread into the Oranie. Historians have shown how much the Algerian-Moroccan border was, in the nineteenth century, a space of circulation and recomposition of communities [Juifs et musulmans au Maroc, 1859-1948].

The legal situation of the Jews of Oujda, like that of all the Jews of Morocco, fell under the status of dhimmi: protected in exchange for payment of the jizya, subject to vestimentary and residential restrictions, but recognized as an autonomous community in the management of their religious and civil affairs. This status, and the permanent negotiations it implied between the Jews and those in power, has been the subject of in-depth studies showing that the boundary between communities was at once juridical and porous [Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco]. Within this framework, a family of goldsmith artisans such as the Mekies lineage may have been found its place in the local economy, supplying the Berber and Arab populations with the silver jewelry that served as both adornment and store of value.

Caution is warranted here: no direct archive consulted for this work allows for the documentation by name of a Mekies family in Oujda at a precise date. The eastern anchorage remains a plausible deduction, grounded in the tribal etymology reported by onomastic tradition and in the historical geography of eastern Morocco [Les noms de famille des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord — Dafina].

The occupational hypothesis — Mekies as "bracelet maker" — deserves particular development, as it opens onto one of the best-documented chapters in the social history of the Jews of Morocco: their near-monopolistic role in the working of precious metals. In Berber and Arab societies of the Maghreb, the working of gold and silver was frequently considered unworthy of or forbidden to Muslims, owing to religious prohibitions bearing upon usury and the handling of gold. This void was filled by Jewish artisans, who became the established goldsmiths of both rural and urban populations.

The Berber silver jewel — fibulae, bracelets, necklaces, diadems — was produced, chased, and nielloed in the Jewish workshops of the mellahs and market towns. These objects were not mere adornments: they constituted women's dowries, a mobilizable monetary reserve, a marker of tribal belonging and social status. The Jewish goldsmith thus occupied a central economic and symbolic position, at the interface between the Jewish community and the surrounding tribal world. The daily life, trades, and relationships of economic dependence of the Jews of pre-colonial Morocco have been finely described by historical anthropology [Les Gens du Mellah : la vie juive au Maroc à l'époque précoloniale].

In this context, that a lineage should have been named after the mqâys, the bracelets it fashioned, follows an onomastic logic that is perfectly attested: the occupational name is one of the most prolific sources of North African Jewish surnames. Joseph Toledano, in his repertory of family names of the Jews of North Africa, records numerous examples of names derived from the crafts and trades [Les Noms de famille des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord]. The working of silver, in particular, has left a lasting imprint on onomastics as well as on the collective Memory of the Jews of Morocco, who remember their goldsmith ancestors as figures of prestige and of craft knowledge transmitted from father to son [Judeo-Arabic Literature in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco].

The establishment of the French Protectorate in 1912 profoundly transformed the condition of Jews in Morocco, and with it the destiny of families such as the Mekies. Oujda, seized by French troops as early as 1907, was one of the first cities to experience colonial administration. The opening of Alliance israélite universelle schools, the progressive Frenchification, access to new professions, and urbanization altered the ways of life and horizons of Eastern Jewish communities.

This period also witnessed the migration of numerous Jewish families from eastern Morocco toward major economic centers — Oran, Casablanca, and beyond — drawn by the opportunities of trade and nascent industry. The trajectory of Moroccan Jews during this phase of modernization, between fidelity to tradition and aspiration toward emancipation, has been traced in detail by historians of the colonial period [Une certaine histoire des Juifs du Maroc, 1860-1999].

The defining ordeal of this period was the Second World War and the application in Morocco of Vichy's antisemitic legislation. Moroccan Jews, including those of eastern Morocco, were subjected to discriminatory statutes, excluded from certain professions, and registered. The stance of Sultan Mohammed V, who symbolically resisted certain measures and refused to distinguish his Jewish subjects from his other subjects, remains a defining episode of collective Memory, carefully studied by historiography [Mohammed V et les Juifs du Maroc à l'époque de Vichy]. A family such as the Mekies, whether residing in Oujda or having emigrated to major cities, necessarily passed through those dark years, sharing the uncertain fate of the entirety of Moroccan Jewry.

This pivotal era also sealed the destiny of names destined to spread beyond Morocco. Modernization, mobility, and political upheaval prepared the ground for the great post-war migrations, which would scatter the lineages of eastern Morocco to the four corners of the world.

Starting from the years 1948–1956, and especially after Moroccan independence, the Moroccan Jewish community experienced a massive exodus. From several hundred thousand souls, it shrank within a few decades to a few thousand people. The Jews of eastern Morocco, close to the Algerian border and therefore to the migratory circuits of Oranie, were among the first affected by this movement. The principal destinations were Israel, France, and Canada.

This dispersion was experienced as a rupture, but also as a transplantation: families carried with them their names, their liturgical traditions, their cuisine, their melodies, and the Memory of their saints. The bond to Morocco was never severed, as evidenced by the pilgrimages — the hilloulot — which continue to gather the descendants of Moroccan Jews at the tombs of their venerated saints [Moroccan Jews — Pèlerinages au Maroc]. The anthropology of return, studied notably through the case of Casablanca, has shown how vividly the Memory of Morocco remains alive among the generations born of emigration [Return to Casablanca: Jews, Muslims, and an Israeli Anthropologist].

For a lineage such as the Mekies, whose very name preserves the imprint of a territory — the region of Oujda — and of a trade — silversmithing —, this dispersion lends the family name the value of condensed Memory. To bear the name Mekies is to carry within oneself the trace of an eastern Berber tribe, the recollection of the silver workshops, and the account of a long journey across centuries and borders. The variant spellings of the name, adapted to French, Israeli, or Anglophone civil registries, bear witness to this dissemination while preserving the original identitary core [Les Noms de famille des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord].

The history of the Mekies lineage, as sources allow it to be reconstructed, is less the story of a particular family whose deeds one might trace than that of a name dense with meaning. Two convergent etymologies illuminate it: the Berber tribe of the Mékies from the vicinity of Oujda, and the Arabic mqâys, bracelets of gold and silver, which would designate a goldsmith [Les noms de famille des Juifs d'Afrique du Nord — Dafina] [Les Noms des Juifs du Maroc]. Between these two poles — the land and the trade, the Berber clan and the silversmith's workshop — emerges the typical portrait of a Jewish family from eastern Morocco, deeply rooted in its native soil while participating in the symbolic economy of jewelry.

Beyond the uncertainty that weighs upon the detail of the generations, the collective trajectory is clear: an ancient anchoring in eastern Morocco, an involvement in the silver trades, the ordeal of the Protectorate and of Vichy, then the great dispersal of the second half of the twentieth century [Une certaine histoire des Juifs du Maroc, 1860-1999]. The name Mekies, today carried far from its land of origin, remains a slender yet resilient thread connecting its bearers to the Memory of Oujda, of the Berber tribes, and of the Jewish silversmiths of the Maghreb. This Great Book does not claim to have closed the inquiry, but to have honestly mapped the territory of the known, the probable, and the transmitted, inviting future generations to continue the research in the still-unexplored archives of eastern Morocco.