CEUTA

CEUTA (Arabic Sebta), Spanish enclave on the northwest coast of Morocco, 16 miles dirctly south of Gibraltar. According to legend, it was founded by Shem, the son of Noah. During the Middle Ages Ceuta was one of the most important Mediterranean ports. The wealthy Jewish colony was one of the most ancient and cultured communities in Africa, but it suffered persecution under the Almohade rule beginning in 1148. joseph ibn aknin , a disciple of Maimonides, was born there. Merchants from Genoa, Marseilles, and elsewhere, assisted by the Jews, were responsible for its commercial expansion. The treaty of 1161 between Genoa and the emperor of Morocco increased the trade of the city, and in 1159 Benjamin of Tudela found in Genoa two Jewish dyers from Ceuta. In 1542 Jews evacuated from Safi and Azemmour, Morocco, settled there. Ceuta also served as a refuge for Marranos from Spain and the Balearic Islands. A Spanish possession and military station since 1580, Ceuta had a Jewish population only intermittently until the establishment in 1869 of a community. In 1969, it numbered 600 and had an organized structure including religious institutions. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Ortéga, Los Hebreos en Marruecos (1919), 110, 138; SIHM, Portugal, 3 (1948), 181, 279–94; 4 (1951), 282ff.; Hirschberg, Afrikah, 2 (1965), index; Corcos, in: JQR, 55 (1964/65), 62, 65, 72; idem, in: Sefunot, 10 (1966), 74f. (David Corcos)