As its editors observe, the subject addressed in Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa has been ‘historically on the margins of both Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies’ (p. 19) – as well as, one might add, African studies. Yet the volume represents a turning point in the study of what was once a marginalized field. The majority of essays implicitly argue that Jews cannot be studied in isolation from the Maghribi environment in which they lived. Rather than see Jews as a case study entirely separate from the surrounding society, these essays trace various aspects of Jewish history and culture with constant attention to the broader context in which they developed. In so doing, the volume as a whole demonstrates the ways in which both Jewish studies and Maghrib studies are emerging from their historic marginalization and into broader discussions of regional history.

Edited by Emily Benichou Gottreich and Daniel J. Schroeter, this collection of essays stems from the 2004 American Institute for Maghrib Studies annual conference in Tangier, Morocco. The book begins with Gottreich and Schroeter's introduction, ‘Rethinking Jewish culture and society in North Africa’, which provides a helpful sketch of the historiography of Maghribi Jews. The editors end with a discussion of the present-day challenges of working on the Maghrib, where ‘Jews have become almost invisible … yet for a new generation of researchers, they are everywhere part of the landscape’ (p. 12).

Numerous articles demonstrate the value of an integrated approach to Jewish and Maghrib studies. Established scholars like Susan Gilson Miller, ‘Making Tangier modern: ethnicity and urban development, 1880–1930’, and more junior ones like Stacy E. Holden, ‘Muslim and Jewish interaction in Moroccan meat markets, 1873–1912’, offer fresh perspectives on how Jews partnered with their Muslim and European neighbors to shape the distinctive nature of Maghribi cities. Mabrouk Mansouri's chapter, ‘The Image of Jews among Ibadi Imazighen in North Africa before the tenth century’, argues that a close relationship existed between Jews and indigenous Ibadi Muslims in the early Middle Ages. Mansouri's contribution is particularly welcome given how little we know about this period.

Even topics which have received considerable scholarly attention are given fresh treatment in this volume. The section on the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a French educational organization founded in 1860 which opened a network of Jewish schools across the Mediterranean basin, offers new insights into this important chapter in the modern history of Maghribi Jews. For instance, Keith Walters's chapter, ‘Education for Jewish girls in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Tunis and the spread of French in Tunisia’, uses the social history of language to document how French became the mother tongue of Jews in Tunis, and how this evolution differed from the linguistic history of Tunisian Muslims – a methodology which promises to be useful in further studies.

The Maghribi scholars’ contributions are particularly welcome, especially since much of their work is not available in English. Jamaâ Baïda's chapter, ‘The emigration of Moroccan Jews, 1948–1956’, offers a concise and nuanced introduction to a complex subject about which too little literature exists (especially in English). In Abdellah Larhmaid's contribution, ‘Jewish identity and landownership in the Sous Region of Morocco’, the author draws on Arabic sources (many in private collections) to discuss Jews’ multifaceted relationships to land in the south of Morocco – as tenants, property owners, landlords (including to Muslims), and as a community with deep historical roots in the area.

Yet as the two historiographical essays in this volume observe, there remains much to be done in the field of North African Jewish studies. The editors note that too little research has been conducted on Jewish ritual and religion. Oren Kosansky's article ‘The real Morocco itself: Jewish saint pilgrimage, hybridity, and the idea of the Moroccan nation’ is an important exception; his analysis of the ways in which Moroccan Jews and Muslims constructed saint veneration as a symbol of symbiosis provides a model of how scholars can go beyond descriptive analysis of ritual and situate religious practice in its political and cultural context.

Similarly, scholars would do well to heed Mohammed Kenbib's call for ‘a global approach that is open to comparisons with other Muslim countries’, especially among Maghribi nations (p. 29). Yaron Tsur's chapter ‘Dating the demise of the Western Sephardi Jewish Diaspora in the Mediterranean’ is the only one in this collection to take up this challenge. The study of North African Jews in transnational perspective promises to be a rich direction for research; Jews’ role in connecting the Maghrib to sub-Saharan Africa has great potential (as indicated in recent work by Ghislaine Lydon), and we still know far too little about the ties linking Jews in different Maghribi countries to one another. Such research will continue the work which Gottreich and Schroeter have begun by further integrating Jews into the study of North Africa and beyond.