R. Moses Edrehi: a Moroccan Jew’s gaze upon his native land from 1830s London

Born in Agadir, and subsequently a resident of London and Amsterdam, R. Moses Edrehi (1774–184?) sought to bridge the gap between Morocco and the European reader. Unlike nineteenth-century European travellers who, in keeping with the orientalist concept and the colonial discourse that prevailed at the time, painted a bleak picture of Morocco, in his short English-language essay on Morocco Edrehi harked back to eighteenth-century European attitudes, shaping and representing a positive narrative. Through a close reading of Edrehi’s text, this study presents substantial indications of his underlying dissatisfaction with the existing travel literature, due both to the incomplete nature of the information it provided and chiefly to its prejudiced portrayal of Morocco. The study also delineates Edrehi’s alternative representation of Morocco, crafted through his adoption of an Enlightenment approach.