A collection of documents and books by the Jews of North Africa secretly preserved for centuries in communities in Morocco and other countries, has been acquired by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America from the heirs of an unnamed Moroccan scholar who had assembled the material over many years.
The collection which comprises about 150 manuscripts and 2,000 printed volumes in various states of preservation, will enable historians to fill in gaps in the records of the cultural development of Jewish communities in every age. Most of the material, however, was written by the first generation of Spanish Jews forced to flee to North Africa after the Spanish expulsion in 1492.
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