(This text is addressed to members of my family, in a broad sense, to the descendants of our common ancestor, Moshé LEVY ben YULY from Meknès, which names appear hereunder)

The family name YULY can be found today only in two geographic areas: first in "our" enlarged family of Moroccan origin , and then in the USA, within the descendants of black slaves. (An explanation of this family name within the American black community may be found below).

According to family1 tradition , the LEVY-YULY name would come from the great poet and philosopher Rabbi Yehuda ben Shmuel HALEVY (Tudela, near Saragossa, 1086; Cairo, 1145). No known document is available to confirm this information passed on verbally from generation to generation, except perhaps the fact that the first names Shmuel and Yehuda are passed on from father to son (or from grandfather to grandchild) in our family in a recurring manner. One thing is certain, the LEVY ben YULY were among the deported from Spain and followed the customs of the Megurachim or Castellans, as against the Tochavim or local Moroccan Jews (Berbers?) .

As for the family name YULY, here is the explanation. Many families with the common name of LEVY or COHEN found a need to differentiate themselves from their namesake. With the Ashkenazim, we find LEVY-STRAUSS, LEVY-BRHUL, COHEN-BENDIT, etc.…In Morocco, we find LEVY-BENCHETON, LEVY-BENSOUSSAN, LEVY-BENTOUBO, etc.…

The LEVY ben YULY family chose to add an acrostic to their name to testify their high respect for their line of descent. Indeed, the word Y-U-L-Y is made up of the first letters from a verse from psalm 86,9:

Yavoou Veyichtahavou Lefanékha YY,

"They will come and they will bow down before You, the Lord". When the Messiah will rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, all the LEVY will present themselves to accomplish their duties under the authority of the COHEN. The LEVY-YULY will come first and will be the most zealous, the most committed, the most fervent among their peers, a kind of aristocracy of the faith.

Moshe LEVY ben YULY (Meknès, circa 1650- Meknès, circa 1720)

The first mention of the name LEVY ben YULY appears in the judicial documents from the 1700’s (property sales and purchases , arbitrations in inheritance disputes, partnership contracts, etc.…) concerning Moshe LEVY ben YULY. This well-to-do businessman owned shops, butcheries and rentable buildings in Fès, Meknès and Salé.

It seems he made a fortune when buying goods the Salé pirates (harbour near Rabat) brought back from their journeys. We know that these dreadful seafarers spread terror among the Christian fleets of the Mediterranean during more than a century. Their main target was Spain, mainly due to their wealth acquired through the discovery of America, but just as importantly in a spirit of vengeance: the ‘Salé’ pirates were direct descendants of the Mozarabes, or Moriscos, which final expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula took place in 1602. The race war against Spain was put forward by the pirates as a Jihad war which in addition to award them Allah’s paradise , brought them a handsome income. Many accounts show that among them, there were one or two raïs, or pirate ships captains …Jewish, who felt the same hatred for Spain.
From their Latin marked Chebeks’ sails , or from their light boats , the Moslem pirates did not hesitate to attack the powerful Spanish , French , English or Dutch , or even raid the small habours of the Mediterranean coastline. « Salé’s » pirates reached even the coastlines of Ireland and Scotland , killing villagers , looting anything and everything , and raping their women.
(One can still encounter today , British citizens in some Scottish port with typically Moroccan features : would one of their great great grandmothers have been subjected to the ‘Salé’ pirates’ misbehaviour ?).

When they returned to ‘Salé’, their home port, they sold their cargo to the highest bidders : cloth , chandeliers , crockery , jewelry, carpets, wheat, oats etc.…as well as a whole range of ‘bric-a-brac’ of products made in Europe or the Americas. The main buyers of this loot were the Jewish merchants of the port of Salé, Rabat, Tetuan or even from the Moroccan hinterland such as Fès and Meknès. Moshe LEVY ben YULY belonged to this group of merchants.

We must mention that the ‘Salé’ pirates brought with them Christian prisoners, either sailors , or sailing passengers . Whereas in Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli , the pirates sold the prisoners as slaves to private traders in public markets , in Morocco these prisoners became property of the makhzen, the State of Morocco, according to Sultan Mulay Ismail’s decree in 1682. The Sultan allocated them a specific district in his Capital cities , Meknès and Marrakech: the matamores. The Jewish community had the duty to feed , care , and clothes the prisoners at their cost , pending their freedom against a ransom . The negotiations to obtain this ransom from the European States or the Clergy, the Christian Religious Order, were led through the medium of Jewish merchants, among them the MIMRAN family, as well as Moshe LEVY-YULY. The "commission" they received during these wrangling could reach up to 40% of the ransom amount ! It was a very profitable activity , a quasi monopoly reserved for the Jews who excelled in this work thanks to their knowledge of European languages and their relations with cities such as Amsterdam, Bordeaux or Livorno.

Moshe LEVY ben YULY lived mainly in Meknès, however he also owed a house in Rabat, which was then a small town called "Salé la neuve" (The New Salé ) . He fathered three sons: Shmuel, Mordekhai (no information available), and Yehuda.

Shmuel LEYV-YULY: the naguid (Meknès, circa 1680- Meknès, circa 1750)

Although our family’s ancestor is Yehuda LEVY-YULY, and not his brother Shmuel, it is interesting to look into the latter figurehead.
Shmuel LEVY ben YULY was the naguid, the head of the Meknès community, (which was then the Capital of the Cherifian Empire ) between 1730 and his death in 1750. The job of the naguid, or cheikh al yahoud (Sheikh of the Jews) was very different from today’s meaning of " head of the community ". Admittedly , he was elected by his fellow Jews in order to manage the Community’s worldly goods , properties , to decide upon the opening of ritual bath building or of a new synagogue, or to levy taxes , or to care for the needy , etc.… However in this Cherifian Empire where the notion of power meant absolute power , the Sultan saw foremost in the naguid an agent of his authority, with the power to let his subjects live or let die .

As far as Shmuel LEVY-YULY is concerned, the historic circumstances of this era strengthened this aspect of the naguid’s autocratic role . The period 1730-1735 was a black one for Morocco in general , and the Jewish community in particular. On top of a terrible dry season which struck the whole country , a severe political confusion prevailed. The traditional division in Morocco between the bled siba ( the anarchy regions ) and bled makhzen (the loyalist regions) was running wild since the death of the powerful Sultan Mulay Ismail, founder of the Alaouit dynasty. His sons scrambled for power.

Shmuel LEVY-YULY was friendly with one of them , Moulay Abdallah (if one can talk about "friendship" between a Sultan of Morocco and one of his Jewish subjects). Mulay Abdallah ruled , with numerous interruptions and depositions, from 1729 to 1757. When raised to the throne, he appointed Shmuel naguid of the Meknès Jews. This friendship with the Sultan enabled the town Jews to be saved from a serious danger. Indeed, in 1731, the members of the Udayas tribe , who dwelled in a district adjoining the mellah fomented a rebellion against the Sultan. His ministers, thirsty for vengeance and tempted by the plundering of the mellah, tried to convince their Sovereign that the Jews were collaborators to this rebellion. Shmuel intervened almost at the last moment to plead in favour of his fellow Jews , and the plundering was avoided. The Jews from the capital city were grateful
to him.. Even the famous Rabbi Yaacov ABENSUR (1677-1753), usually not inclined to praise the naguids, mentions him in his writings in a praiseworthy manner. When Sultan Mulay Abdallah was forced from the battlefield to take refuge in the South , in Taroudant , his half brother and rival, Mulay Ali al Arj (the lame), who stole the power , kept the naguid Shmuel LEVY-YULY in his job.

However one must draw attention to another aspect of this exceptional man’s personality. Shmuel estimated that his role of naguid consisted in not only administer the community’s estate , but also to impose moral order therein. Those years of political anarchy in Morocco led to a serious relaxation of moral customs within the Moslem community as well as the Jewish’. The Sultans reigned for a few months in Meknès, then were deposed and exiled in Marrakech, and then came back to recover their throne. The population, used to be governed with an iron fist since the autocratic Sultan Mulay Ismaïl, found itself on its own and engulfed in their most basic instincts. Alcohol consumption, (within the Moslem Community), prostitution (in both communities), gambling…All the prohibitions were broken , especially among the wealthy.

One day, during one of Mulay Abdallah’s reigns in Meknès, Shmuel was informed that a rich town Jew was committing adultery in public with a Jewish mother. Following the swearing of two witnesses who had noticed first hand this crime committed during an Andaluz music evening , liberally supplied with alcohol, Shmuel instructed two of his servants to follow him. They went to the culprit, made him come out of his home , and thrashed him 39 times with a rod, according to the Law’s requirements. The man did not survive this ordeal and died the next day. The story reached the Sultan’s ear who summoned Shmuel in his palace. To his defense , the naguid delivered this sentence , which became part of our cultural heritage : "If my trousers are clean, my soul is clean". The Sultan sent him back home lavished with gifts.

Shmuel led a blameless life on the moral level. As for his business acumen , it seems he died leaving a huge inheritance to his descendants. During the hunger crisis which struck the country , he would buy houses and shops cheaply to sell them later with substantial profits. Business is business…

As well as being well connected to the home affairs of the community , and Morocco in general, it seems very likely Shmuel maintained commercial relationships with foreign countries ; he exported local produce such as beeswax or phosphorus.

As the descendants of Shmuel LEVY-YULY are only distant cousins of « ours » , I will not dwell over them. I would just mention that they joined up with the big Jewish families from Fès and Meknès : the MIMRAN, BERDUGO, TOLEDANO and TOBY. These families started to “westernize” as they gave their children new names in Morocco. Thus , one of Shmuel’s daughters-in-law was named "Ldicia", or Lœticia, like the mother of Napoléon Bonaparte (!). Another, surely from Tangier , was called Clara.

Otherwise, it seems Shmuel’s descendants left the family tradition of engaging in business for the study of the Torah. They practiced various trades in Meknès which required a substantial Talmudic knowledge (Rabbis, dayyanim i.e. judges at the Rabbinical Tribunal , assessors, etc.…). Some of them emigrated to Eretz Israël in the 1850’s, to Tiberias and to Jerusalem, where they joined the aristocratic Sefarad families. We find today (in 2012) representatives of this side of the YULY for instance in Qyryat Atta, near Haifa.

Yehuda LEVY ben YULY (Meknès, circa 1700- Rabat, circa 1755)

There is little information available on the subject of our ancestor, Shmuel’s brother, except that he was a rich businessman. He lived mainly in Rabat, where he owned a very beautiful and big house built on the sea front , a kind of mansion with an orchard full of fruit trees such as orange trees, lemon trees, apricot trees, etc.…. We must remember that during this period Rabat Jews dwelled wherever they pleased as the Mellah did not yet exist. It was established in this town only in 1807.

To our knowledge , Yehuda LEVY-YULY had two sons, Abraham and Eliahu. About the first one, Abraham, we have little information other than he carried on his father’s commercial activities in Rabat, and he died nearly
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broke. The very profitable activities connected to the Sale pirates’ « performance » begun to fade away in that period (1740-1760).

Eliahu LEVY-YULY ( Rabat, 1735; Gibraltar,1800)

A fairly large amount of documents allows us to draw the portrait of Yehuda’s son.
It seems he has been introduced to the import/export business at an early age by his father , and he practiced fluent Spanish , in addition to dialectical Arabic (Moroccan Arabic) and Biblical Hebrew. He also had a strong knowledge of French , English and Italian languages. His talents, his family ties, and his strong personality did not go unnoticed by the Sultan Sidi Mohamed III ben Abdallah (who reigned from 1757 to 1790).

One day in 1764, when he was only 29 years old, two mokhazni (a kind of law enforcement watchdogs) knocked on his door in his Rabat house . The Sultan summoned him urgently in his Meknès palace.
At that time, when a Sultan summoned "urgently" one of his subjects (Muslim or Jewish), one would be split between terror and joy. The all powerful monarch could have your head cut off on the hour without any form of judicial procedure , under any pretext , or else break the good news. In cha Allah!

Eliahu had his horse saddled , and headed for the capital in a speedy gallop, taking care nevertheless to dismount from his horse at the entrance of every village or built-up area: it was prohibited for any Jew to be found mounted on a horse or even a mule in the presence of a Moslem. When he reached Meknès, he settled naturally at his cousins’ LEVY-YULY, Shmuel’s sons, in their big house in the mellah. He waited there more than a week , split between anxiety and hope. The Sultan’s "urgent" summons had a particular habit of next day reception or a number of weeks after your arrival at the capital (as told by the French Consul in Tangier).
At last, following eight days’ wait , mokhaznis came to fetch Eliahu, and take him through the town’s alleyways up to the Royal palace. They had to fend off the crowd that had gathered along the path with strong rod
strokes, because the Meknès residents were fond of the spectacle these Sultan’s "summoned" folks offered. They wanted to see first hand the one who soon will be thrown into some dark jail (or even executed!), or become a great figure of the kingdom.
From the first words the Sultan uttered , and seeing his paternal demeanour, Eliahu understood he had nothing to fear, and everything to hope for.
Sidi Mohamed informed him of his great project: close down the port of Agadir, which inhabitants showed on many occasions their disloyalty toward the Alaouite throne, and create 150 km further north, on the site of an ancient Portuguese fort , an entirely new city, a port which would be called Essaouira. In European language : MOGADOR.
Moslem and Jewish businessmen from various provinces of the Empire had been chosen to make up the founding nucleus of the town.
The Sultan nominated them "his" sponsored subjects. He lent them funds to trade with the European Powers , he allocated land for them to build their houses, waived taxes (except customs duties), and positioned them under his personal protection. They became the toujjar al sultane, or Royal Merchants. Every year they would need to report before him to account their activities , pay back a share of his initial layout fund, and transfer to him the profit share due to him.
Having delivered his gift to the Sultan (one never turned up empty handed before the Moroccan Sultans !..), Eliahu registered before the viziers to receive his licenses . They showed him the names of the chosen traders.

For the Moslems, it concerned the following families:
- from Tétouan: At Taï, BenAzzouz and Raghoun
- from Fès: Al Labbar and Al Fassi
- from Marrakech: Al Ouarzazi
- from Souss: Tafouzaz

For the Jews:
- from Marrakech: Corcos, De la Mar and Guedalia
- from Safi: Sumbal, Chriqui and Merran
- from Rabat: Lévy-Yuly, Lévy-Bensoussan and Anahori
- from Agadir: Aflalo, Penia and Guedalia
- from Tétouan: Hadida and Israel

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The port of Essaouira-Mogador today.

Back in Rabat, Eliahu prepares for the big move.

Which novelist or film maker will some day tell the saga of the LEVY-YULY family leaving Rabat to travel to Mogador, this town which did not yet exist ! Imagine Eliahu and his young spouse Rina née SERFATY (whom we’ll speak about later), travelling with their baby, Yéhouda, and their servants. They were escorted by two soldiers armed with muskets , allocated by the Sultan.
At that time there were no carriage ways in Morocco because…there were no carriages nor any means of transport on wheels. People travelled on horseback and goods loaded on mules or camels. All the paraphernalia was loaded on mules. From side to side of the pack-saddles , we could see huge wooden trunks ,secured with metal straps , containing clothes , kitchenware, small furniture , disassembled tents, foodstuff, baby rattles.
Lets follow the LEVY-YULY along the stony ways of the Chaouia, stopping at night to camp out in the open air, and posting night guards to protect them

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against wild beasts which polluted the Moroccan countryside in those days: hyenas, jackals, and even some lions. They interrupted their journey five times a day in order to allow the Sultan’s soldiers to pray.
The stops were long and tiring , 40 miles per day, some 75 kilometers. It took them a day and a half to reach Fédala ( Mohammedia today), and Dar el Beida (Casablanca), which was then a small town with 7000 inhabitants struggling along through fishing and small trade. They settled at the town’s naguid . Following the Azemmur route, avoiding Mazagan (El Jadida), which was still occupied by the Portuguese. (This town will only be returned to Morocco in 1769). Then Safi, and lastly the unending road from Safi to Mogador. In all, their journey lasted eight long days. (Today, it takes 5 to 6 hours by car to travel from Rabat to Essaouira-Mogador).
They discovered an amazing sight as they approached the town. At the end of the bay , huge scaffoldings soared around what will become the rectangular tower of the harbour. Hundreds of bricklayers were bustling about the tower , whilst in the hinterland , other teams of workers started to build the battlements. Surveyors, carpenters , master-carpenters , painters and iron craftsmen , were supervised by Moroccan foremen, and directed by the architect of this huge project : the French town planner Théodore Cornut, a native of Avignon…

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…However let Eliahu get acclimatized to this new town. ?

He chose Mogador for his main residence , to which he returned following numerous journeys to Meknès, Rabat (where the Sultan had a palace built), Tangier, and London.

Regarding his commercial affairs , his life was characterized by thriving ‘highs’ and dreadful ‘lows’ in business. His relations with the Sultan were uncertain. When business was good , he was received with open arms at either the Meknes or Rabat Royal Palace. But when he encountered problems , the Sultan who had a nagging character, was not forgiving. Once, a ship full of goods bought in France did not arrive on time at the port of Mogador. After more than a two weeks wait , the Sultan had him thrown in the town jail by the Pasha, and had him half his beard shaved to humiliate him (!). When the ship arrived , and after Eliahu off-loaded the goods with

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a handsome profit, he was received at the palace by the Sultan as if nothing happened.

Over and above his commercial activities, Eliahu carried out the function of foreign affairs counselor for Sultan Mohamed III. His knowledge of languages, his relations with either Jewish or non-Jewish businessmen from several European cities made him a precious asset to the Moroccan diplomacy. Many documents , treaties and international agreements mention his name, more often as "Liaho", according to the Judea Moroccan pronunciation . When in 1778 the Sharifian Empire was the first foreign state to recognize the young republic of the United States of America, more for hating England rather than love of the USA…, Eliahu took part in the drafting of the peace and friendship treaty between the two countries.

In 1789, Eliahu recruited a secretary-translator-accountant , an Italian Jew, Samuel ROMANELLI. He was a well-read adventurer born in Mantoue, wrote a book (Voyage en Arabie, see bibliography) where he describes a portrait of his boss in the worst light, derisory. According to ROMANELLI, Eliahu LEVY-YULY was a vain man , quick-tempered, unjust, despising the humble and groveling with the powerful, dishonest and mean ! Of course , one must view this portrait for what it is: the opinion of a frustrated employee jealous of his boss.

One black spot in Eliahu’s biography : the CARDOZO affair.
(see the separate annex for the narrative of this affair)

Sultan Mohamed III, the "protector" and sponsor of Eliahu, died in 1790. His successor, Mulay Yazid, who ruled from 1790 to 1792, was the disastrous Alaouite Sultan as far as the Jews in Morocco were concerned.
Fanatic Islamist, despot , displaying unlimited brutality, opposed to any economic reform introduced by his father , claimed he will convert by force all the Jews in his kingdom or face death sentence. He had 300 Jews slaughtered throughout the North of the country (The South belonged to the siba, in rebellion). The Rabat Jews were saved only through the protection of the town Pasha , Mohamed Bargach. Eliahu, who happened to be in Tétouan when Mulay Yazid took power, was compelled to convert to Islam "symbolically" in order to save his life. However , thanks to some civil servants he managed to bribe , he contrived to escape to Gibraltar,

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where his wife, his son Elias-Moses, and his daughter joined him. It seems this escape cost him most of his fortune.

He spent the last years of his life in Gibraltar, with some journeys to Cairo and Algiers. When in 1798 the Executive Board of the French Republic issued a tender for the supply of various commodities (there was a drought in France that year), Eliahu LEVY-YULY happened to be in Algiers staying with Jews with whom he had commercial ties, the AMAR-BOUJENAH. This family was in partnership with the BACRI family, and obtained the contract for this huge market (more than 7 million gold-francs). Eliahu tried "to associate himself to the deal" and to deliver to the Board the commodities which were plentiful in Morocco : almonds and walnuts, carob to feed horses, olive oil, etc.…. He went one last time to Rabat to ask for a hearing with the new Sultan, Mulay Slimane (who ruled from 1796 to 1822), son of Mohamed III, and try to have this export trade financed . However times had changed. The Sultan did not even wish to see him . Filled with bitterness, Eliahu returned to Gibraltar, where he died in 1800.

A word about his private life.

Eliahu was a " bon vivant", someone who enjoyed life. He lived a luxurious life in his Mogador house, with furniture imported from France and Italy. He also kept the huge family property in Rabat, with servants and gardeners taking care of maintenance. He dressed with taste, wearing djellabas, and burnous as well as shirts cut from the finest quality cloth. When he travelled to London for his business, he had fitted frocks , frilled shirts and long silk pants made by the smartest makers in Carnaby street.

One can imagine Eliahu and his spouse dressed thus on the day of their wedding.

He was also a music lover. When the mellah of Mogador started to populate with numerous Jews attracted by this new "big" town, Eliahu sponsored generously many Andaluz music orchestras with Jewish and Moslem performing side by side. He bought them the most up to date instruments made by the string-instruments makers of Fès, and paid them handsomely for the concerts they performed at his home. We know that the Andalus musicians of Mogador, the dnadnias, acquired a reputation of excellence over the years and are classified still today among the best across North Africa .

It would seem that Eliahu LEVY-YULY had …three wives! He married his first wife , Rina SERFATY in Rabat, in his youth (We descend directly from the couple Rina-Eliahu through their son Yehuda, that is why the Rina, Reine and Reinette in our family are named after her. Also often used in the family is the name Sultana, which translates into Reine (Reine is French for Queen , and Sultana is Arabic for Queen) . After a few years,
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relations between Rina and Eliahu became extremely tense, to the point when Rina asked for a divorce, which he refused to grant her.

He married a second time , as allowed by Jewish law. We do not know the name of this woman . It seems he loved her very much ; however they discovered she was sterile. He did not want to repudiate her, as it was customary to do at that time with childless women. Eliahu kept her as
a spouse.

Finally he married a third woman , from Tangier who was very well educated and read and spoke Spanish and English fluently . She was called Rachel (her maiden name is unknown to us). Their wedlock produced a son, Elias-Moses LEVY-YULY, and a girl (also called Rachel, born in 1800).

Elias-Moses LEVY-YULY (Mogador 1782-Washington 1850)

As we have just seen , Elias-Moses LEVY (he made do without the name YULY) is our "cousin" from his father’s side only, and not from his mother’s. However , in view of the proeminent functions they held , he and his son David LEVY-YULY, in the history of the United States of America , I thought it appropriate to include them in this short overview of our family account.

When he left Mogador suddenly with his mother to escape Moulay Yazid’s persecutions in 1790, Moses was 8 years old. During his studies at the héder of Mogador, the traditional Jewish school, he proved to be an exceptionally brilliant student , gifted with a phenomenal memory. He was able to deliver by heart , whole chapters from the Bible, as well as almost all the Psalms and Shabbat and Holy Days prayers .
When he reached Gibraltar, he completed his formation with learning English thoroughly , as well as Spanish and French. He set out to read works "above his age level", Spinoza and Hobbes, Voltaire, Rousseau and the Encyclopeadists.

Without even waiting for one month following the death of his father, and with the little money left from his inheritance, the young Moses sailed, with

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his mother and sister , from Gibraltar for the Americas. It seems his relationship with his father was very confrontational; to the point of calling himself just LEVY . The name YULY sounded too loaded with unpleasant memories of his childhood in Mogador and his
teenage hood in Gibraltar, under the iron rule of this father with an over dominant personality.

Moses, his mother and sister landed at Saint-Thomas, in the West Indies, which were then a Danish holding (today the Virgin Islands , USA). Here they were welcomed by an old employee of Eliahu, Elias CHRIQUI, who had emigrated from Mogador a few years before , and who treated them like VIPs. CHRIQUI introduced Moses in his timber and sugar cane trades.

As the years went by , Moses LEVY acquired a considerable wealth, abandoned the sugar cane trade and engaged in the arms trade to become supplier to the Spanish armies in South America. He left the West Indies for Cuba, Puerto-Rico, and finally settled in Florida, then a virgin territory under Spanish rule. There he became sugar cane plantations farmer-owner.
As his wealth increased , he could concentrate on the dream of his life : saving the Jewish Nation! He had remained a practicing Jew, traditional but moderate, respecting Shabbat and eating only kosher food. In the 1820’s, he bought huge plots of land in Minacopy, in the county of Alachua , to the west of Florida to settle Jews who came from Europe. A small colony of 500 persons began to settle in , soon to be joined by Jews from Russia who were fleeing the pogroms of Tsar Nicolas 1st. However, this project ("pre-Zionist"), utopian , did not succeed: with scarce enthusiasm from the Jews for agricultural labour , the difficult conditions of alligator-infested fields and dangerous swamps , everything combined against this venture.

Moses LEVY campaigned for a second utopia: the abolition of slavery. We are in the 1820’s, more than 40 years before the American Civil War. He saw first hand the painful fate awarded the black slaves in the plantations of the Southern States of the USA. He too, for economical reasons , was forced to acquire a few dozens in order to produce the sugar cane competitively. However he always endeavoured to make their lot more human. For instance he prohibited the separation of mother and child during the slave sales; he allowed husband and wife to live under the same roof. When he freed a deserving slave , he would give him a small grant of money in order to start a new life in the North.
In 1828, during a stay in London, he spoke out before evangelists from the Clapham Sect and had a pamphlet printed (anonymously, for fear of repercussions from the proslavery Americans) in which he outlined the basis to struggle for the liberation of slaves: "Plan for the Abolition of slavery. Consistent with the interest of all parties" . This text had a big impact in England.

Back in Florida, he carried on managing his business , and just as importantly , to campaign through numerous writings and conferences, for the creation of "modern" Jewish schools which would link up the non-religious knowledge with strong principles of Jewish experience.

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Elias-Moses LEVY was married in 1803 (at the age of 21 !), in Saint-Thomas with a young woman of 17 from one of the best Sefarad families in the West Indies, Hanna BENDANONE. She bore him a son, Elias, in 1804, and two girls Rahma and Rachel, and finally in 1810 a second son, David LEVY-YULEE.
The couple Moses and Hanna did not get on well together , (they divorced in 1815), particularly with regard to their children’s education : contrary to what he encouraged in his writings, Moses sent them to Christian schools in America and England, as was customary among the rich farmers of the South.
His daughter, Rahma, married a Sefarad from a Dutch family called MENDES Da COSTA. Their son, Jacob MENDES Da COSTA (1833-1900) became a doctor specialized in military medicine and was the first to discover and treat an illness which bears his name: the "Da Costa syndrome". It concerns the disabling psychological trauma sustained by a soldier during a violent battle. Until then , the military medical authorities identified only bodily damage , as psychological damage was considered "play acting".

David LEVY-YULEE (Charlotte-Amalie, 1810; Washington 1883)

Son of Elias-Moses LEVY. This is about "the celebrity" in our family, the first Jewish senator in the history of the United States, and very wealthy builder of the Florida railway. One needs only a Google search over his name to see dozens of references on his eventful biography , his blazing speeches in the Senate, his amazingly enterprising spirit. The town of YULEE and the county of LEVY in Florida bear his name. Still today his remembrance is celebrated there as one of the State’s heroes.

David LEVY-YULEE’s relationship with his father Elias-Moses were extremely stormy. Whereas the latter had YULY withdrawn from his family name , David re-introduced it to show that he was proud of his Moroccan ascendance . And with snobbery: he let the people surrounding him know that his grandfather , Eliahu LEVY-YULY, had been an all powerful Grand Vizier in Morocco’s Sultan Mohamed III’s Court…. Moreover, whereas Moses LEVY campaigned against slavery , his son David sided very early on among the anti-abolitionists. He took part in the Civil War on
the side of the Southerners and even ended up in jail for nine months following the victory of the North.

Unlike his father , David LEVY-YULEE was not a practicing Jew. He married a Christian , Nannie WICKLIFFE, daughter of the Kentucky Governor. Their children Nancy and Charles (1849-1921) were brought up as Christians. They gave up their father’s name (too Jewish …) and borrowed their mother’s .

When the slaves from the Southern States were freed in 1865, they were asked to choose a family name. Most of them took the name of their past owner , SMITH, JACKSON, WASHINGTON…. David’s slaves adopted their master’s name , YULEE. This is how their descendents carried the family name to this day.

Yehuda LEVY-YULY (Rabat, 1764; London, 1820)

However let us return to our direct ancestor, the son of Eliahu LEVY-YULY and Rina SERFATY. We left him still a baby, when his parents left Rabat to settle down in Mogador.

Lets follow him during his childhood at the heder, the Jewish school of Mogador, learning by heart Bible verses and reading in a drone Hebrew prayers which he hardly understood. This education afforded him at least the basis for arithmetic and developing his memory.
During his childhood, he most likely acquired some basic English and Spanish which his father’s second wife, Rachel , instilled in him. Next, when he grew up, he must have joined Eliahu’s employees to the harbour of Mogador to watch the Customs clearance procedure for the merchandise, the official count , the loading and the stocking. He must have also attended to the export procedure, supervising the almond sacs’ count , walnuts, carob destined for Marseilles, Genoa, or Liverpool…There were also caravans arriving from deepest Africa, via Tombouctou up to Mogador, to sell gold powder , ostrich feathers , precious woods , ivory which Eliahu exported to Europe. His father’s accountants and secretaries must have introduced Yehuda to commercial correspondence , the secrecies of letters of credit drawn on Livorno or London banks , to bookkeeping , etc..…
When he reached the age of 20, was sent to London together with his mother Rina. Eliahu was getting rid of an ageing and nagging wife , and
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was opening an office in the English capital , as was customary among the other "King’s Merchants" of Mogador. When her husband died in 1800, Rina returned to Morocco to receive her share of the inheritance due to her, and in particular the big LEVY-YULY family house in Rabat.

Yéhuda married in London (his wife’s name is unknown to us ). He had three sons, naming his eldest Samuel, according to the tradition going back to Rabbi Yehuda HALEVY, the second Nissim, and the third Joseph.

It seems his children settled later in Ramsgate, a small port in Kent, in the south of England where Sir Moses MONTEFIORE had a splendid synagogue built. They traded with Mogador, exporting tableware , furniture, tea, and blue cloth for the Sahara Touaregs ; and importing Moroccan and African produce . They were regular donors and honorable members of the Bevis Marks Sefarad synagogue in London.

One of Yehuda’s descendants , called Samuel LEVY-YULY (my great-great-grandfather), married Hnina COHEN-MACNIN, the daughter of Meir COHEN-MACNIN, the Moroccan Ambassador in London for the years 1828-1830 with his colleague SUMBAL.

The rest of our family history is attached to the family tree which the author of these lines has established and which contains more than 1300 names.

This tree was made possible to prepare thanks to the information found in the brilliant website of (Families Ties by Haïm Melca), to the friendly collaboration M.Sidney CORCOS and to the searches by my cousin Aimé LEVY of London.

The under mentioned is the temporary listing (updated as at January 2012) of the families where at least one member is a direct descendent of Moshé LEVY-YULY of Meknès:

ABENAIM, ABENSUR, ABITBOL, ACOCA, AFRIAT, AMAR, AMAR-BOUJENAH, BARCHILON, BAHAR , BARON, BARUK, BENARI, BENDAHAN, BENISTY, BENITAH, BOUAZIZ, BOULAKIA, BRASS, CABESSA, CANSINO, COHEN, CORCOS, CRESPO, DA COSTA, DAYAN, DEIGH, DeWINTER, DHERY, DUBOIS-LACHARTRE,
21b

ELMALEH, ELMOZNINO, ETTEDGUY, FARACHE, GANANCIA, GOLBERG, HARRIS, HILDRITH, HIMI, INGRAM, KNAFO, LASKOWSKY, LEVY, LEVY-CORCOS, LEVY-YULY, LUGASSY, MASSIAH, MAYA, MESSICA, MREGEN, MYARA, NEWDALL, OHANA, PIERREL, REGUEV, REIFF, ROSILIO, SABBAH, SCHEKLER, SEBAG, SEBANNE, SELETZKY, SEMAMA, SHREYER, SIBONI, SIBONY, SOUSSANA, SPIER, TOMICH, TOPMAN, TORCOLESE, VEINGARD, WICKLIFFE, WILHEM, WILLARD, WOLF, YECHEZKEL, YULY, ZINE, ZOUA

Concise Bibliography:

- ABITBOL Michel: Tujjar al-Sultan, les commerçants du Roi,
Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 1998
- BENTOV Haïm : mishpahat Halevy, revue mimizrach ou mimaarav,
Université Bar Ilan, Israël, 1980 (en hébreu)
- CORCOS David: Studies in the History of the Jews of Morocco,
Jérusalem, 1976
- MONACO C.S.: Moses Levy of Florida, Jewish Utopian and antebellum
Reformer, Louisiana State University Press, 2005
- LEMPRIERE G. : Voyage dans l'Empire de Maroc et le royaume de Fez,
Paris, 1801, traduit de l'Anglais (Bibliothèque Gallica)
- OTHMANI Hamza ben Driss: Une cité sous les alizés, Mogador des
origines à 1936, Editions La Porte, Rabat
- ROMANELLI Samuel : massa be arav , édition Wydawnictwo
"Traklin", Warszwa, Pologne, 1926 (en hébreu)
- ROMANELLI Samuel : Travail in an Arab land, traduit de l'hébreu par
Norman A. STILLMAN et Yedidia STILLMAN,
University of Alabama press, 1989, avec notes et
commentaires (en anglais)
- SCHROETER Daniel: Merchants of Essaouira, Urban Society and
Imperialism in Southwest Morocco, 1844-1886,
Cambridge University Press, 2009
- SCHROETER Daniel: The Sultan Jews, Morocco and the Sepharad
World, Stanford University Press, 2002

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