Jessica Marglin, “Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco” (Yale UP, 2016)

In Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco (Yale University Press, 2016), Jessica Marglin skillfully narrates how Jews and Muslims navigated the complex and dynamic legal system of pre-colonial Morocco. The book, based on Marglin’s doctoral dissertation conducted at Princeton University, traces the history of a Moroccan Jewish family, the Assarafs, ultimately revealing that the boundaries surrounding the states Jewish and Islamic court systems were much more porous than previously thought. Drawing from a vast wealth of archival material from private and public collections across four continents (and in upwards of seven languages), the author shows how increased foreign intervention in this period dramatically changed how Jews engaged with Moroccan law and society. In doing so, Marglin inserts her study into major debates about legal practices and modernity taking place in the fields of North African History and Jewish History alike.

Jessica Marglin is the Ruth Ziegler Early Career Chair in Jewish Studies and Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California.

Robin Buller is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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