Safi, Morocco The Portuguese fortress built to protect the city is still there today. After 1541, the city played a major role in Morocco as one of the safest and biggest seaports in the country. Many ambassadors to the Saadian and Alaouite kings during the 16th–18th centuries came to Morocco via Asfi; its proximity to Marrakech, then capital of Morocco, helped expand the maritime trade in the city. Louis De Chénier, consul of the French court in Morocco in 1767, reported that the city was the only usable seaport at the time. A French Navy captive, Bidé de Maurville, who wrote the
History of the Jews in Morocco 18, 1880, after the Conference of Madrid. The persecution of Moroccan Jews was one of the motives for the foundation in 1860 of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a French-based organization working for Jewish social and political equality and economic advancement worldwide. Morocco was one of the countries where the AIU was most active. Its very first school was founded in Tétouan, Morocco, in 1862, eventually it had 83 schools in Morocco, more than in the rest of the world combined. Over time the AIU in Morocco was more and more closely associated with French colonial influence; one of its