How Morocco’s Abandoned Cemeteries Give New Life Across Faiths

Abandoned cemeteries in Morocco are opening hearts between Jewish and Muslim people in a unique interfaith project that began in 2012 when the Moroccan Jewish community allowed 36-year-old Abderahim Baddah to use land beside the Akrich cemetery to cultivate crops while restoring the site. Now that once abandoned 700-year-old Jewish cemetery is home to a plant nursery run by local Muslims that gives the community 46,000 fruit and nut tree saplings and has brought the village other benefits such as solar panels, a water well, and a women’s weaving cooperative. Thanks to the nonprofit High Atlas Foundation, the idea is spreading and many old Jewish burial sites are being loaned for free to establish organic fruit tree and medicinal plant nurseries that benefit Muslim villagers. Nearly 300,000 tree saplings, including almond, fig, pomegranate, olive and carob, have been grown and supplied to 1,500 farming families since 2012.