Tétouan has been home to a significant Sephardi Jewish community which immigrated from Spain after the Reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition. This Jewish Sephardi community spoke a form of Judaeo-Spanish known as Haketia.[40]I cannot find any account that corresponds to the horrors narrated in this article in The Occident, Thursday, April 05, 1860.
In 1790, a pogrom happened, started by Sultan Yazid. The mellah was pillaged and many women raped.[41] The Jews lived in a mellah, which is located inside the old medina.
On February 6, 1860, Spanish soldiers who were then fighting in Morocco entered Tétouan, a town very close to the Straits of Gibraltar. Apparently the Sultan's soldiers got wind of an impending surrender and took the opportunity to attack the Jews of the city - stealing and breaking anything of value and raping the women, as happened 70 years earlier.