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This article analyzes the process by which Jewish communities were formed in Islamic countries, in particular in the Maghreb, on the eve of World War II. Around 1940, the Maghreb was entirely under colonial rule and was home to nearly 450,000 Jews. Morocco specifically had the largest Jewish community on Arab soil. All told, the Maghreb represented nearly half of the Jewish population in the Arab world. Stillman shows just how different the communities’ situations were, detailing the gulf between the archaism of Yemen and the relative openness of Egypt prior to 1940.