El Mellah de Tetuán (1860) en "Aita Tettauen" (1905) de Benito Pérez Galdós: cambios de actitud frente a los estereotipos antisemitas en la España de la Restauración

The novel "Aita Tettauen" narrates the occupation of Tetouan by Spanish forces during the First Moroccan War (1859-60). One of the characters in the novel, El Nasiry, a Spaniard who converted to Islam, describes the Jewish quarter of the city (the Mellah) and its inhabitants. He defines the Jews as dirty, and as sorcerers and usurers; he adds that they have a ridiculous physical appearance and cannot be trusted. Asserts that El Nasiry's opinions about Jews do not reflect Pérez Galdós' views, but rather, possibly, the social situation of the Jews in Tetouan. In the novel, negative stereotypes of Jews are expressed only by Muslims; Spaniards are represented as liberal and tolerant, an indication of the turn to liberalism of Spanish society at that time. Pérez Galdós himself supported the philosemitic campaign of the physician and politician Ángel Pulido Fernández (1852-1932) of 1904, in which he pled for recognition and help for the Sephardic Jews.