Sefrou, a small town on the foothills of the Middle Atlas about thirty kilometres from Fès, has celebrated the end of the cherry harvest since 1920. It is the oldest regular festival in Morocco, inscribed on the UNESCO intangible heritage since 2012.

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Sefrou was long a multi-faith crossroads: an important Jewish community lived there until independence, and the festival associated the three communities — Muslim, Jewish, and more marginally Christian — with the harvest. This dimension is today celebrated as a shared cultural heritage.

I. The Moulay-Youssef cherry

The emblematic cherry of Sefrou is the moulay youssef, an endemic variety adapted to the mid-mountain climate. Small, firm, very fragrant. Harvested late May-early June depending on the year.

II. The festival

Three days in June: a cherry market on el-Hedim square, the election of Lalla Hbiba Bent al-Karaz (Miss Cherry), a flowered float crossing the medina, ahwach and ahidous concerts, a collective lunch around the year's cherries. In 2025, the festival celebrated its centenary.

III. Memory and UNESCO

The 2012 UNESCO inscription underlined not only the cherry as a product, but above all the festival as a marker of interreligious coexistence in Sefrou. The House of the Cherry, opened in 2018, keeps archives and testimonies.

∗ Sources

1. UNESCO ICH — Sefrou Cherry Festival 2012: ich.unesco.org/fr/RL/la-fete-des-cerises-de-sefrou-00641
2. Moroccan National Tourism Office — visitmorocco.com