Jews were a leading force in culture, science and commerce during Spain's Golden Age - a period when the rest of Europe was suffering through the Dark Ages.

Likewise, Jews were largely responsible for the growth and prosperity of the Ottoman Empire in its heyday one of the world's most powerful forces. The Jewish heritage of Turkey is vast and its Jewish community lives in peace and prosperity with its Muslim neighbors.

In the northern reaches of Africa, the 2,500 year old Moroccan Jewish community has a magnificent and little-known history and culture rooted in Africa and the Muslim world. A moderate, pro-western country, Morocco us - in our own troubling times - offers millennia-old lessons in peaceful co-existence.

And at the other end of Africa, the prosperous and influential Jewish community has its own unique and compelling story… a story deeply interwoven with the struggles for freedom and equality of our own times.

The Golden Age of Spain was due to the enlightened attitude of Muslim, Christian and Jew that enabled them to flourish together - translating ancient texts, developing medicine, science, mathematics and philosophy, and creating a unique physical culture of tremendous beauty.

The same is true in Turkey: the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire was due in a large part to the Jews that the Sultan invited to his newly-established kingdom. The proud tradition of harmonious coexistence in the Ottoman Empire was a crucial element in its 200-year Golden Age as well. Jews brought the first printing presses to the Empire, represented the Sultan abroad as ambassadors and were driving forces in its commerce.

These histories all came, in one form or another, to an end. In the case of Spain, it was an abrupt and tragic end due to the Catholic Reconquest and the Inquisition. In fact, when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, the majority of them went to the Ottoman Empire and Morocco, where they were welcomed with open arms. In Turkey and Morocco, there was no expulsion, but the Jewish populations in both countries have dwindled dramatically. About 30,000 remain in Turkey and about 6,000 in Morocco.

In recent years, things have taken a new direction. In Spain, Jewish communities are flourishing for the first time in 500 years. King Juan Carlos has warm relations with the Jewish communities and bestowed his country's highest honor upon a prominent American Sephardic rabbi in the name of all the Sephardic Jews worldwide.

His grandfather, Mohamed V (the monarch who brought independence to Morocco in 1956 after years of colonial rule) is credited with saving Moroccan Jews from the occupying Vichy regime during WW2. King Hassan II, who had Jewish members of his cabinet, proudly welcomed Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres to Morocco after the signing of the Peace Accord in Washington. Peres thanked King Hassan for his role as a friend of Israel and a friend of peace.

In Turkey, a dwindling population is undergoing a cultural revival and a sense of rebirth in a generation now in their 30's and 40's. A Jewish Minister of Parliament, prominent Jewish business leaders and a new generation of Jewish leadership are working together to open new schools, create a Jewish museum and maintain Turkey's vast stock of historic synagogues.

The historic Jewish sites in each of these countries are truly remarkable.

The synagogues of Spain are among the oldest and the most beautiful in the world. Former Jewish quarters are being restored and new research is being done into the Jewish past of many of these communities. Only this year a medieval synagogue in Barcelona has been rededicated after a restoration, making this building the oldest known still-standing synagogue in Europe. In 1990, the Sephardic Jews of the world were awarded the Concorde Prize, one of Spain's most prestigious awards, by the Prince of Asturias, the Heir Apparent to the throne of Spain.

In Turkey, the synagogues of the Ottoman Empire are also of tremendous beauty and unlike any synagogues in the West. Efforts are being undertaken to document and preserve many of the structures, some of which date to the 16th century.

The synagogues in Morocco have a different, more humble type of beauty. The only standing earthen synagogue in the world is found in southern Morocco and was, in fact, recently restored. Hebrew prayers are painted on its adobe walls and the Ark is decorated in indigenous Berber motifs. Moroccan Jews participate in annual pilgrimages to the tombs of Tzaddikim - weekend-long festivals that attract hundreds or even thousands of Jews of Moroccan descent from all over the world. A new Jewish museum was recently opened - the first Museum of Jewish heritage in any Arab country.