My good buddy Ef Zadoff writes the following about the word Magreb. The original letter in spanish is below. I will do a slap-dash translation for y'all now:
Zadoff wrote: Heya Alba I wrote those guys and gals at HASAFRAN what I'm writing to you now but it didn't seem to get through. Magreb is really Maarav which is to say West. Doesn't have slick to do with the Temple Mount but rather with the north of Africa being a parte of the western stretch of the Ottoman Empire. Hence the name. Shaar Hamugrabim, according to all the books I've checked out is also called Shaar Haashpor, i.e., garbage, ergo Dung Gate. That's about it. xxoo Efraim >Hola Alba,Les escribi a HASAFRAN lo que te escribo ahora a ti, pero no >alcanzaron a publicarlo.Magreb es efectivamente Maarav es decir oeste. No >tiene nada que ver con el Monte del Templo sino que el norte de Africa era >la parte occidental del imperio otomano. Y de ahi el nombre.Shaar >Hamugrabim, de acuerdo a los libros que consulte es llamada tambien Shaar >Haashpor, es decir de la basura - Dung gate. Eso es.Carinyos,Efraim. ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: Hasafran at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 at osu.edu AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
