page_title: Moroccan Jews
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Moroccan Jews / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A_Jewish_house_in_Mogador_by_Darondeau_1807_1841.
context_page_description: Moroccan Jews are Jews who live or have lived in Morocco. Significant Jewish population migrated from Spain and Portugal, after the Spanish Inquisition, to this area and settled among the Arab-Berbers. They were later met by a second wave of migration from the Iberian peninsula in the period immediately preceding and following the 1492 Alhambra Decree, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, and soon afterwards, from Portugal as well. This second immigration wave deeply modified Moroccan Jewry, who largely embraced the Andalusian Sephardic liturgy, making the Moroccan Jews switch to a mostly Sephardic identity.
  At its peak in the 1940s, Morocco's Jewish population exceeded 250,000, but due to the migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel and other nations, including Operation Yachin from 1961 to 1964, this number has been reduced to approximately 5,000. The vast majority of Moroccan Jews now live in Israel, where they constitute the second-largest Jewish community, approximately half a million. Other communities are found in France, Canada, Spain, the United States and South America, mainly in Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina.
context_section_description: Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community, immigrating to the region as early as 70 CE. In accordance with the norms of the Islamic legal system, Jewish Moroccans had separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which communities (Muslim sharia, Christian Canon law and Jewish halakha law abiding) were allowed to rule themselves under their own system.
  Particularly after the Alhambra Decree, many Sephardi Jews migrated from al-Andalus to the Maghreb as refugees fleeing the inquisition in Spain and Portugal. They are referred to as the Megorashim, while the Jews already in Morocco are referred to as the Toshavim. Many Iberian Jews settled in Fes and Marrakesh. In the following centuries, Conversos who had been banished to Iberian colonial possessions in the Americas and the Atlantic reclaimed their Judaism and also resettled in Morocco.
  In the mid 19th century, Moroccan Jews started migrating from the interior of the country to coastal cities such as Essaouira, Mazagan, Asfi, and later Casablanca for economic opportunity, participating in trade with Europeans and the development of those cities. The Alliance Israélite Universelle opened its first school in Tetuan in 1862.
  After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and due to domestic strife in the 1950s, the next several decades saw waves of Jewish emigration to Israel, France and Canada. Moroccan Jews emigrated for a variety of reasons. Some have emigrated to Israel for religious reasons, some faced persecution, and others left for better economic prospects than they faced in post-colonial Morocco. With every Arab-Israeli war, tensions between Arabs and Jews would rise, sparking more Jewish emigration. By the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the majority of Morocco's Jewish population had emigrated.
  As a protectorate of France, parts of Morocco were heavily influenced by French culture, while the same is true of the portions of the country that belonged to Spain. Traditionally, the Jews were classified as being French-Moroccan or Spanish-Moroccan depending on where in Morocco they lived, and remnants of these classifications can be felt today. These differences are reflected in language, foods, last names and even liturgy.
  Most Jews in Morocco lived in desolate areas during the late 1930s. This was in part due to increased taxation by the French protectorate. In 1936, Léon Blum, a Jewish man, was appointed as prime minister of France. This gave some Moroccan Jews hope that they may be able to become French citizens at some point, as Algerian Jews gained French citizenship with the Crémieux Decree. Algerian Jews were granted right of passage to France, and this only furthered the desire of Moroccan Jews to embrace French culture to the extent of the Algerian Jews.
  Early photographs of Moroccan Jewish families, taken in the early 20th century by German explorer and photographer Hermann Burchardt, are now held at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
  A small community of around 2,000–2,500 Jews live in Morocco today. However, in a rapidly increasing trend, young men from the community are emigrating to Israel and France. As of 2017, according to The Economist, "No Arab country has gone to the lengths of Morocco to revive its Jewish heritage." The country has restored 110 synagogues and has the Arab world’s only Jewish museum. More than 50,000 Israelis visit Morocco annually.
caption: Etching of Jewish home in Mogador, Darondeau (1807–1841)
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