Lyn Julius
The Jews of Morocco

Lyn Julius - The Jews of Morocco

- Hi, Lyn. Good morning, Judi.

• Good morning.

• [Judi] Morning.

• Morning, everybody. Beautiful day in Manhattan. How we doing? Oh, people are coming in. Lyn?

• Yes.

• Welcome back, Lyn.

• I’m just going to say whenever you are ready, we’ll give everybody a couple more minutes, a few extra seconds. It’s gone a minute.

• Yes.

• Let’s give them a minute. and then when you’re ready, you can start.

• Okay, so-

• But today we’re going to be, think, talkers of Jews of Morocco.

• That’s correct, Jews of Morocco. So I’ll give it another minute or so, shall I?

• Thank you very much. Yes. And I’m going be, I’m just, I’m going to be in the car, so I’m going to, I hope that I’ll be able, I’ll be listening, but I hope I’ll be able just say thank you. If not, Judi will take over from me. It depends if I’ve got a signal or not in an hour.

• Okay.

• Thank you very much. So over to you, thanks.

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

• Right, well, good afternoon from London where it’s starting to rain. I’m afraid we’re having a typical British summer. And welcome to another talk. And the subject today is the Jews of Morocco. Now, Morocco has been in the news with the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and Morocco. And recently, the first commercial flights took off from Tel Aviv for Marrakesh. The Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is planning an official visit, and he’s invited his opposite number to visit Israel. So the community’s origins are obscure, but it is at least 2,000 years old. I’ll just show you, oops, show you the map, just one second.

So this gives you an idea of the geography here. It’s hard to give a history of this community because Arab historians paid little attention to the Jews who comprised 2.5% or maybe 3% of the total population. The area was constantly in conflict between warring tribes. The coast was controlled by the Barbary pirates. The Western powers were later to try and gain footholds on the African coast. But the Jews of Morocco really form a single unit with those of Tunisia and Algeria. People moved around a lot, and the borders we have at present, obviously, did not exist.

Spain, as you can see from this map, was only separated by eight miles of water from the African coast and was really an extension of Morocco and vice versa. And obviously, there was a lot of back and forth here as well. It’s impossible to generalise about the Jews. While one local group could be prospering, another might not. Oral history is unreliable, and we have to rely on unpublished written accounts. However, in the 20th century, several histories were written mostly in French.

So the geographical area is called the Maghreb, which means west in Arabic. Many Moroccan Jews object when you call them Mizrahim, which is a modern Hebrew term for Oriental or Eastern Jews, because they come from an area west of Portugal. And Morocco is the most westerly part of the Muslim world, next stop, New York. What about the population of Morocco? Well, Jews only comprised about 265,000 in 1948. Today, there are 2,000, or I’ve even seen 1,300 or 1,500. That’s less than 1% of the 1948 population. And most of these Jews live in Casablanca.

Even so, they were the largest community in the Arab world. So Jews probably began settling in North Africa at the time of the Babylonian diaspora, or even before, but the main community goes back 2,000 years, Jews arrived with the Phoenicians. The Roman Emperor Titus was reputed to ascent 12 boatloads of Jews to North Africa, about 30,000 of them after he subdued Judea. Evidence of Jewish settlement at the Roman site of Volubilis, shows that there were ruins of a synagogue, oil lamps, and Jewish graves. The inscription on this Jewish grave reads, “Matrona daughter of Rabbi Yehudah,” may she rest in peace.

So the Volubilis settlement was probably the extension of a large community in Egypt who migrated west. The original population was composed of Jews known as the Toshavim. They were later joined in the 15th century by the Megorashim. Now, Toshavim means the settlers and Megorashim means those who were expelled. And that word really refers to those Jews who were exiled from Spain after 1492 and the Spanish inquisition. So the Toshavim, the original community, lived alongside the Berbers, the indigenous people of North Africa, also known as the Amazigh, and the Berbers were pagans at first and later adopted Christianity.

Jews thrived under the Romans, but fared worse when Christianity became the official religion. The Arabs conquered Morocco in 642. Most Berbers accepted Islam. Many Jews also converted to Islam. There is some controversy over the origins of the Jews in Morocco. Some people say that they were converted Berbers or Judaized Berbers, or were they Berberized Jews? There’s still a debate about that. Some people say perhaps half the Jewish population could be descended from Judaized Berbers, but this could be a myth promoted by Arab historians like Ibn Khaldun. And some Jews argue that no mass conversion could have been possible without attracting the attention of the church.

It would’ve caused many religious problems, but there was no mention of this in rabbinic responsa. Now, this woman you see on the screen, was the Berber Queen Kahina. Now she was reputed to be a Jewish Berber, and Kahina could be from Cohen, obviously, the priestly cast. Now, she was only queen for five years, but she led an army to resist the Arab conquest. In the end, she lost and was beheaded. As the Arabs were outnumbered, It was the Berbers who subdued North Africa in the name of Islam.

Babylon provided the intellectual leadership for the Sephardic Jewish world. And there was contact between the Maghreb and the Babylonian Talmudic academies. But in the early Middle Ages, there were important centres of Jewish scholarship in Kairouan, in present day Tunisia, Constantine, and Clemson in Algeria and Fez in Morocco. And here you see Rabbi Isaac Al-Fasi. Al-Fasi means from Fez. And he was a very prominent rabbi who codified Jewish religious law. I think he’s called the Rif. And he later moved to Cordoba in Spain.

Now, what was the relationship between Jews and Muslims during the 14th centuries that they lived side by side in North Africa? Well, you can point to a kind of symbiosis because the Jewish, the Jews culture was basically based on the Bible. It was basically biblical, but it was overlaid with Berber, Arab, and later Spanish influences. Here you see a picture of Jews and Muslims praying for rain. And there is, there are several features of the Jews in Morocco that are unique to this community.

Another, for instance, there’s the custom of the Mimouna, which is a Feztival that concludes the Passover, the week of Passover. And it’s when Muslim neighbours bring baked goods to their Jewish neighbours, and everybody has a party. And this particular custom has really been carried over to Israel, where it’s become a sort of national thing. And even Israeli politicians actively take part in Mimounas. Now, here you see the berberisca dress, which is also something that is unique to Morocco. And this dress was worn by the bride at the ceremony, the henna ceremony, which precedes the wedding.

And these costumes were passed down from mother to daughter, and they are absolutely magnificent and regal. They’re made of velvet and lace and silk and gold embroidery, and they really have no parallel in other Jewish communities in the Arab world, except perhaps Yemen, where the bride also is decked up in a beautiful costume. So you can see that the Jews had a very lively and rich in a life, and they had ceremonies that are practised to this day. The Megorashim, the exiles arrived from Spain after 1492, and they reinvigorated the community.

They gave it an intellectual boost and brought with them their Judeo-Spanish language, known as Haketia. And they basically assumed the leadership of the community, after, you know, a few centuries of sort of uneasy coexistence with the Toshavim. There was another custom that was peculiar to Jews in North Africa, and that was the veneration of saints. And that was a custom that was actually shared by Jews and Muslims. They would visit the tombs of famous rabbis, and the pilgrimages are called Hilulot.

But this custom was never really accepted by mainstream Judaism. And it has been associated with superstition and magic, but this hasn’t really prevented a lot of Moroccan Jews from being very pious and observant. Now, Moroccan Muslims had respect for Judaism, although they didn’t always have respect for Jews as such. In fact, there’s no greater insult than to be called a Jew. The word is followed by Haschak, Yehudi Haschak, which means, excuse my using an insult. And it testifies to the fact that there was a great deal of popular anti-Semitism, but Moroccan Muslims did have respect for Judaism.

They believed that Jews almost had a direct line to God, and if there were ill, the Moroccan consultant has been known to summon rabbis to pray at his bedside because he believed that the prayers would be more effective coming from a rabbi. But there were dark times too. And Morocco has a particularly bad historical record. In 1033, there was a massacre in Fez, which was meant to have killed about 6,000 Jews. There was a particularly strict form of Islam in Morocco called al-Maliki. And in 1492, a fanatical preacher incited the murder of the Jewish community of in Twat, in the south of Morocco.

In 1145, the Almohads who were fanatical Berbers, burst out from Morocco and invaded Spain. And the Christians were, and Jews were given the choice convert to Islam or die. As a result, large numbers of Jews did convert to Islam, and Christianity died out in Morocco. This left the Jews as the only non-Muslim minority in Morocco and as in elsewhere, where Jews were the only minority, for instance, in Yemen or in Iran, conditions were worse than in the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where there was a myriad number of sects and religions. Now, the family of Maimonides had to flee Almohad persecution, and Mainonides was actually born in Cordoba, but he had to flee and he fled to Fez in Morocco.

Now, you may ask yourself, well, why would he flee to North Africa where the Almohads had actually originated, but apparently, it was possibly safer in Morocco than it was in Spain. And it is said that he actually converted to Islam while he was in Morocco. He later travelled across to Palestine, and eventually, he settled in Egypt where he became the physician to Saladin, and actually seemed to have been left alone at that stage. So what was the status of Jews under Islam? Now, the Jews were dhimmis, which meant that they were able to practise religion alongside Christians, both monotheistic faiths, but they had to submit to a whole host of restrictions and humiliations. And this was particularly strictly applied in Morocco.

The essence of being a dhimmi was really that you had to pay a special tax called the jizya tax, and that was paid to the ruler, and the ruler was undertake to protect you. In Morocco, there were also certain stretches about clothing. Jews had to wear special, distinctive signs or garments. They had to go barefoot when they went into the Muslim Medina or they passed by the Royal Palace. They had to defer to Muslims at all times. They could not even raise their voice against a Muslim. They could not study the Quran, and they had no legal rights. In other words, they had no defence against false accusations.

Now, the Ottoman’s conquered Africa in 1453, but Morocco was never part of the Ottoman Empire. And there the dhimmi status lasted the, almost the longest, longest until 1912. And the French protectorate that was, so, really the dhimmi status lasted longer there than in any other part of the Muslim world, except for Yemen and Iran, where the dhimmi status was abrogated in 1925. So visitors to Morocco in the 19th century would comment on the degraded status of the Jews that they found there.

And one such visitor was the Reverend Brooks who wrote in 1841. “In Morocco, they are ground down.” He’s talking about the Jews, “by a barbarous despotism.” The most consider that the object of a Jew’s birth is to serve muscle men. And he’s consequently subject to the most wanton insults. The boys for their pastime beat and torment the Jewish children. The men kick and buffet the adults. They walk into their houses at all hours and take the grossest freedoms with their wives and daughters.

The Jews invariably coming off with a sound beating if they venture to resist. Now, unlike other Arab states, Morocco has remained a monarchy and various dynasties have ruled Morocco over time. The king or sultan derived his legitimacy from his authority over the Jews among other things. And in return, they’ve always shown loyalty to him, but the relationship really resembled the feudal monarchies of the Middle Ages. And the Jews were the king’s chattels. As I mentioned, they paid a poll tax, and sometimes this was extremely onerous. Now, this mellah or walled Jewish ghetto was established in Fez in 1438.

And this is something that’s unique to Morocco because it was, it meant that the Jews were actually enclosed by a wall in their quarter, and there was only one entrance to the mellah and that was this fortified gate that was locked at night. And so the Jews were actually locked in their mellah, and later on other mellahs were established in other cities in Morocco. So you might well ask yourself why, you know, why was this done? And the answer was because the king wanted to protect the Jews. So you may well ask, protect from whom or what? And the answer was that there were often raids into the Jewish quarter for loot, for pillage and rape. And Jewish women were often abducted.

Now, I think Muslims were also the target for pillage, but the difference was that they could actually defend themselves. But the Jews had actually subcontracted their right to self-defense to the ruler of the day by paying this tax, which was a type of protection money. And so they were utterly defenceless at times of these incursions into the mellah. Now, it was in the interest of the ruler, the sultan, to protect the Jews because they were an important source of revenue, but sometimes the Sultan was powerless to protect them. Sometimes the sultan could not prevent massacres taking place.

The position of the Jews was particularly precarious in the interregnum between rulers at a time of war or instability. And one particular massacre broke out in Tetouan in 1790 because the Jews refused to support a character called Moulay Yazid who was the pretender to the throne. So he had Jews tied to the tails of horses and dragged through the city. And the 19th century was a particularly bad time for Jews, most of whom were poor and wretched. And Jews were actually, let me just show you this here. Jews were actually imprisoned in 1863 on charges of having murdered a Spaniard.

So Sir Moses Montefiore actually set off on a mission to Morocco to demand equal rights for the Jews of Morocco. Now, the dhimmi status had actually been abrogated in the Ottoman Empire in 1856. And just fast forward to 1834 when, sorry, backwards to 1834. And this shows you the martyrdom of a girl called Sol Hachuel who chose to die rather than convert to Islam. And this picture by Alfred Dehodencq shows you Sol Hachuel actually being beheaded. Now, forced conversions were actually a big problem in Morocco, although in Islam there’s supposed to be no compulsion in religion.

But actually, Fez was quite a centre of anti-Semitism. And there was a particular group of Jewish merchants called the Bildiyyin, who actually converted to Islam in the 15th century because they wanted equal trading rights with the Muslims, but they had to wear distinguishing clothing. And even though they were now Muslim, they suffered discrimination in the same way as new Christians suffered discrimination in Spain, and they could not shake off the stigma of their Jewish origin. These people where their descendants obviously still live in Fez today. And it is reckoned that a quarter of all the inhabitants of Fez actually have Jewish roots. And you come across Muslims with names like Shabbat and Shalom.

And finally enough, the Fez football team are sometimes known as the Jews, in the same way as some European football teams are associated with the Jews. So in the 18th and the 19th century, pre-colonial period, Jews sought security by acquiring foreign nationality. And they could do this by becoming proteges of foreign powers who were always seeking to increase their influence on the Moroccan coast. And if they managed to do this, it would bring them certain privileges and they could be exempt from paying the jizya tax and other things.

Now, the sultan himself could see the virtue in having an elite of advisors and merchants who were his liaison with the outside world. And he chose 10 or 12 Jewish families, especially from the Corcos, Afriat, Coriat, Knafo, Pinto, and Elmaleh families. And he granted them the status of tujjar al-sultan, the king’s merchants. In sharp contrast to ordinary Jews who dwelt in the cramped Jewish mellah, the sultanate offered them the most luxurious dwellings. And Mogador was one such place where these families lived, and they lived in the more prestigious casbah quarter.

And not only that, but they became the leading merchants of the sultan’s court, parallel to a tiny elite of Muslim tujjar, but they were entrusted with the role of mediation and diplomacy with European consuls and entrepreneurs. And not only were they influential in Moroccan economic affairs, but their functions extended to include the leadership of the local Jewish community. Now, the 19th century was a time of great commercial expansion, and France and the UK vide for influence in places like Mogador, which was the largest port in Morocco.

It’s today known as Essaouira. Foreign visitors to Essaouira during the 19th century, tended to express surprise at finding so much English influence in the Southern Moroccan Atlantic coastal port. And you can see here a map of the town of Mogador, showing all the different consulates that were established there. So they ranged from the German and the Portuguese and the Brazilian and the French to the Italian, English, Dutch, Spanish American and Danish consulates. And if a Jew was lucky enough to be named as honorary consul, he could become a protege of those countries, and therefore he could escape the sort of dhimmi status.

And on the right hand side, you see a ketubah, a marriage contract that’s decorated with the stars and stripes. And this obviously belonged to a family or a couple who were associated with the American consulate. So, but as I mentioned, the British were very popular in Mogador. And a certain foreign gentleman visited the place, and he wanted to know if Mogador belonged to the sultan or to Queen Victoria. And the response came back a bit of both, but the great massive Jews were dirt poor. And here they are, here were the merchant elite in Mogador with their very British top hats looking very Victorian.

But the great mass of Jews were desperately poor. And in the 19th century, quite a few of them tried to leave Morocco. The more enterprising of them went to South America. And the Amazon was undergoing a rubber boom at the time, and some of them did go and seek their fortunes there. So it was in order to help their less fortunate brethren in Muslim countries that the Alliance Israelite Universelle was set up in 1860 by a group of well-meaning French Jews. And these Jews were enjoying the fruits of emancipation in Europe, and they put their faith in science to regenerate the Jews of Muslim countries, not always Muslim countries, but mostly Muslim countries.

And these Jews, I suppose you could call them degenerate. And they were often malnourished and resorted to alcoholism and prostitution. And the first, the first Alliance Israelite Universelle school was set up in Tetouan in 1862 and this was no accident. Eventually, there were 83 schools established in Morocco alone more than in any other Muslim country. And for the first time, girls were educated. Now, the teachers in these schools had their work cut out because often, these Jews suffered from malnutrition and disease like trachoma or tuberculosis or ringworm.

So they were sort of social carers, if you like, before they were teachers, they had to teach the children to wash their hands before they could be taught anything, but the education that these children received was actually excellent. And the Alliance introduced the Jews to French language, culture. French was not the only language they learned, they learned Arabic and Hebrew as well. Now, these Jews, who up until then had only received a religious education, were sort of catapulted into modernity. And the Alliance really equipped them to cope with modernity and prosper.

And soon, an educated middle class began to emerge, but this also created resentment because they were ahead of the Muslims who were mostly illiterate. Eventually, these Jews would be competing for jobs with the Muslims. And when the Moroccan proclaimed their independence, the Jews would find themselves squeezed out. And this was one of the reasons for the mass exodus of the Jews of Morocco. Now, the French protectorate was set up in 1912, but just before that, this terrible massacre occurred in Fez called the Tritl Massacre.

And here you see a postcard showing the aftermath of this event, and 45 Jews were killed. And what did they do? What did the survivors do? Well, the survivors tried to flee to the sultan’s palace because their natural instinct was always to look to the sultan to protect them. He was traditionally their protector. And because the Jews, their job was to feed the royal animals in the sultan’s menagerie, the Jews took refuge there. So here you see the royal beasts on the left hand side in the left hand cage. And on the right hand side, you see the people.

So the French protectorate actually gave Jews more security and greater rights. Fast forward to World War II. Now, the king of Morocco has quite a reputation for having saved the Jews during World War II. And often Moroccan Jews are the first to claim that he saved them from being deported to concentration camps. And he wore the yellow star and asked for 20 more for his family, but historians now believe that this was a myth, that the king was actually powerless to protect Jews, real power lay in the hands of the Vichy regime, the pro-Nazi government that was in place in North Africa from 1940.

And they also point out that even though the king did make certain philo-Semitic declarations, he said, you know, there are no, there’s no distinction between Jews and Muslims, they’re all Moroccans. He actually ended up signing every single anti-Semitic decree proposed by the Vichy government. So Moroccan Jews found themselves excluded from schools and jobs. They were not allowed into public spaces like parks and cinemas. And worst of all, they were shunted back into the mellahs from the European quarters of Moroccan towns. And these mellahs were overcrowded. They were full of disease, and they were unsanitary.

Helene Cazes-Benattar, I’ve mentioned her before. She was a lawyer operating in Morocco, and she was responsible for a rat run helping European refugees from Nazism. And she made sure that they could catch the boat from Morocco to the New World and to safety. It is not well known that there were actually labour camps on Moroccan soil. There were about 30 of them on the Morocco-Algeria border, labour camps and punishment camps. And some of these punishment camps were absolutely terrible. And dozens of prisoners did die from torture and from the atrocious conditions, they were mainly European Jews who were interned in these camps.

European Jews who were soldiers from the defeated French army or refugees, but we do know that some Moroccan Jews of British nationality were also interned in these labour camps. Oops. So World War II ends, and the Moroccan Jews are left absolutely exhausted and somewhat disillusioned with the colonial powers. The colonial power of France had actually liberated them from the dhimmi status. And it had done many good things to them, but ultimately, France had betrayed them. France was still in charge of Morocco, and Morocco was still a French protectorate and would continue to be so until 1956 when Morocco acquired its independence.

When Israel was established in 1948, trouble broke out in Morocco and there were pogroms in Oujda and Jerada, but there were no state sanctioned discriminatory laws introduced in Morocco until it joined the Arab League in 1958. And that’s when Zionism became a crime. In the 1960s, there was a lot of Arabization, and the rise of the nationalist Istiqlal Party, and there were forced conversions, and these were announced in the newspapers. Jewish girls forcibly converted, and obviously, a lot of the Moroccan Jews did feel very intimidated. And a third of them actually emigrated to Israel before 1956.

They were also, they felt very uncomfortable because many of them were French in terms of culture and language, they felt they didn’t fit in with the new Morocco, the new independent Morocco, where Arabic was the main language and the Arabs themselves did not really want to include the Jews as part of the new kind of nationalism there. Now, in 1956, an immigration ban was declared so the Jews could no longer emigrate to Israel. They were not expelled overnight, they were not deprived of passports, that’s if they had them, and they were not dispossessed, unlike in other Arab countries.

Although having said that, many did lose quite a lot of property. The exodus was spread out over about 30 years. At first, Israel didn’t think that Moroccan Jews actually were that urgent a case. And so it operated a sort of selection process in the early 1950s. And as I have said, the king actually remained in Morocco, unlike in other countries, which underwent revolutions. And he is a symbol of stability. There were no revolutions or army coups, but it has to be said in the run up to independence, Jews were targeted for violence.

Apart from the Oujda and Jerada riots, the Jews were caught up in a riot that actually had nothing to do with Zionism or Israel, the Petit Jean Riot, where they were really scapegoated, you know, for no real reason and seven Jews died. There were also incidents where Jews were made homeless after houses were burnt down. When the immigration ban was declared, the Misgeret, the underground Zionist movement in Morocco organised clandestine emigration to Israel.

And one such operation, which they were responsible for, was Operation Mural, in which over 500 children were spirited out of Morocco, ostensibly to go to a holiday camp in Switzerland, but actually to go to Israel. And the Misgeret used boats like this one here, the Egoz, for its smuggling operations. And in 1961, the Egoz which is also known as the Pisces, a terrible thing happened, and it capsized and 44 passengers lost their lives, mainly Moroccan Jewish families and their Spanish machine operator.

This gave both the Moroccan authorities and the Israelis a terrible shock. They thought something needed to be done to legalise immigration. And so Israel made a deal with Morocco and they decided to ransom, to pay money for all those Moroccan Jews who wanted to leave. And the money was raised, it was about $200 a head. A lot of money went into the Moroccan king’s bank account, and this was Operation Yakhin. And about 90,000 Jews left Morocco in the early ‘60s. And this is a picture of a Moroccan family arriving in Haifa on a ship bound from, on a ship from Morocco.

So fast forward to the situation today, Morocco has been pursuing a very interesting foreign policy. And the architect of this foreign policy is Andre Azoulay, who you see here, posing with me and my book. Now, in the 1970s, the king of Morocco came in for a lot of criticism, especially in France. A book was published condemning him for his human rights abuses. And so Morocco decided something really had to be done about this. And so Andre Azoulay was brought in from France to burnish Morocco’s image.

Now, the main foreign policy objective of Morocco, really, concerns this place here, which is Western Sahara, just south of Morocco itself. In 1975, the Spanish who controlled Western Sahara withdrew, and Andre Azoulay became the architect of this foreign policy, which tried to get support for Moroccan claims in Western Sahara. So in 1975, Morocco declared the Green March. So thousands of Moroccan were made to march on Western Sahara and claim legitimacy, claim ownership of this place.

Now, it was very important for Morocco to get U.S. support for its claims, and of course, who controls American foreign policy, but the Jewish lobby, and therefore, Andrea Azoulay has pursued a policy of philo-Semitism, of being good to the Jews in order to win over the Americans. And here you see something very interesting. Right, so this is a group of Jews having a great time in Morocco. And what are they singing? “Allahu Akbar,” we’re not converting to Islam, but what they’re doing is singing a nationalist song that was popularised at the time of the Green March in 1975.

And basically, this has become the anthem of Western Sahara. And I’ve been told by someone who spent several years living in Morocco that at the end of every Jewish function, of Jewish concert, everybody sings, “Allahu Akbar.” So it shows that Jews are sort of completely associated with the king and his foreign policy objectives. Now, Andre Azoulay has been pursuing other things, and that involves restoring Jewish heritage, restoring these beautiful synagogues.

This is one in Casablanca, this is one in Marrakesh. This is my favourite, the synagogue in Fez. Bensadoun Synagogue in Fez. He’s also preserved Jewish quarters and he restored 137 cemeteries. Now, all this is very good for Morocco, it’s good for tourism. Tourism is the second biggest currency earner in Morocco. And he’s, Azoulay, has been active. Here he is again, he has been instrumental in restoring this synagogue in Essaouira. And it’s now a museum called Bayt Dakira and Bayt Dakira means the House of Memory.

So in a way it’s an admission that the Jewish community really is a memory. Only three Jews still live in Essaouira, although there are Jews who have second homes there, but they are, they do not make it their permanent place of residence. And the danger is, of course, that all these beautiful buildings will be nothing more than empty buildings. So, I would just ask the question before I finish, why did the Jews leave Morocco? And you’re likely to get two different answers if you ask Jews from Morocco.

One might look back with nostalgia on their time in Morocco and say, “Life is very good.” And the other might say, “No, it was terrible. And we had nothing but trouble. We had nothing but violence or the threat of violence.” And the reason for this is because often Jews from more middle class or comfortable families were kind of insulated from the world outside, while the poorer Jews who lived in mixed quarters or in the mellahs were really vulnerable to violence and the odd and the power of the mob. So you do get these two different accounts of what life was like in Morocco.

And of course, most Moroccan Jews are now in Israel. In fact, there are meant to be a million Jews outside Morocco. And the Moroccan government has said that they can all apply for instant Moroccan citizenship if they wanted. But I’m not sure how many people have taken this up. So how do we get to the bottom of this? Why do so many Moroccan Jews say that they left as Zionists or they left to go to Israel out of Zionism? I came across an account by one Israeli Jew of Moroccan origin. He was the owner of a large and prosperous factory in Marrakesh. His name was Mordecai.

He abandoned his business house in motherland to come to Israel with nothing. His daughter Rachel, had been diagnosed with a rare disease, but was refused treatment and eventually became blind. Yet Mordecai told his Israeli born children and grandchildren that his motive was Zionist. So I do think that it’s a matter of pride that a lot of Moroccan Jews do say that they came as Zionist to Israel and not because they had to or had no choice. So what is, this is an example of cultural interaction, again, encouraged by Andre Azoulay. And this is the Andalusian Orchestra performing in Morocco.

And there are lots of films that have been made about Jewish Muslim relations. And there’s a museum in Casablanca as well as the new one in Essaouira and it’s all fantastic. And here you see Morocco and Israel signing the Abraham Accords in November. But the king, although the king has been responsible for foreign policy, he is not responsible for domestic policy to the same extent. And the largest parliament, sorry, the largest party in the Moroccan parliament actually is an Islamist party called the Justice and Development Party.

Now, shortly after the last Gaza War, the war between Hamas and Israel, this gentleman arrived in Morocco and he was hosted in a dinner by the king of Morocco. So obviously, the king of Morocco is trying to placate his Islamists, as well as show that he is good to the Jews. And I think we need to give him credit. You know, he walks a very fine line, he has a lot of opposition to what he does vis-a-vis Jews and Israel. But actually at the same time, his Morocco is not a democracy and there have been attempts to depose him. And if the king goes, then the Jews go with him.

So on that rather worried note, I will finish and I’m very happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much for listening. Oops.

Q&A and Comments

• Can you see the questions, Lyn?

• Yes, yes, I think so. I just need to stop my screen, don’t you think-

• No, I’ve done that for you. I’ve stopped the screen share for you.

• Oh, that’s beautiful. Thank you very much. Okay, so I will try and start at the beginning. Elena. Yeah. Elena, Elena.

• Did you see- Thousands of young Moroccans were rescued without their parents’ permission and many parents were unable to contact their children in Israel. I don’t think that’s true, actually. I think the parents, well, I know this particular case of the 500 Jews who came with Operation Mural, the parents were actually desperate to get their children out. This was in the late 1950s, early 1960s before immigration became legal. So unfortunately, I can’t really comment on that at all.

Ah, Lori has a famous ancestors, Solika Hachuel, oh, you’re related to her. Excellent. We are descendants from Spain. Many of our Hachuel family have Toledano Hachuel added to the front of their name. Very honoured that you’re here, Lori. Yeah, fantastic. You know that the tomb is still very much, Sol’s tomb is still visited in the Jewish cemetery in Fez, not just by Jews, but also Muslims, which I find quite strange because obviously, the whole episode was really a defeat for Islam, you know, so why Muslims would want to venerate Solika? I don’t know. But there you go.

Q: Why did the Romans ship so many Jews to Morocco? Were they slaves? A: Well, yes, they were. The Romans wanted to get rid of the Jews from Judea, and actually Jews went everywhere. They went in the, you know, into all parts of the Roman Empire. And of course, that’s the foundation of the Jewish diaspora in Europe.

And Lori is also descended from the al-Fazi family in Fez. Great to hear that.

Q: What is the language called? A: Haketia is the Judeo-Spanish language spoken by the Megorashim but the local Arabic, so Jewish Arabic is called Darija.

Sister-in-law wore one of those velvet costumes in Gibraltar 40 years ago when she got married. Yes, it’s still very popular today. Thank you, Arlene. She thought Jews in the Arab world were better treated. I think the ones in North Africa were particularly badly treated, and Sally thought Moroccan Algerian Jews were better treated. Sorry to disagree with you there.

Q: How is the mellah different from a ghetto? A: Not very different, except that I’m not sure the Venice ghetto ever had a wall around it, for instance. And of course, the word mellah is an Arabic word. Some say it comes from the word salt and so.

Q: Did any Jews who converted stay hidden Jews? A: Well, I mentioned this particular group in Fez called the Bildiyyin who converted in the 15th century. And they effectively stayed apart from the Muslims because basically they were discriminated against and they had to wear a special clothing and they married amongst themselves. So, but there wasn’t the same phenomenon as you’ve got in Spain with the Marranos who actually practised certain Jewish rituals, you know, indoors at home secretly.

Q: When did Mogador become Essaouira and how? A: I don’t actually know. Maybe somebody has the answer to that.

The girls in the school photo look very sad, not smiling. Oh, I don’t know. Were they’re told not to smile or were they really unhappy? I have no idea.

Q: Was there a history of intermarriage between Jews and Muslims in Morocco? A: No, there was, I mean, Jewish communities in the Arab world were actually very separate and intermarriage was very rare. But what did happen were these forced abductions of Jewish girls, and of course, the Jewish girls would be forcibly converted to Islam.

John Norman says, Edith Wharton, the American novelist commented about the Fez massacre in her book in Morocco, written about her trip there in 1912, very interesting. Thank you for that, John. Many Jewish men who fled Eastern Europe to France after the Anschluss wanted to join the French army and or resistance. Okay, and however, they were sent to the foreign legion and ended up in Morocco to a camp called Bouarfa. And my father was one of them. That’s amazing, Jackie. He was lucky to survive. They were liberated when Vichy France fell.

Yeah, I mentioned the labour and punishment camps along the Morocco Algeria border, and there were perhaps 2,000 European Jews who were interned in these camps. And obviously, your father was one of them. And that’s very interesting that he was actually in this camp called Bouarfa.

Q: So is there a difference between a mellah and a ghetto? A: Actually, just being told that the Venice ghetto, which is the first ghetto of its kind, had no walls, but it was separated by canals with only two bridges linking it to the city. So as Lena stated, various European Jews, including the Reichmans, found sanctuary in Morocco during the war. Absolutely, Danny. And obviously, Helene Cazes-Benattar could have helped the Reichmans pass through Morocco and into, onto boats to America or Canada, I think in their case.

Q: Can you talk about the desecration of the Jewish cemeteries in the Atlas Mountains as a Moroccan superstition? A: How do you mean? You mean they wouldn’t desecrate them because they are superstitious about that? I don’t actually know very much about that. Sorry, Linda.

Q: And when did the majority of Moroccan Jews leave? A: Well, the majority would’ve left in 1961 on Operation Yakhin about 90,000. So it’s about a third of the community left at that point, but a third had already left in the 1950s.

What a fan. Oh, thank you, Rosemary.

Q: Velma, what was the last name of the woman named Helene Cazes? A: Benattar, yes. Cazes-Benattar.

• [Wendy] Lyn, did you know, can I jump in and just ask you, did you know of a woman called Zohra Al Fassiya?

• Yes, I spoke about her in my last lecture on the colonial era. Zohra Al Fassiya sang for the theme in Morocco. She was the first recording artist in Morocco. And I read out the poem that that Erez Biton wrote about her, that she was a forlorn figure when she arrived in Israel because she had lost the market for her music. And she lived on welfare in a rundown area of Ashkelon. And it was all very sad.

• [Wendy] You know what, she was the grandmother-

• Yes.

• Of my sister’s partner.

• Oh wow. Isn’t that amazing?

• [Wendy] So he’s Moroccan. Yeah.

• Yes, yes, yes.

• I’ve asked him actually if he’ll talk about his grandmother, he speaks about her a lot.

• How interesting is that? Wow.

• And he has the most interesting, he has the most interesting story himself, you know, about the Moroccan Jews. Thank you. Thanks for that.

• Oh, pleasure.

• So I didn’t realise, I didn’t realise it was the same person, actually it was just a different accent. Thank you-

• Yes, yes, Zohra-

• Pronunciation, thank you.

• Well, I’m not aware my pronunciation is that good but-

• No, no, my-

• It is the same lady.

• [Wendy] Thank you. Thanks.

• Pleasure.

Q: So Metina Pope says Tangiers was an international zone from 1924 to 1956. What was the situation of the Jewish community in Tangiers in those years? A: Well, pretty good I would say. And actually, they were probably in the best position possible during World War II because I think they were better treated than in the rest of Morocco.

Yeah, so Ellie corroborates this, friends from a prominent family were saved from the Holocaust by taking refuge in Tangiers, exactly. Carol Nahim, my ex-husband’s grandmother was a Benattar. The family had roots from Rhodes, Libya, Cairo, Israel, and all the way down to Cape Town, interesting.

Ellie Strauss, I have several Moroccan origin friends and find this incredibly productive, informative. Thank you. Thank you so much, pleasure. Elda Schwartz, I so loved your last, and then now this one, thank you. And you bought my book. That’s wonderful. For those who want to buy it, it is called “Uprooted” available on Amazon and other places.

How do you know about the, what do you know about the ORT’s presence in Morocco is, I believe they have some, thank you so much. Thank you, Elda. I think ORT probably does have some presence in Morocco. Probably not very, not many Jews go there now. I think ORT has more or less kind of wound up its presence in Morocco, in the Arab world, certainly.

Q: Mickey asks, are the Jews comfortable in Morocco today? How many Jews are living there? A: Well, just over a thousand and I would say most of them actually are well off. And many of them are sort of divide their time between Morocco and France for instance, you know, and so they have second homes. I don’t think they have all their eggs in one basket. Lots of Moroccan Jews went to Montreal, absolutely.

Q: And AE and Binda says, is it true the king protected the Jews during World War II when they were reoccupied by Vichy France and would not let them go? A: Well, I think I answered that and unfortunately, his role in protecting the Jews was sort of exaggerated ‘cause he was actually just, but powerless.

Q: What about Nice? A: I have quite a few friends who live in Nice and have been there for several generations. Well, Nice is in France, do you mean Moroccans in Nice? It’s possible because Jews from North Africa did settle in France throughout the 20th century. So if that’s what you mean, yep, it could be in Nice.

Yeah, so I have have it on good authority. My husband has just done some research and he says ORT is no longer in Morocco. Thank you for that.

So amongst Jewish families, this is from John, John Norman, amongst Jewish families who left Moroccan the 19th century with a remarkable Bensaude family who settled in the Azores and changed the economic conditions there and became a hugely successful banking family in Paris and founded an international business which spanned France, Portugal, and Brazil. Oh, fascinating. I would love to have one of them, you know, give a lecture about this. We had somebody who was a specialist on Cape Verde who talked about the Moroccan families who settled there. Cape Verde is just a group of islands of West Africa, similar sort of situation, I think, as the Azores. But that’s fascinating. Thank you for that, John.

Q: Monica, is it true the present king and his father had Jewish advisors? A: Well, they’ve got one particular advisor, Andre Azoulay, who I talked about.

Q: Did they leave with their assets? A: Well, the answer to that is many of them did not because they left in a hurry a lot of them, they left everything behind. Apparently, Moroccan cities have got, you know, vast swathes of real estate, abandoned real estate, which actually is still owned by the Jews, but is kind of in limbo because no one really knows what to do with it.

Thank you, Ilana, for your compliment. Ellie Strauss says, King Mohamed’s father seemed to have wavered back and forth. I think that’s absolutely true. Rosemary Alkmani, thanks. Very good, especially having been to Morocco. That’s great. So informative says Sharon. Thank you, Joel.

Q: How many Moroccan Jews died in the Holocaust? A: So if you’re talking about Moroccan Jews in Morocco, not many of them did. If you’re talking about Moroccan Jews who happened to be in France or elsewhere in continental Europe, well, several thousand were suffered in the Holocaust. But I’m not sure what proportion were actually Moroccan because you know, we had Tunisian Jews, we had Iraqi Jews, Algerian Jews living in France who were, you know, shared the same fate as everybody else. And obviously, many of them did die.

Thank you for wonderful presentation. Thank you, Yuta.

Q: How many Jews still living? A: About 1,200.

I originate from Morocco, Ralph, and must show my appreciation the very good talk you just gave. Thank you very much, Ralph.

Q: Linda, can you comment on the large numbers of Moroccan who immigrated to Montreal as French speakers? A: Yes, these Moroccan usually left after 1967, after the 1967 war when there was a great deal of tension in Morocco, Jews felt very threatened. And so those Moroccan did go to Canada and can now be found at the Spanish synagogue in Montreal. I’ve met some of them.

Eva Davis, on the subject of the convert still suffering, were not being accepted fully. It was the same story elsewhere in anti-Semitic European countries. Thank you for that. So we’ve got another question. How many Jews still in Morocco? I think I’ve answered that. And thank you, Eva, for your compliment.

A mural in the 1950s and many thousands of Moroccan immigrated to Montreal. It became the province of Quebec. It’s got French as it’s official language, and the Moroccan who came to Montreal spoke French. Absolutely, I mean you can see why they went to Quebec because it’s French speaking. They felt more at home there.

Mimi Elba, Lord Belisha was from Mogador. Yes, there were great links between Mogador and Britain. Carlos Laredo, the berberisca dress was actually used as a marriage dress. That is what my grandmother used when she was married. Interesting. Balzak, while in Fez in 2017, we visited a small synagogue and cemetery. We were graciously treated by the Muslim keeper of the synagogue, who was quite surprised to find that we were actually Jews. Yes, not many Jews still around.

My husband was born in Oujda and immigrated to Israel in December 1948 and appeared, and apparently were pretty happy with their lives. His father was in the business of leather goods. Well, of course, in 1948 there were a lot of idealistic Zionists who went to Israel. I mean, not all of them felt they were in danger in Morocco. It was still under the French protectorate.

In the 1980s, I hosted, this is Phil, Philip. In the 1980s, I hosted two world-class Moroccan runners for several months who lived in our home. They expressed great respect for our Jewish religion and one participating in Passover if only all people were runners. Absolutely right, Philip.

Ellie Strauss, Essaouira was known as Mogador during the French Protectorate, 1912 to 1956, with the independence of Morocco, the town took the official name of Essaouira. Thank you very much, Ellie, for doing that research.

Q: Gilly asks, is it safe to be a Jewish tourist these days after COVID and when travel returns? A: And Joan answers yes. I’ve been there and lots of Israelis travel there regularly. And of course, there’ll be many more Israelis now that there are direct flights.

Lee Marsh, in the 1970s, my friend from Casablanca had to have two passports, not possible to travel to Israel direct. So I had to go to France first. Yes, I’ve heard that.

Q: Naomi Curin, how many Moroccan Jews came to Montreal in the 1960s and what percentage did this represent of those that left Morocco at that time? A: I don’t actually have the figures for you, Naomi, but, and I don’t think there were huge percentage of the total. The vast majority did go to Israel.

Victoria, my mother is converted to Islam while in Morocco. Please clarify what is the source for this? It seems unbelievable. Yeah, we haven’t got firm evidence, but apparently, he did teach at a Moroccan, a Muslim educational institute, a sort of madrasah. And in order to do this, you had to be Muslim. That’s what I heard or read somewhere.

And Carla, thank you very much for the marvellous lecture. And I wanted to say thank you Jud for all your work and time to make it all possible. And thank you, Wendy, and thank you, Trudy.

Q: Were there Jews who lived in caves? A: Yes, there were Berber Jews who lived as troglodytes in caves, mainly in Libya I think. I’m not sure if they lived in caves in the Atlas Mountains.

And Max and Leslie, thank you so much for your lecture, enjoyed it, brought back many memories, oh, it’s a pleasure. And Gilly says, as a tourist on a heritage trip touring synagogues, Jewish cemeteries. Oh, amazing lecture. Thank you so much from Toronto. Thank you, Alison. Thank you very much. Jackie.

My father was in Bouarfa, that’s the labour camp for 27 months. And one of the teams who built the railway across the Sahara. He had nightmares for decades afterwards as a result of what happened to him, he also met a few Moroccan Jewish families and was very sad at this situation. I’m grateful for the little bit of information you have given me about Bouarfa, thank you. I hope you actually interview your father in detail about this because there’s not a lot of information about life in these labour camps. You know, I would be certainly very interested to learn more. So thank you for that. And Norman, thanks for another super interesting presentation.

Q: Will you do a talk about Algeria? A: Well-

• Yes.

A: I could do, but I would need to do a bit more research.

My uncle born in Germany, fled to France and joined the French Foreign Legion, spent the war years in Algiers. In 1962, was forced to leave, settled in Paris. Proud to have my French cousins. Yeah, well, of course, that is the Algerian Jewish story. They all had to leave in 1962.

Debbie, when my mother joined ORT in 1951, it was in response to a film about the mellah and ORT was present for several years after that year. ORT was not the only organisation working in Morocco. I think the Joint was very active. Of course, the level of poverty and disease was terrible. And of course, they did need a lot of external help.

Barbara, thank you so much for an interesting talk. Really enjoyed it. Pleasure, met my daughter’s friend in Israel as a young man who was very defensive about being originally Moroccan, rather being proud of being Israeli.

Q: Suzanne, were there lots of traders across Mediterranean in the 1800s and 2000s? A: Yeah. Yes, yes. A lot of trade. And of course, the pirates were operating there, the Barbary pirates, you know, ready to hijack ships and steal from them.

Monica, my, something has a house in Morocco, we do not advertise. We are Jewish as there are new Islamic factions. Very interesting, Monica, thank you for that.

Ikram, how can I access the recording? Unfortunately, missed most of the talk. Muslim, my great-grandmother worked for a Spanish consult who was Jewish in Tangiers, fascinating. Unfortunately, I have no further information, but my family have great memories of this family. That is fascinating, Ikram. I think Judi will tell you about recordings.

Morocco is the chairman of the Arab League committee on Jerusalem. Yes, that is true. Frida, my daughter in Israel married into the Toledano and Abulafia family. They can trace their roots to the 1490s. Yes, that would be in Spain. Great talk. Thank you. Pleasure.

Q: How about a talk on how the Moroccan Jews were treated in Israel leading to the Great Polarisation? A: It is true that Moroccan Jews did have a hard time when they arrived in Israel. A lot of them were sent to the far, far flung corners of Israel, the very north or the very south. I remember meeting a Moroccan Jew in Avivim, which is right on the Lebanese border. And he was from the Atlas Mountains. And I said, “Why did you, how’d you feel about living here?” You know, “What are you doing here?” And he basically said, “Well, Avivim is very much like the Atlas Mountains,” you know, it’s very hilly and you know, it sort of, it recalls the conditions in the Atlas Mountains. And they were very happy. He was very happy to be there, very happy to be in Israel. So I think it’s not all black and white, you know, and I, you know, you can’t say that, you can’t generalise, put it that way. And I think Israel today, you know, there’s so much intermarriage between all the different ethnic groups that, you know, people may not, you know, have identify really as Moroccan or Iraqi or anything else.

Peter says, at least the Moroccan government does not seize Jewish property.

Q: How about doing an exchange with former Arab property in Israel? A: Well, the Moroccan Government may not have seized Jewish property, but Jews did, still did lose property, Jewish property. And a great deal of land was lost as well. An exchange with former Arab property in Israel. Well, it’s not just Arab property in Israel, if there was such an exchange, the Jews lost far more than the Arabs did. I mean, it is estimated that $250 billion worth of property was lost by Jews across the Arab world. So I’m all for doing a deal with the Arabs. You know, let there be some progress on this front.

Stan Hill, I believe that not only the Belisha family, but the Disraeli family came from Mogador. I’m not sure about the Disraeli family there, Stan. I think they came from Italy.

Q: Christopher Bull, what happened to the prominent Jewish consular families in Mogador and their properties? A: I can imagine that they might have been protected. I think they were protected.

Carlos Laredo, many Spanish-speaking Moroccans from Tangier in the Spanish zone emigrated to Toronto and I have now have a vibrant community there. Thank you for that piece of information, Carlos.

Q: Elda Schwartz, was the Holocaust memorial in Morocco destroyed? A: Ah. There was a kind of makeshift Holocaust memorial that was erected by some freelance guy, but it was not official. And I think the Moroccan authorities did take it down. But there isn’t as far as I know, an actual Holocaust memorial in Morocco.

Sue says, my late husband and I visited Morocco several years ago. We visited a little town that had cherries at its emblem. We visited synagogue and the leaders asked him if he could bless them when they found out he was leaving. They sounded desperate. Adele, fascinating talk. Thank you very much, Adele. Lorna, thank you very much.

Neville, I’ve worked on several films in Ouarzazate including “Kingdom of Heaven” featuring the fighting for Jerusalem with Saladin. We had several Jewish advisors and we were all warmly welcomed by the Moroccan royal family. That’s very interesting. Yes, I think Morocco is quite a popular destination for film companies, you know, and provides the set for loads of films. I think “Lawrence of Arabia” was filmed there.

Our family name, Michael Block, name was actually Atlas. Could that mean that they may have been residents of Atlas Mountains, but they actually came from Lithuania. Long story about how it ended as Block. Well, that’s fascinating, I don’t know. You’ve got ta do some research there to your, yeah. I think people did move around though more than you think that, you know, you never know. Your family could have come from Morocco originally. Who knows?

Edna, my sister-in-law told me that her family fled Casablanca in 1956 due to anti-Semitism. They went to Nice but hid their Judaism due to anti-Semitism in France. She married my brother in 1975. They met on vacation in Majorca. Would you believe her parents only allowed her to come to Scotland because she was going to marry someone who’s Jewish? Her brother is still in Casablanca. How interesting is that.

Marion, thank you. It was comprehensive talk. Very interesting. Thank you. I am sorry whether, Suzanne asks, I’m sorry, were there successful Jewish traders in the Med? I’m sure there were plenty of successful Jewish traders, otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing it.

Lee Marsh, still in the '70s. Jews in business had to have a Muslim partner. Yeah. So no ownership. Now, this was an Arab League in demand that Jews had to have an Arab partner.

• [Wendy] Thanks, everybody.

• Yeah, sorry, sorry, I’ve been going through this. Shall I stop? Hello?

• [Wendy] Lyn?

• Yeah.

• [Wendy] You’ve been going now for an hour and a half and I’m sure you’re exhausted. So I want-

• No, I’m happy to carry on if you like.

• Are you?

• Yes, yes

• Okay, sure. If you’re happy to carry on, we’re very happy for you to carry on. I just want to give you the option.

• Okay. Okay-

• Is that all right, Judi?

• Yes, Judi.

• Is that all right? Great.

• Okay, so where were we? Yes. Very interestingly, Lee Marsh. Jews in business had to have a Muslim partner. So basically, this was a demand in all Arab League countries that Jews were not sole owners of their businesses, but had to have Arab partners, which obviously, meant that they had to give a share of the profits to their partners. And this was a way of really taking money away from the Jews.

Q: Ellie Strauss, what was the language brought in by the escapees? A: Haketia.

Barbara Fraser, thank you. Pleasure. Andre Azoulay’s daughter is now director general of UNESCO. Yes, that is true. John and, I did show a picture of her in my last lecture. And Sally, “Lawrence of Arabia” was filmed in Jordan at Petra and Wadi jaws. Thank you for that. And I think I have come to the end. You’d be glad to know, Wendy.

• No, no, no, I’m not glad at all. It was fabulous. It was fabulously fascinating, wonderful. And I’m just always couldn’t go and take advantage of our wonderful presenters. So, yeah, I’ve been driving and listening to incredible presentations. Really fascinating. It’s amazing that there was this myth about the Moroccan king.

• Yes, but that has been perpetuated by the Jews themselves in large part.

• Well, they were proud of their heritage, I guess.

• They were so loyal to the king, you know, like over the centuries they’ve always looked to him as their protector.

• Right.

• You know.

• Right, right.

• They get so completed.

• And it, then it continues, and I have actually two very close Moroccan friends.

• Yes.

• Sorry, my mother is still talking in the background and so, okay, I’m going to do say thank you. I’m going to say to you, thank you very much and, for a brilliant presentation and I’m going to sign off, thank you.

• Hey, well, thank you for inviting me. All the best-

• Thank you so much. Thank you, Mary Ann. Take care.

• All the best.

• Thank you, bye.

• Bye. Bye.