Morocco's last Jews.

Gunther, Richard

Within ten years all the jews will have left, and only a memory will remain of their 2,800-year history in Morocco.

The first Jews arrived in North Africa with the Phoenicians around the time of the founding of Carthage (813 B.C.E.) and were involved in handicrafts and trade along the caravan routes from Africa to the Mediterranean.

The destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. resulted in a wave of Jews fleeing to North Africa. The Romans conquered this region in 140 B.C.E., and their written records documented the existence of the Jewish population. A second wave of Jews entered North Africa after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. During this time many of the local Berber tribes converted to Judaism, resulting in the mixture of native practices with Jewish traditions.

Then the Vandals overthrew the Romans, the Byzantines overthrew the Vandals, and in the 7th century C.E., the Arab invasion shifted power once again.

Because the Koran gave specific directions on how Muslims should behave toward Jews, under the protective arm of Islam the Jews lived peacefully with their neighbors and played a key role in the golden age of Spain and North Africa.

The Catholic domination of Spain brought the Expulsion Bill of 1492, which drove many Jews to escape and settle in Morocco. Muslims and Jews lived in Morocco with little outside contact until the French Protectorate in 1912. Traveling in Morocco during this period was a hazardous adventure, tribal hostilities high, and such journeys were a privilege reserved for Jews by the King, who had give them a monopoly on trade across the country. To create a map of Morocco in 1882, a French officer disguised himself as a Jew and hired a Rabbi to travel with him.

The French Revolution of 1789 emancipated the Jews and the French Jewish community created the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1860 to help Jewish communities and functioned in North Africa in their continual struggles with their neighbors and the authorities. The Alliance opened schools throughout Morocco to teach French culture and Western behavior.

In 1912 the French took control and found the Jews very receptive to French culture, changing from Arab and Berber language and practices, and thus a new identity emerged as Jews living in a French society and French colony.

Emigration

Before the Jews started to emigrate in the 1940s, there were 300,000 to 400,000. Today only 6,500 remain. They left, motivated by several factors:

1. Moroccan Jews are religious people, were inspired by Zionism, and the rebirth of the State of Israel was for many an irresistible attraction.

2. Seeing the potential of mass immigration to Israel by Moroccan Jews, Zionists actively recruited. They saw people devoted to Judaism, adapted to Mid-East climate, and accustomed to living among Arabs. Estimates are that over 70% of the emigrants from Morocco went to Israel.

3. The Holocaust had a traumatic effect on Moroccan Jewry, even though their community was saved from the devastation which struck the Jews of Europe. When Jews looked ahead, particularly after Moroccan independence in 1956, and even though the new Constitution said that only Muslims and Jews could be citizens, they saw an uncertain future.

4. The practice among Moroccan Jews of sending their children out of the country for college was a reflection on inadequate Moroccan post-high school education. Few young people return. We visited a Jewish high school, spoke with the graduating students leaving for college, and asked where they were going. We heard mostly Israel, two to France, one to the U.S. If their families can't afford the cost, the local Jewish community helps. When asked if they would return at the completion of their education, all replied "NO" with comments like "Why return? There is no future here for us." When they settle in their new overseas homes (mostly Israel), in time their parents follow.

Those of us in Los Angeles who visited our first Project Renewal community of Musrara in Jerusalem know that these residents are almost entirely of Moroccan origin. Most of them came to Israel in the 1950s, have large families, and are totally integrated into Israeli society.

About Morocco

Morocco has an exploding population, which rose from 10 to 12 million in 1950 to 30 million today, with an estimated increase of 60 million expected over the next 20-25 years. This surging population is outstripping the government's ability to provide schools and housing. Unemployment is at 30%, and everywhere we went we saw men with nothing to do - just standing around. King Hassan II seems to be respected, rules with a strong hand, and has stopped Moslem fundamentalism from gaining a foothold. But he has 48 palaces around the country and just spent $800 million on "his" mosque in Casablanca - this extravagance in a country where we saw six-year-old children working in a dark, windowless basement, under stifling conditions, for one dollar a day. All fertile growth for future political unrest.

The old and new are everywhere. In remote villages in the High Arias Mountains we saw TV sets in mud huts. We saw women in traditional black dress, faces fully covered except for their eyes, and driving motorbikes through busy urban traffic.

We toured Morocco with a guide from the Joint Distribution Committee, Raft Elmoleh, 38 years old, and of consistently high spirits. He studied in England for years and is writing a book on the history of the Jews in Morocco, in addition to working for the joint. He recently toured Morocco collecting Jewish artifacts for a museum of the Jews of Morocco which is currently being built in Casablanca.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was established in 1914 to channel funds raised in the United States to aid Jews in Europe and Palestine. Today, over 80 years later, the JDC is still serving as an overseas arm of the American Jewish Community, sponsoring programs of relief, rescue, and reconstruction, and fulfilling its commitment to the idea that all Jews are responsible for one another and that "to save one person is to save the world" (Mishna Sanhedrin 4:5). The Joint's programs reach around the world wherever there are Jews in need, focusing on education, health, and welfare. JDC's efforts range from rebuilding the Jewish community in the former Soviet Union to supporting the few remaining Jews in dying communities such as Morocco.

Without this aid from the Joint the elderly Jewish population of Morocco could not survive, and the Joint will stay until the Jewish population is gone. Today synagogues have a bare minyan, or are completely abandoned, and the once - thriving Jewish community is now only a memory or a few old people, cared for by their Jewish neighbors and the Joint. There is little Jewish life left in Morocco. Tourists are taken to see the house in Fez where Maimonides lived, to see Jewish cemeteries, and to the mostly empty synagogues - all memories of a once thriving culture.

We were asked to tell tourists not to buy Jewish scrolls or pages from texts that are often sold in local markets, as these sales only encourage more theft of Jewish writings from some of the abandoned and vulnerable sites.

The Future

But Jewish Morocco is not a destroyed community, it is a dispersed community. In spite of the benevolence of King Hassan II, Moroccan Jews know their history of persecution and have finely tuned antennas. They have no Bill of Rights - no laws to protect them - only the good will of the authorities. Uncertainty lies ahead, with increasing risks as King Hassan II ages, and fundamentalism sweeps the Arab world. Can Morocco avoid this plague?

So the Jews of Morocco will soon be gone - but gone where they can live freely as Jews and have the opportunity to create a secure and more fulfilling life for themselves and their families. Theirs is a poignant but not unhappy end to a long, long story.

RICHARD GUNTHER is a business entrepreneur living in Los Angeles, active in local, national, Israeli, Jewish, and secular concerns who divides his time between business, public service, and personal activities. FROM ALL THEIR HABITATIONS takes its title from Ezekiel 37:23 and features reports of Jewish religious, intellectual, and communal life in various parts of the world.