Search

Albert Aflalo (born ca. 1922), a Moroccan nationalist, was cultural attaché at the U.S. embassy in Rabat and an activist for the Arab-Israeli peace process. He was one of the few Moroccan Jews to favor Morocco’s independence from France early on, and in 1955 he joined the Mouvement National Marocain, a small Jewish group connected to the nationalist Istiqlal Party that sought to mobilize support for the Moroccan nationalist cause. In 1956, the year Morocco attained independence, he co-founded the short-lived al -Wifāq (Entente) organization, which called for a Muslim-Jewish r…

Jacques Dahan was born in 1917 into a traditional Jewish family in the mellah (Ar. mallāḥ ) of Rabat in Morocco. He studied at the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Lycée Gouraud. He worked as a sports writer for L’Echo du Maroc and early on became active in communal affairs, in part because of the mark left on him by the Vichy years. When General Alphonse Juin decided to create the Conseil des Communautés Israélites du Maroc (CCIM) in 1947, Dahan was elected its secretary-general because of his leadership role in communal affairs and his loyalty to France. In…

Robert Assaraf is a wealthy financier and businessman, a philanthropist, and a Jewish communal leader who has held official posts in several departments of the Moroccan government. Born in Rabat in 1936, he graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris and from the Paris and Rabat law schools. Upon completing his education, he worked on the staff of several Moroccan cabinet ministers and soon earned a reputation for his managerial skills and efficiency. A close colleague of David Amar, Assaraf was hired to reorganize several enterprises and make them p…

André Azoulay (b. 1941), a trained economist and journalist, has been an adviser to the king of Morocco since his return from Europe in 1991. Previously, he lived in Paris and was a director of the Paribas bank. As adviser to King Hassan II and King Mohammed VI, Azoulay helped to formulate the political, economic, and financial reforms that have been implemented in Morocco since the early 1990s.Originally a political dissident, Azoulay was involved in student demonstrations against the Moroccan monarchy in Paris in 1965. He was also a  activist for peace and for dialogue between Arabs an…

Serge Berdugo was born in 1938 into a distinguished Moroccan Sephardi family of rabbis, merchants, and communal leaders in Meknes. He studied at the Institut de Sciences Politiques, and earned a law degree. A Jewish community leader and politician, he has been vice-president of external relations for the Conseil des communautés israélites du Maroc since 1977, and became its secretary-general in 1987. As such, he also heads the World Assembly of Moroccan Jewry. Under his presidency, the Conseil des communautés created the Foundation for Moroccan Jewish Heritage, which restores…

Cadima was a Zionist organization that oversaw the massive immigration (aliyah) of Moroccan Jews to Israel from 1949 to 1956. It was created by a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the administration of the French protectorate in Morocco and the Jewish Agency for Israel. The agreement was signed by the resident-general, Alphonse Juin, and the Agency’s representative, Jacques Gershoni, on March 7, 1949, and suited both parties. The colonial administration would no longer interfere with illegal Jewish emigration and would maintain the social status quo, …

The sinking of the Pisces was undoubtedly the most tragic episode in the history of the clandestine mass emigration of Jews from Morocco to Israel organized by the Jewish Agency and the Mossad. The incident took place on the night of January 10–11, 1961. The Pisces, an old boat renamed the Egoz, with its crew and forty-three Jewish passengers of all ages aboard, sank not far from the small Mediterranean coastal town of El Hoceima in the Rif. Forty-five people perished; twenty-two bodies were recovered and buried in a square plot in the Christian cemetery of El Hoceima.       Despite the dan…

A native of the city of Meknes in Morocco, Joseph (Jo) Ohana (1914–1995) was a wealthy Casablanca businessman and political activist. In 1955 he founded the Mouvement National Marocain, a small Jewish group connected to the nationalist Istiqlal Party, whose objective was to mobilize Jewish support for the Moroccan nationalist cause and demonstrate the loyalty of Moroccan Jewry to Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef, the future King Mohammed V. Following Moroccan independence in 1956, Mohammed V appointed Ohana as one of the five Jews among the seventy-six members of the first National Co…

Maxime Azoulay was born in Casablanca in 1917. An Arabist and graduate of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines, he became a prominent lawyer and jurist. He served as adviser to the Haut-tribunal chérifien (the High Court of Morocco), presiding judge (criminal and civil) of the Supreme Court, and a member of both the Consultative Council on Human Rights and the Constitutional Chamber, becoming president of the latter. He was decorated with the Order of the Throne.Azoulay’s public duties did not prevent him from being active in the Jewish community of Rabat. In his ongoing effor…

Born in Settat, Morocco, David Amar (1920–2000) was an important leader of the Moroccan Jewish community. As president of the Jewish community of Kenitra, the town where he began his career in business, he established ties with Moroccan nationalist circles, which helped him secure the position of secretary general of the Conseil des Communautés Israélites du Maroc (CCIM) after independence in 1956. During the difficult years between 1956 and 1967, he skillfully maneuvered to preserve the cohesion of the country’s Jewish communities amid massive …

Meyer Toledano was born in 1918 in Casablanca, and became a political activist during World War II. From 1949 to 1952 he was the editor of the pro-Zionist newspaper Noʿar . In 1951 he changed its political direction and instead urged Moroccan Jewry to support the nationalist independence movement. Toledano succeeded in arousing a spirit of Moroccan patriotism among a small segment of Jewish youth and, with Félix Nataf, founded Amitiés Marocaines, an interfaith group with a platform advocating independence from France. During the Moroccan crisis in the 1950s, Toled…

Abraham Serfaty is a internationally prominent Moroccan political activist who spent many years in prison and became a symbol of the popular resistance against King Hassan II’s authoritarian government. Staunchly anti-Zionist and a supporter of the Palestinians, Serfaty represents a model of the Moroccan Jew in eyes of many of his Muslim fellow citizens—assimilated, respected, and attached to his ancestors’ North African homeland. Many of his coreligionists, however, see him as subversive and marginal to the Jewish community. Abraham Serfaty was born in 1926 in Casablanc…

1. Until 1912Origins of the Jews of MoroccoMorocco (Ar. al-Maghrib) is a country in the northwestern part of Africa, along the Mediterranean coast to the north, and stretching along the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The origins of Jewish settlement in al-Maghrib al-Aqṣā (Ar. far west, far Maghreb), as the westernmost country of North Africa was called by Arab geographers, is unknown. The Jewish communities of Morocco traced their roots back to ancient Israel; legends recount that the first Jews arrived e…