Moroccan Jews
Jews have lived in Morocco for over two thousand years. The first evidence of Jewish settlement dates from the second century CE. Over the millennia, Jews have lived as a minority among Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, Amazigh peoples, Arabs, French and Spanish. Since Moroccan independence in 1956, they have become full citizens under the King and the Moroccan constitution. This section provides an overview of Jews in Moroccan history during each of these periods.
Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community, immigrating to the region as early as 70 CE. Emily Gottreich contends that Jewish migration to Morocco predated the full formation of Judaism, as the Talmud was "written and redacted between 200 and 500 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. Shay Hazkani found that of the 20,000 who performed aliyah in 1948-1949, 1,000 served in the IDF, of which 70% wished to return home. Only 6% managed to do so, given various bureaucratic obstacles like the Israeli confiscation of their passports and Moroccan resistance to their repatriation.Moroccan Jews emigrated for a variety of reasons. Some have emigrated 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.[citation needed] 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.
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.
During the Moroccan struggle for independence in the 1950s, several promises were made to ensure equal rights to the Jewish community in a future independent Morocco, in part due to lobbying efforts of Morrocan nationalists in the US.
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 .