The Jewish Diaspora

Flight from persecution

Exodus from Morocco

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1948–1967 CEMorocco (Fez, Marrakesh, Tetouan) → Land of Israel

Why it happened

Israel's 1948 founding and the first Arab–Israeli war triggered anti-Jewish riots at Oujda and Djerada that June, killing 44 Jews;1 in their aftermath 18,000 Moroccan Jews fled to Israel within two years, opening a mass exodus.1

The migration

Morocco held 250,000–265,000 Jews in 1948.1 After the June 1948 , 18,000 emigrated to Israel in 1948–49,1 and roughly 28,000 more left through Cadima, the Jewish Agency–Mossad apparatus, by 1951.1 Some 60,000 departed between 1955 and independence in 1956.1 The independent monarchy then curbed Zionist emigration—by 1959 it was officially prohibited when the destination was Israel2—yet clandestine departures continued and a further 18,000 left by 1961;2 the smuggling ship Egoz sank that January, drowning 46.3 After Hassan II's 1961 accession, Mossad's Operation Yachin, funded by HIAS at a per-capita fee,1 evacuated some 90,000–97,000 Jews via France and Italy between 1961 and 1964.11 In all, 274,180 Moroccan Jews reached Israel by 2016;4 others emigrated to France, Belgium, and Canada,5 and Morocco's ancient community dwindled to about 2,000 by 2017.6

Genetic corroboration

  • autosomalGenome-wide analysis placed sampled Moroccan Jews in a distinctive North African Jewish cluster with proximity to other Jewish populations and variable Middle Eastern, European, and North African .7 The result describes population affinity, not the causes or composition of the post-1948 exodus.

Sources

  1. BLaskier, Michael M.. 1994. North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. New York University Press link
  2. ALaskier, Michael M.. 1985. Zionism and the Jewish Communities of Morocco: 1956–1962. Studies in Zionism 6 119–138. doi:10.1080/13531048508575875
  3. BHatimi, Mohammed. 2010. Pisces Affair. Encyclopaedia of Jews in the Islamic World doi:10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_SIM_0017680
  4. CWikipedia contributors. 2026. Migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel. Wikipedia link
  5. BStillman, Norman A.. 2003. The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times. Jewish Publication Society
  6. CWikipedia contributors. 2026. History of the Jews in Morocco. Wikipedia link
  7. ACampbell CL, Palamara PF, Dubrovsky M, et al.. 2012. North African Jewish and non-Jewish populations form distinctive, orthogonal clusters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 13865–13870. doi:10.1073/pnas.1204840109