| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
Note to Readers: The insights and wisdom in these books are too valuable not to be shared widely. There’s an urgent need for them to be made into audiobooks, expanding their reach and accessibility. If you have the influence or means to make this happen, I encourage you to lend your support. Let’s work together to bring these important words to a broader audience.
Related Study:
Please note that the studies shared on this website are for informational purposes only. Readers are encouraged to critically evaluate the content and not to accept it as absolute or complete without further verification. The views expressed in the studies do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website.
Jewish exodus from the Muslim world by Wikipedia (Part 1)
In the 20th century, approximately 900000 Jews migrated, fled, or were expelled from Muslim-majority countries throughout Africa and Asia. Primarily a consequence of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the mass movement mainly transpired from 1948 to the early 1970s, with one final exodus of Iranian Jews occurring shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979–1980. An estimated 650000 (72%) of these Jews resettled in Israel.
A number of small-scale Jewish migrations began in many countries of the Middle East in the early 20th century, with the only substantial aliyot (Jewish immigrations to the Land of Israel) coming from Yemen and Syria. Few Jews from Muslim countries immigrated during the existence of the British Mandate for Palestine Prior to Israel’s independence in 1948, approximately 800000 Jews were living on lands that now make up the Arab world. Of this figure, just under two-thirds lived in the French- and Italian-controlled regions of North Africa, 15–20% lived in the Kingdom of Iraq, approximately 10% lived in the Kingdom of Egypt, and approximately 7% lived in the Kingdom of Yemen. A further 200000 Jews lived in the Imperial State of Iran and the Republic of Turkey.
The first large-scale exoduses took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. In these cases, over 90% of the Jewish population left, despite the necessity of leaving their assets and properties behind. Between 1948 and 1951, 260000 Jews immigrated to Israel from Arab countries. In response, the Israeli government implemented policies to accommodate 600000 immigrants over a period of four years, doubling the country’s Jewish population. This move encountered mixed reactions in the Knesset; in addition to some Israeli officials, there were those within the Jewish Agency who opposed promoting a large-scale emigration movement among Jews whose lives were not in immediate danger.
Later waves peaked at different times in different regions over the subsequent decades. The peak of the exodus from Egypt occurred in 1956, following the Suez Crisis. The emigrations from the other countries of North Africa peaked in the 1960s. Lebanon was the only Arab country that saw an increase in its Jewish population during this period, due to an influx of Jews from other Arab countries, though this was temporary—by the mid-1970s, the Jewish community of Lebanon had also dwindled. 600000 Jews from Arab and Muslim countries had relocated to Israel by 1972, while another 300000 migrated to France, the United States and Canada. Today, the descendants of Jews who immigrated to Israel from other Middle Eastern lands (known as Mizrahi Jews and Sephardic Jews) constitute more than half of the total Israeli population. In 2009, only 26000 Jews remained in Arab countries and Iran, as well as another 26000 in Turkey. By 2019, the total number of Jews in Arab countries and Iran had declined to 12,700, and in Turkey to 14,800.
The reasons for the exoduses are manifold, including: pull factors, such as the desire to fulfill Zionism, find a better economic status and a secure home in either Israel or Europe and the Americas, and the Israeli government’s implementation of official policy in favour of the “One Million Plan” to focus on accommodating Jewish immigrants from Arab- and Muslim-majority countries; and push factors, such as antisemitism, persecution, and pogroms, political instability, poverty, and expulsion. The history of the exodus has been politicized, given its proposed relevance to the historical narrative of the Arab–Israeli conflict. When presenting the history, those who view the Jewish exodus as analogous to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight generally emphasize the push factors and consider those who left to have been refugees, while those who oppose that view generally emphasize the pull factors and consider the Jews to have been willing immigrants.
Background
At the time of the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, ancient Jewish communities had existed in many parts of the Middle East and North Africa since Antiquity. Jews under Islamic rule were given the status of dhimmi, along with certain other pre-Islamic religious groups. As such, these groups were accorded certain rights as “People of the Book“.
During waves of persecution in Medieval Europe, many Jews found refuge in Muslim lands, though in other times and places, Jews fled persecution in Muslim lands and found refuge in Christian lands. Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula were invited to settle in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, where they would often form a prosperous model minority of merchants acting as intermediaries for their Muslim rulers.
North Africa
French colonial rule
In the 19th century, Francization of Jews in the French colonial North Africa, due to the work of organizations such as the Alliance Israelite Universelle and French policies such as the Algerian citizenship decree of 1870, resulted in a separation of the community from the local Muslims.
France began its conquest of Algeria in 1830. The following century had a profound influence on the status of the Algerian Jews; following the 1870 Crémieux Decree, they were elevated from the protected minority dhimmi status to French citizens. The decree began a wave of Pied-Noir-led anti-Jewish protests (such as the 1897 anti-Jewish riots in Oran), which the Muslim community did not participate in, to the disappointment of the European agitators. Though there were also cases of Muslim-led anti-Jewish riots, such as in Constantine in 1934 when 34 Jews were killed.
Neighbouring Husainid Tunisia began to come under European influence in the late 1860s and became a French protectorate in 1881. Since the 1837 accession of Ahmed Bey, and continued by his successor Muhammed Bey, Tunisia’s Jews were elevated within Tunisia society with improved freedom and security, which was confirmed and safeguarded during the French protectorate.” Around a third of Tunisian Jews took French citizenship during the protectorate.
Morocco, which had remained independent during the 19th century, became a French protectorate in 1912. However, during less than half a century of colonization, the equilibrium between Jews and Muslims in Morocco was upset, and the Jewish community was again positioned between the colonisers and the Muslim majority. French penetration into Morocco between 1906 and 1912 created significant Morocco Muslim resentment, resulting in nationwide protests and military unrest. During the period a number of anti-European or anti-French protests extended to include anti-Jewish manifestations, such as in Casablanca, Oujda and Fes in 1907-08 and later in the 1912 Fes riots.
The situation in colonial Libya was similar; as in the French North African countries, the Italian influence in Libya was welcomed by the Jewish community, increasing their separation from the non-Jewish Libyans.
The Alliance Israélite Universelle, founded in France in 1860, set up schools in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as early as 1863.
World War II
During World War II, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya came under Nazi or Vichy French occupation and their Jews were subject to various forms of persecution. In Libya, the Axis powers established labor camps to which many Jews were forcibly deported. In other areas Nazi propaganda targeted Arab populations to incite them against British or French rule. National Socialist propaganda contributed to the transfer of racial antisemitism to the Arab world and is likely to have unsettled Jewish communities. An anti-Jewish riot took place in Casablanca in 1942 in the wake of Operation Torch, where a local mob attacked the Jewish mellah. (Mellah is the Moroccan name for a Jewish ghetto.) However, according to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem‘s Dr. Haim Saadon, “Relatively good ties between Jews and Muslims in North Africa during World War II stand in stark contrast to the treatment of their co-religionists by gentiles in Europe.”
From 1943 until the mid-1960s, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was an important foreign organization driving change and modernization in the North African Jewish community. It had initially become involved in the region whilst carrying out relief work during World War II.
Morocco
Jewish Wedding in Morocco by Eugène Delacroix, Louvre, Paris
As in Tunisia and Algeria, Moroccan Jews did not face large scale expulsion or outright asset confiscation or any similar government persecution during the period of exile, and Zionist agents were relatively allowed freedom of action to encourage emigration.
In Morocco, the Vichy regime during World War II passed discriminatory laws against Jews; for example, Jews were no longer able to get any form of credit, Jews who had homes or businesses in European neighborhoods were expelled, and quotas were imposed limiting the percentage of Jews allowed to practice professions such as law and medicine to no more than two percent. King Mohammed V expressed his personal distaste for these laws, assuring Moroccan Jewish leaders that he would never lay a hand “upon either their persons or property”. While there is no concrete evidence of him actually taking any actions to defend Morocco’s Jews, it has been argued that he may have worked on their behalf behind the scenes.
In June 1948, soon after Israel was established and in the midst of the first Arab–Israeli war, violent anti-Jewish riots broke out in Oujda and Djerada, leading to deaths of 44 Jews. In 1948–49, after the massacres, 18000 Moroccan Jews left the country for Israel. Later, however, Jewish migration from Morocco slowed to a few thousand a year. Through the early 1950s, Zionist organizations encouraged immigration, particularly in the poorer south of the country, seeing Moroccan Jews as valuable contributors to the Jewish State:
The more I visited in these (Berber) villages and became acquainted with their Jewish inhabitants, the more I was convinced that these Jews constitute the best and most suitable human element for settlement in Israel’s absorption centers. There were many positive aspects which I found among them: first and foremost, they all know (their agricultural) tasks, and their transfer to agricultural work in Israel will not involve physical and mental difficulties. They are satisfied with few (material needs), which will enable them to confront their early economic problems.
— Yehuda Grinker, The Emigration of Atlas Jews to Israel
Jews of Fes, c. 1900
Incidents of anti-Jewish violence continued through the 1950s, although French officials later stated that Moroccan Jews “had suffered comparatively fewer troubles than the wider European population” during the struggle for independence. In August 1953, riots broke out in the city of Oujda and resulted in the death of four Jews, including an 11-year-old girl. In the same month, French security forces prevented a mob from breaking into the Jewish mellah of Rabat. In 1954, a nationalist event in the town of Petitjean (known today as Sidi Kacem) turned into an anti-Jewish riot and resulted in the death of 6 Jewish merchants from Marrakesh. However, according to Francis Lacoste, French Resident-General in Morocco, “the ethnicity of the Petitjean victims was coincidental, terrorism rarely targeted Jews, and fears about their future were unwarranted.”
In 1955, a mob broke into the Jewish mellah in Mazagan (known today as El Jadida) and caused its 1,700 Jewish residents to flee to the European quarters of the city. The houses of some 200 Jews were too badly damaged during the riots for them to return. In 1954, Mossad had established an undercover base in Morocco, sending agents and emissaries within a year to appraise the situation and organize continuous emigration. The operations were composed of five branches: self-defense, information and intelligence, illegal immigration, establishing contact, and public relations. Mossad chief Isser Harel visited the country in 1959 and 1960, reorganized the operations, and created a clandestine militia named the “Misgeret” (“framework”).
Jewish emigration to Israel jumped from 8,171 people in 1954 to 24,994 in 1955, increasing further in 1956. Between 1955 and independence in 1956, 60000 Jews emigrated. On 7 April 1956, Morocco attained independence. Jews occupied several political positions, including three parliamentary seats and the cabinet position of Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. However, that minister, Leon Benzaquen, did not survive the first cabinet reshuffling, and no Jew was appointed again to a cabinet position. Although the relations with the Jewish community at the highest levels of government were cordial, these attitudes were not shared by the lower ranks of officialdom, which exhibited attitudes that ranged from traditional contempt to outright hostility. Morocco’s increasing identification with the Arab world, and pressure on Jewish educational institutions to Arabize and conform culturally added to the fears of Moroccan Jews. Between 1956 and 1961, emigration to Israel was prohibited by law; clandestine emigration continued, and a further 18000 Jews left Morocco.
On 10 January 1961 the Egoz, a Mossad-leased ship carrying Jews attempting to emigrate undercover, sank off the northern coast of Morocco. According to Tad Szulc, the Misgeret commander in Morocco, Alex Gattmon, decided to precipitate a crisis on the back of the tragedy, consistent with Mossad Director Isser Harel‘s scenario that “a wedge had to be forced between the royal government and the Moroccan Jewish community and that anti-Hassan nationalists had to be used as leverage as well if a compromise over emigration was ever to be attained”. A pamphlet agitating for illegal emigration, supposedly by an underground Zionist organization, was printed by Mossad and distributed throughout Morocco, causing the government to “hit the roof”. These events prompted King Mohammed V to allow Jewish emigration, and over the three following years, more than 70000 Moroccan Jews left the country, primarily as a result of Operation Yachin.
In June 1961, reports surfaced regarding the continued removal of Jewish officials from prominent positions within the Moroccan government. M. Zaoui, the director of Conservation Fonciere in the Moroccan Finance Ministry, was dismissed without a specified reason. The extremist Muslim journal Al Oumal then launched a campaign against him, accusing him of Zionist affiliations. Earlier in the year, Meyer Toledano had also been removed from his role as judicial counselor to the Moroccan Foreign Ministry. Simultaneously, uneasiness arose among Moroccan Jews as they examined the 17 articles of the new “Fundamental Law” signed by King Hassan on June 2. Article 15, in particular, raised concerns, emphasizing Morocco’s commitment to the Arab League and the intention to strengthen ties with it. Although the new law did not revoke the equal rights of Jews and Muslims in Morocco, it notably omitted the term “Jew,” and the first two articles underscored Morocco as an Arab and Muslim country with Islam as the official state religion.
Operation Yachin was fronted by the New York-based Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), who financed approximately $50 million of costs. HIAS provided an American cover for underground Israeli agents in Morocco, whose functions included organizing emigration, arming of Jewish Moroccan communities for self-defense and negotiations with the Moroccan government. By 1963, the Moroccan Interior Minister Colonel Oufkir and Mossad chief Meir Amit agreed to swap Israeli training of Moroccan security services and some covert military assistance for intelligence on Arab affairs and continued Jewish emigration.
By 1967, only 50000 Jews remained. The 1967 Six-Day War led to increased Arab–Jewish tensions worldwide, including in Morocco, and significant Jewish emigration out of the country continued. By the early 1970s, the Jewish population of Morocco fell to 25000; however, most of the emigrants went to France, Belgium, Spain, and Canada, rather than Israel.
According to Esther Benbassa, the migration of Jews from the North African countries was prompted by uncertainty about the future. In 1948, 250000–265000 Jews lived in Morocco. By 2001, an estimated 5,230 remained.
Despite their dwindling numbers, Jews continue to play a notable role in Morocco; the King retains a Jewish senior adviser, André Azoulay, and Jewish schools and synagogues receive government subsidies. Despite this, Jewish targets have sometimes been attacked (notably the 2003 bombing attacks on a Jewish community center in Casablanca), and there is sporadic antisemitic rhetoric from radical Islamist groups. Tens of thousands of Israeli Jews with Moroccan heritage visit Morocco every year, especially around Rosh Hashana or Passover, although few have taken up the late King Hassan II‘s offer to return and settle in Morocco.
Algeria
The Great Synagogue of Oran, Algeria, confiscated and turned into a mosque after the departure of JewsWorld Jewish Congress conference on the situation of Jews in North Africa, Algiers, 1952
As in Tunisia and Morocco, Algerian Jews did not face large scale expulsion or outright asset confiscation or any similar government persecution during the period of exile, and Zionist agents were relatively allowed freedom of action to encourage emigration.
Jewish emigration from Algeria was part of a wider ending of French colonial control and the related social, economic and cultural changes.
The Israeli government had been successful in encouraging Morocco and Tunisian Jews to emigrate to Israel, but were less so in Algeria. Despite offers of visa and economic subsidies, only 580 Jews moved from Algeria to Israel in 1954–55.
Emigration peaked during the Algerian War of 1954–1962, during which thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews left the country, particularly the Pied-Noir community. In 1956, Mossad agents worked underground to organize and arm the Jews of Constantine, who comprised approximately half the Jewish population of the country. In Oran, a Jewish counter-insurgency movement was thought to have been trained by former members of Irgun.
As of the last French census in Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1050000 non-Muslim civilians in Algeria, constituting 10 percent of the total population; this included 130000 Algerian Jews. After Algeria became independent in 1962, about 800000 Pieds-Noirs (including Jews) were evacuated to mainland France while about 200000 chose to remain in Algeria. Of the latter, there were still about 100000 in 1965 and about 50000 by the end of the 1960s.
As the Algerian Revolution intensified from the late 1950s onward, most of Algeria’s 140000 Jews began to leave. The community had lived mainly in Algiers and Blida, Constantine, and Oran.
Almost all Jews of Algeria left upon independence in 1962, particularly as “the Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 excluded non-Muslims from acquiring citizenship”, allowing citizenship only to those Algerians who had Muslim fathers and paternal grandfathers. Algeria’s 140000 Jews, who had French citizenship since 1870 (briefly revoked by Vichy France in 1940) left mostly for France, although some went to Israel.
The Great Synagogue of Algiers was consequently abandoned after 1994.
Jewish migration from North Africa to France led to the rejuvenation of the French Jewish community, which is now the third largest in the world.
Tunisia
Jews of Tunis, c. 1900. From the Jewish Encyclopedia.
As in Morocco and Algeria, Tunisian Jews did not face large scale expulsion or outright asset confiscation or any similar government persecution during the period of exile, and Jewish emigration societes were relatively allowed freedom of action to encourage emigration.
In 1948, approximately 105000 Jews lived in Tunisia. About 1500 remain today, mostly in Djerba, Tunis, and Zarzis. Following Tunisia’s independence from France in 1956 emigration of the Jewish population to Israel and France accelerated. After attacks in 1967, Jewish emigration both to Israel and France accelerated. There were also attacks in 1982, in 1985 following Israel’s Operation Wooden Leg, and most recently in 2002 when a bombing in Djerba took 21 lives (most of them German tourists) near the local synagogue, a terrorist attack claimed by Al-Qaeda.
