Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-l8wb7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-03T07:59:46.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

BEYOND THE NATION-STATE: A NETWORK ANALYSIS OF JEWISH EMIGRATION FROM NORTHERN MOROCCO TO ISRAEL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2020

Aviad Moreno
Aviad Moreno*
Affiliation:
Aviad Moreno is a Lecturer at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede-Boqer Campus, Israel. He completed this article during his 2018–2019 fellowship at Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaPA, U.S. (aviadm@bgu.ac.il).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The post-1948 mass migration of Jews from Arab Muslim countries to Israel is widely seen by scholars as a direct result of decolonization and rising nationalism across the Middle East and North Africa, coupled with the emigration and immigration policies of regional powers. In this article I draw on local histories of northern Morocco to critique the existing literature. I apply new methods to reconceptualize that migratory experience as shaped by social and cultural processes, albeit ones that interacted with nationalist state policies. I provide a multilayered macro- and microanalysis of the process of Jewish emigration from northern Morocco and point to the transregional, interpersonal, communal, and institutional networks that jointly shaped the dynamic character and pace of migration to Israel (and to Europe and the Americas) among local Jews.

Keywords

IsraelJewish migrationmigration cultureMoroccoVenezuela

Information

Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Meir-Glitzenstein, Esther, “Turning Points in the Historiography of Jewish Immigration from Arab Countries to Israel,” Israel Studies 23, no. 3 (2018): 115Google Scholar; immigrants entering annually did not exceed 1.5 percent of the total US population. See also Halamish, Aviva, “Immigration Is Israel's History, So Far,” Israel Studies 23, no. 3 (2018): 107–11Google Scholar.

2 Laskier, Michael M., “Jewish Emigration from Morocco to Israel: Government Policies and the Position of International Jewish Organizations, 1949–56,” Middle Eastern Studies 25 (1989): 332CrossRefGoogle Scholar, table 1; Laskier, Michael M., North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 225Google Scholar; Aharoni, Simha, ʻAliyat Yehude Maroko: 1961–1964 (Paris: Jewish Agency, Immigration Department, 1965), 2, 9Google Scholar.

3 Aharoni, ʻAliyat Yehude, 2, 7.

4 Ibid., 55, 101–3.

5 I use “northern Morocco” to refer to the region that encompassed most of the Spanish protectorate zone in northern Morocco from 1912 until 1956, and the Tangier International Zone from 1923 until 1956 (which was annexed to the Spanish protectorate zone between 1940 and 1945). The Jewish populations of the region had maintained a Hispanic culture and idiom.

6 For instance, see Castles, Stephen, “Migration Policies Are Problematic: Because They Are about Migration,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 40, no. 9 (2017): 1538–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Elrick, Tim and Ciobanu, Oana, “Migration Networks and Policy Impacts: Insights from Romanian-Spanish Migrations,” Global Networks 9 (2009): 100–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For instance, see Sánchez-Alonso, Blanca, “Those Who Left and Those Who Stayed Behind: Explaining Emigration from the Regions of Spain, 1880–1914,” Journal of Economic History 60 (2000): 730–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Heering, Liesbeth, van der Erf, Rob, and van Wissen, Leo, “The Role of Family Networks and Migration Culture in the Continuation of Moroccan Emigration: A Gender Perspective,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30 (2004): 325CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Castles, Stephen, “Towards a Sociology of Forced Migration and Social Transformation,” Sociology 37 (2003): 13–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Castles, Stephen, de Haas, Hein, and Miller, Mark J., The Age of Migration (London: Pan Macmillan, 2013), 26Google Scholar.

9 According to Laskier, until 1965 Israel was the choice of the economically underprivileged Jewish masses in Morocco. Jews who stayed in Morocco after that time generally sought to integrate themselves into the country, or emigrate elsewhere. North African Jewry, 187, 245–53. See also Shiblak, Abbas, The Lure of Zion: The Case of Iraqi Jews (London: Saqi, 1986), 112–13Google Scholar.

10 Tsur, Yaron, “The Israeli Historiography and the Ethnic Problem,” in Making Israel, ed. Morris, Benny (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 234, 237–38Google Scholar.

11 Hakohen, Devorah, Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions in the 1950s and After (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, based on doctoral dissertation submitted in 1983; Segev, Tom, 1949: The First Israelis (New York: Free Press, 1986)Google Scholar. See also Meir-Glitzenstein, “Turning Points,” 116.

12 Shohat, Ella, “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Jewish Victims,” Social Text 19–20 (1988)Google Scholar; Shiblak, Lure, 71–77, 115–27. Shiblak published in 2005 a new edition of that book, titled Iraq Jews: A History of Mass Exodus. For an earlier expression see Abbas, Mahmoud, al-Sahayuniyya Bidaya wa-Nihaya (Ramallah, Palestine: Bilsan [1977], 2011), 55Google Scholar. For recent expression among Moroccan scholars see Samak, Mahir, al-Yahud fi al-Maghrib (Cairo: Dar al-Huriyya, 1998), 163–202Google Scholar.

13 Picard, Avi, ʻOlim bi-Mesurah: Mediniyut Yisraʼel Klape ʻAliyatam sehl Yehude Tsefon Afrikah, 1951–1956 (Sede-Boqer, Israel: Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, 2013)Google Scholar; Meir-Glitzenstein, Esther, The “Magic Carpet” Exodus of Yemenite Jewry: An Israeli Formative Myth (Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Bashkin, Orit, Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017), 23–28Google Scholar.

14 Roumani, Maurice M., The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue (Jerusalem: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, 1983)Google Scholar; Shulewitz, Malka Hillel, The Forgotten Millions: The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands (London: Cassell, 1999)Google Scholar; Meron, Ya'akov, “Why Jews Fled the Arab Countries,” Middle East Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1995): 47–55Google Scholar; Shiblak, Lure, 49–52, 55–64.

15 Baida, Jamaa, “The Emigration of Morocco Jews, 1948–1956,” in Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, ed. Gottreich, Emily Benichou and Schroeter, Daniel J. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 326–30Google Scholar.

16 For instance, see Kosansky, Oren and Boum, Aomar, “The ‘Jewish Question’ in Postcolonial Moroccan Cinema,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44, no. 3 (2012): 421–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Baida, “Emigration,” 98.

18 Meir-Glitzenstein, “Turning Point,” 116; for instance, see Laskier, “Jewish Emigration,” 334–52; and Tsur, Yaron, Kehila Keruʻa: Yehude Maroko ve-ha-Leʼumiyut, 1943–1954 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2001)Google Scholar.

19 Tsur, Kehila Keruʻa, 33–35; Beinin, Joel, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), 20–22, 142–206Google Scholar.

20 For a survey of works see Schroeter, Daniel J., “Identity and Nation: Jewish Migration and Inter-Community Relations in the Colonial Maghreb,” in La Bienvenue et l'Adieu: Migrants Juifs et Musulmans au Maghreb (XVe–XXe siècle), ed. Abécassis, Frédéric, Dirèche, Karima, et Aouad, Rita, vol. 1, Temps et Espaces, (Casablanca: Éditions La Croisée des Chemins, 2012), 136–40Google Scholar. See also Harel, Yaron, Bi-Sefinot shel ʼEsh la-Maʻarav: Temurot be-Yahadut Surya bi-Tekufat ha-Reformot haʼOt'maniyot, 1840–1880 (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2003), 324–37Google Scholar; and Lesser, Jeff H., “From Pedlars to Proprietors: Lebanese, Syrian and Jewish Immigrants in Brazil,” in The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration, ed. Hourani, Albert and Shehadi, Nadim (London: Centre for Lebanese Studies/I.B. Tauris, 1992), 396–98Google Scholar.

21 Two of these works include: Miller, Susan Gilson, “Kippur on the Amazon: Jewish Emigration from Northern Morocco in the Late Nineteenth Century,” in Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era, ed. Goldberg, Harvey E. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 190–209Google Scholar; and Bautista, Juan Vilar, “La Emigración Judeo-Marroquí a la América Latina en la Fase Pre-Estadística (1850–1880),” Awraq: Estudios sobre el Mundo Árabe e Islámico Contemporáneo 15 (1994): 63–113Google Scholar.

22 Moreno, Aviad, “Moroccan Jewish Emigration to Latin America: The State of Research and New Directions,” Hespéris-Tamuda 51, no. 2 (2016): 123–40Google Scholar.

23 Regarding Canada, see Cohen, Yolande and Schwartz, Stephanie Tara, “Scholarship on Moroccan Jews in Canada: Multidisciplinary, Multilingual, and Diasporic,” Journal of Canadian Studies 50, no. 3 (2016): 592–612CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Two examples are: Abitbol, Michel and Astro, Alan, “The Integration of North African Jews in France,” Yale French Studies 85 (1994): 248–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Epstein, Diana Lia, “Judíos de Marruecos en Argentina: La Inmigración Política (1955–1970),” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos 59 (2006): 69–97Google Scholar.

24 See also Collyer, Michael and Haas, Hein de, “Developing Dynamic Categorisations of Transit Migration,” Population, Space and Place 18 (2012): 468–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Brettell, Caroline B., “Theorizing Migration in Anthropology: The Social Construction of Networks, Identities, Communities, and Globalscapes,” in Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines, ed. Brettell, Caroline B. and Hollifield, James F. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 102Google Scholar.

26 Castles, Haas, and Miller, Age of Migration, 32.

27 Ibid., 34.

28 Turner, Jonathan H., Human Emotions: A Sociological Theory (London: Routledge, 2007), 74–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Heering, Erf, and Wissen, “Role of Family Networks,” 325.

30 According to national statistics in 2003, 496,000 Moroccan Jews and their second-generation descendants were living in Israel, compared with 506,000 who lived in France in 1999. See Haas, Hein de, “Morocco's Migration Experience: A Transitional Perspective,” International Migration 45, no. 4 (2007): 50Google Scholar.

31 Laskier, North African Jewry, 87, 110–13; Picard, ʻOlim bi-Mesurah, 69–70.

32 Laskier, “Jewish Emigration,” 334–52.

33 Ibid., 332.

34 Laskier, North African Jewry, 107.

35 Tsur, Kehila Keruʻa, 284; Lisbona, José Antonio, España-Israel: Historia de unas Relaciones Secretas (Madrid: Temas de hoy, 2002), 59–103Google Scholar.

36 Serels, Mitchell M., A History of the Jews of Tangier in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1991), 171Google Scholar.

37 Bin-Nun, Yigal, “The Contribution of World Jewish Organizations to the Establishment of Rights for Jews in Morocco (1956–1961),” Journal of Jewish Modern Studies 9 (2010): 254CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Laskier, North African Jewry, 11, 180–81, 222.

39 Lisbona, España-Israel, 104–7.

40 Assaraf, Robert, Une Certaine Historie des Juifs au Maroc: 1860–1999 (Paris: Gawsewitch, 2005), 716Google Scholar.

41 Laskier, “Jewish Emigration,” 341; Tsur, Kehila Keruʻa, 197.

42 Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter CZA), Report from the Jewish Agency, 14 November 1949, File S6/7231.

43 Joint Distribution Committee Archive, Jerusalem (hereafter JDCA), Letter from the OSE (Society for the Health of the Jewish Population) in Marseille to the OSE in Tangier, 16 December 1949, Call no. M6D 375, Tangiers General Correspondence, 1946–54, 1–2.

44 JDCA, “Statement on Cash Receipts and Distribution for 1950,” Call no. 28, Tangiers Reports 1946–54, 5; JDCA, Letter from the JDC in Tangier to the director of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work in Versailles, 2 October 1952, Call no. 6, Tangiers 1950–1952, 1946–54.

45 JDCA, “Tangier Budget for the First Half of 1955,” Call no. C56–702, Tangiers Budget, 1946–54, 3.

46 Laskier, North African Jewry, 125.

47 JDCA, “Re: Jacob Seruya,” 15 August 1954, Call no. C56 –701, Tangiers, 1949, 1953–1954, 46–47.

48 Laskier, North African Jewry, 125; Picard, ʻOlim bi-Mesurah, 116–17.

49 CZA, Dispatch from the Tangier Representative of the Development Cooperation for Israel, 24 September 1955, File S5/12.177.

50 JDCA, List of donations in “Boletín de Ose, 1949–1950,” Call no. 179, Tangiers OSE Bulletins, 1946–54.

51 CZA, List of schools, youth monuments, and communal institutions in North Africa, File S5/12.177.

52 CZA, Letter from Blumenthal to the Department of Education and Culture in Exile, 24 June 1955, S5/12.177.

53 Bin-Nun, Yigal, “Zerem Hahishtalvut shel ha-Yehudim ba-Hevra ha-Maroka’it: 1956–1967,” Peʻamim 125–27 (2011): 236Google Scholar, n. 38, 248–49; Serels, Jews of Tangier, 164–65, 278–79.

54 JDCA, “Tangier Budget for the First Half of 1955,” Call no. C56.301, Morocco Budget–Finance, 1947–1954, 2.

55 al-Bazzaz, Muhammad al-Amin, “Tasis al-Majlis al-Sahi al-Dawli fi Tanja,” Revue Dar al-Niaba lv (Spring 1988): 21–22Google Scholar.

56 Serels, Jews of Tangier, 173.

57 Interview with Aquiba Benarroch, Venezuela, 1990, Division of Oral History, Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

58 Aharoni, ʻAliyat Yehude, 55, 101–2.

59 Serels, Jews of Tangier, 178–80.

60 Luz, 31 May 1956, 5.

61 Lisbona-Martín, José Antonio, “La Especificidad de las Migraciones Judías de Marruecos a España (1956–1970),” in Atlas de la Inmigración Magrebí en España, ed. Contreras, Ana I. Planet and Fernández, Ángeles Ramírez (Madrid: Madrid Taller de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1996), 75Google Scholar. On Spanish naturalization see Ojeda-Mata, Maite, Modern Spain and the Sepharadim (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2018), 114–220Google Scholar.

62 Garzón, Jacobo Israel, Baer, Alejandro, Benasuly, Alberto, and Macías, Uriel, Los Judíos en la España Contemporánea: Apuntes Históricos y Judrídicos (Madrid: Hebraica Ediciones, 2008), 67–70Google Scholar.

63 The Spanish word Indiano means Indian. Here it refers to Spanish immigrants who made a fortune in Latin America. “Indianos Tetouaníes” thus refers to immigrants from Tetouan who became rich following their journey to Latin America.

64 Benarroch-Pinto, Isaac, Indianos Tetuaníes, Edición e Introducción de Jacobo Israel Garzón (Madrid: Hebraica Ediciones, 2008), 9, 90Google Scholar. For more regarding that novel see also Calderwood, Eric, “Moroccan Jews and the Spanish Colonial Imaginary, 1903–1951,” Journal of North African Studies 24, no. 1 (2019): 86–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 “Memoerias : La Vida de Moyses y Abraham Pinto en el Bosque Amazon,” accessed 22 May 2011, http://www.juifs-marocains-en-amazonie.com/espanol/index.html.

66 Bautista, Juan Vilar, “Evolución de la Población Israelíta en Marruecos Español (1940–1955),” Estudios Sefardíes 1 (1978): 117Google Scholar.

67 Las Migraciones Laborales en Venezuela: Diagnóstico Demográfico (Washington, DC: Organizacion de Los Estados Americanos, Secretaria General, 1985), 19–21.

68 Ayachi, Mohammed, “La Política Exterior de Marruecos,” Revista Colombia Internacional 20 (1992): 24Google Scholar.

69 “De Tánger,” El Mundo Israelíta, 5 November 1949, 7.

70 Enrique Arques, “Indianos de Tetuan,” El Mundo Israelíta, 10 December 1949, 2–4; Ibid., 17 December 1949, 3–6; Ibid., 24 December 1949, 5–6; Ibid., 31 December 1949, 2–4.

71 “La Primera Piedra de la Nueva Sinagoga,” El Mundo Israelíta, no. 661, 16 May 1956, 1.

72 Leonardo Senkman, Interview with Isaac Sananes, Venezuela, 1990, (213) 12, Division of Oral History, Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

73 Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, Correspondence between Pinto and a Tangier resident (name protected), 6 March 1969, Call no. Ven/84.

74 Guberek, Simón, Crónica Testimonial Sobre el Judaísmo Venezolano (Bogotá: Fundación Cultural Simón y Lola Guberek, 1980), 259Google Scholar.

75 See the CELADE (Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Center) website, which maintains an online database of international migration in Latin America called IMILA (Investigación de la Migración Internacional en Latinoamérica) accessed May 20, 2010, http://www.eclac.cl/celade/migracion/imila/seleccion.asp?parametro=MARRUECOS|N|MARRUECOS [accessed 12 October 2019, https://celade.cepal.org/bdcelade/imila].

76 Blank, Lily, “The Integration of Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews in Venezuela through the Decision-Making Process in the Educational System,” Jewish Political Studies Review 5 (1993): 217Google Scholar.

77 Heering, Erf, and Wissen, “Role of Family Networks,” 325.

78 Interview with Yaacov conducted by the author, Israel, 2009.

79 Yossi Bentolila, Interview with Rafi Bentolila, Israel, 2006; cross referenced with two interviews with Yaacov conducted by the author, Israel, 2009, 2010.

80 Private Collection, Passport and “Acta de Nacimiento, Estados Unidos de Venezuela, Consulado Ad-Honorem de Venezuela Tánger,” 11 July 1952, Tangier.

81 ” Noʻar Dati mi-Tanjir be-Yisraʼel,” Hatsofe, 30 July 1954.

82 Letters courtesy of Reuben and Simon Benoliel.

83 Interview with Rebecca conducted by the author, Israel, 2009; Rebecca also showed the author a photocopied passport and a newspaper article.

84 Oral History Memoir of Alegría Bendelac, May1992, Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library, American Jewish Committee, Oral Histories, Box 122, no. 4.

85 Bendelac, Alegría, Mosaics: A Jewish Girl Grows in Tangiers (Jerusalem[?]: World Zionist Organization, 1986), 38Google Scholar.

86 Ibid., 39.

87 Aharoni, ʻAliyat Yehude, 103, 112, 115.

88 The source refers to white collar professionals as those needing education and training: clerks, teachers, lawyers, physicians, and the like (ibid., 34, 36–37).

89 “Studentim Yotsʼe Tsefon ʼAfrikah be-Tsarfat Yamsikhu limudehem be-Yisraʼel,” Hatsofe, 28 July 1965; “Tenuʻat ʻOded le-Veʻidatah ha-Risona,” Maʻariv, 3 January 1967.

90 Interview with Reina conducted by the author, Israel, 2010.

91 Aharoni, ʻAliyat Yehude, 25; based on author's calculations.

92 Ibid., 103, 107.

93 Arsan, Andrew, Karam, John, and Khater, Akram, “On Forgotten Shores: Migration in Middle East Studies and the Middle East in Migration Studies,” Journal of Middle East Migration Studies 1 (2013): 6–7Google Scholar.