The Reasons for the Departure of the Jews from Morocco 1956–1957: The Historiographical Problems

Yigal Bin-Nun, “The Reasons of Departure of the Jews from Morocco 1956-1967: The Historiographical Problems”, in Françoise S. Ouzan & Manfred Gerstenfeld, Postwar Jewish Displacement and Rebirth 1945-1967, Brill, Leiden Boston 2014
The history of the Jewish community in independent Morocco is one limited in time. The almost total evacuation of this ethnic-religious minority is an opportunity for a historian to trace its itinerary in a country that was transformed from a French protectorate into a new independent state maintaining close ties with the former colonial power as well as with the Arab Muslim world and developing third world countries. Aware of the issue, the historian can evaluate more easily the failure of its integration into Moroccan society and the reasons that led to its departure ten years after the end of the colonial era. He can also observe with lucidity how attractive the young Israeli state, though coping with difficulties to survive or exist, was to the eyes of a minority torn between its long local history in Morocco, its French culture, and its Jewish identity.
The ideology that fuelled the activity of the Israelis in Morocco actually relies on a basic axiom claiming that in the Diaspora any Jew, as such, is in constant danger due to eternal and universal antisemitism. The State of Israel only has the right to exist if it assumes its responsibility to extend protection to any Jew in the Diaspora. Eliezer Shoshani, the historian of this emigration, has found a justification for the intervention of the Israeli emissaries in the Jewish community of Morocco by referring to the responsibility incumbent upon Israel to watch over the destiny of all the Jews in the world, “whether the Jew is actually asking for it or he does not explicitly demand it.” He believes that no one could contest the right of Israel to intervene and to interfere in the Jewish Diaspora. Israelis had no difficulty in interpreting the meaning of this responsibility. Therefore, the act of delegating Israeli agents to Morocco is irreproachable. In his view, there is no difference between the operations of the Mossad in Morocco and the dispatching of Israeli paratroopers to Nazi Europe in the midst of World War II. The evacuation of the Jews from Morocco is a significant victory for Israel in the accomplishment of Zionistic ideology.