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Morocco's last Jews

Judaism, Fall, 1997 by Richard Gunther

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The old and new are everywhere. In remote villages in the High Arias Mountains we saw TV sets in mud huts. We saw women in traditional black dress, faces fully covered except for their eyes, and driving motorbikes through busy urban traffic.

We toured Morocco with a guide from the Joint Distribution Committee, Raft Elmoleh, 38 years old, and of consistently high spirits. He studied in England for years and is writing a book on the history of the Jews in Morocco, in addition to working for the joint. He recently toured Morocco collecting Jewish artifacts for a museum of the Jews of Morocco which is currently being built in Casablanca.

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The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was established in 1914 to channel funds raised in the United States to aid Jews in Europe and Palestine. Today, over 80 years later, the JDC is still serving as an overseas arm of the American Jewish Community, sponsoring programs of relief, rescue, and reconstruction, and fulfilling its commitment to the idea that all Jews are responsible for one another and that "to save one person is to save the world" (Mishna Sanhedrin 4:5). The Joint's programs reach around the world wherever there are Jews in need, focusing on education, health, and welfare. JDC's efforts range from rebuilding the Jewish community in the former Soviet Union to supporting the few remaining Jews in dying communities such as Morocco.

Without this aid from the Joint the elderly Jewish population of Morocco could not survive, and the Joint will stay until the Jewish population is gone. Today synagogues have a bare minyan, or are completely abandoned, and the once - thriving Jewish community is now only a memory or a few old people, cared for by their Jewish neighbors and the Joint. There is little Jewish life left in Morocco. Tourists are taken to see the house in Fez where Maimonides lived, to see Jewish cemeteries, and to the mostly empty synagogues - all memories of a once thriving culture.

We were asked to tell tourists not to buy Jewish scrolls or pages from texts that are often sold in local markets, as these sales only encourage more theft of Jewish writings from some of the abandoned and vulnerable sites.

The Future

But Jewish Morocco is not a destroyed community, it is a dispersed community. In spite of the benevolence of King Hassan II, Moroccan Jews know their history of persecution and have finely tuned antennas. They have no Bill of Rights - no laws to protect them - only the good will of the authorities. Uncertainty lies ahead, with increasing risks as King Hassan II ages, and fundamentalism sweeps the Arab world. Can Morocco avoid this plague?

So the Jews of Morocco will soon be gone - but gone where they can live freely as Jews and have the opportunity to create a secure and more fulfilling life for themselves and their families. Theirs is a poignant but not unhappy end to a long, long story.

RICHARD GUNTHER is a business entrepreneur living in Los Angeles, active in local, national, Israeli, Jewish, and secular concerns who divides his time between business, public service, and personal activities. FROM ALL THEIR HABITATIONS takes its title from Ezekiel 37:23 and features reports of Jewish religious, intellectual, and communal life in various parts of the world.

Morocco's last Jews

Judaism, Fall, 1997 by Richard Gunther

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