Neta elkayam biography of barack

The history of the Moroccan Jewish community dates back to before the Islamic conquest of North Africa, and was significantly bolstered when Jews, fleeing the Inquisition in Spain, settled there in the late fifteenth century.

Neta elkayam biography of barack

It was a vibrant community, with its own customs, music, food, languages, and local dialects, and, following World War II—with a population of over a quarter of a million people—was the largest Jewish North African community.

But that changed in the late 1940s.

Inspired by Israel’s founding and the dream of returning to the holy land, and compounded by rising antisemitism, tensions, and riots in cities like Oujda and Jerada—not to mention the changing political dynamics that accompanied the end of colonialism—Jews began to emigrate en masse, and by 1967, only about 5,000 Jews remained in Morocco.

Most of those immigrants settled in Israel. They brought with them their unique culture, music, and traditions, and were settled in Israeli de