There are 158, 532 Jews in Morocco, according to results of the 1960 census which were made public here today. The total shows 160, 032 Jews in the country, but the census was taken before this year’s catastrophic earthquake at Agadir, where 1, 500 Jews perished.
Of the total, 71, 175 Jews live in this city, constituting seven and one-half percent of the total population. Fifty-five percent of all the Jews in the country live in Casablanca. Marrakesh and Meknes. One small village, Tarfaya, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, listed one Jewish inhabitant.
Earlier figures showed there were 250,000 Jews in this country in 1947, and about 200,000 by 1952, The decrease in Jewish population is accounted for by the large-scale emigration of Moroccan Jews, that began in 1947. Most of the emigrants went to Israel, while some went to France. There are about 8,000 Moroccan Jews in Paris alone.
(The New York Times reported today from Rabat that Jews in Morocco feel that their freedom of movement is “gravely restricted” by the difficulties which the Moroccan authorities are making in the way of Jewish emigration from the country. Also by the fact that the authorities are refusing to renew passports of Moroccan Jews who had lived abroad more than a year–a measure which affects about 8,000 Moroccan Jews in Paris. The Jews in Morocco, the Times reports, also resent the fact that they cannot communicate with their relatives in Israel by mail or cable. They are also unhappy over a government order which forces Jewish schools to accept Moslem children.)
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
