The French Moroccan struggle for national autonomy has aggravated the position of the Jews in Morocco, according to a report presented today to the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Some of the Moroccan Jews, “more advanced economically and socially,” are assumed to be siding with France, while “large groups of Jews” support the nationalist movement, but the net result is that Jews often suffer attacks “for allegedly supporting one side or the other, and their position has become gravely unsettled,” the report states.
Pointing out that most of Morocco’s 240, 000 Jews who live in the larger cities are in ghetto districts, the report declares that only “the small upper class” has been granted French citizenship rights. The majority, according to the report, are “in a peculiar way dependent on the authority of the Sultan who rules under Moslem religious law which does not treat so-called ‘infidels’ with much consideration and imposes a good many restrictions on them.”
To gain support of world opinion, the report continues, nationalist parties declare that they are not anti-Jewish. But, the report points out, “whenever nationalist demonstrations against the French occur, Jews and Jewish shops are among those attacked. A number of Jews have been killed, and much Jewish property has been destroyed. Although the French the Jewish military forces in Morocco have tried to suppress outbreaks, they were unable to protect the Jewish population adequately.”
Declaring that it is impossible to foresee how long the present tensions will persist and what further outbreaks may take place, the report states: “It is under the pressure of this dangerous position that an ever-increasing number of Moroccan Jews is becoming increasingly and anxiously interested in immigration to Israel whose government and Parliament are now devising means of taking in as many of them as possible.” The report adds that in other North African territories under French jurisdiction “the position of the Jews is much better.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
