Organized Zionism, the 19th century ethnocultural nationalist movement to establish a Jewish state through the colonization of Palestine, came to Morocco from Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. During the period of French and Spanish colonial rule, it spread slowly in Moroccan Jewish communities, especially in Tangier and the Spanish zone in the north, through Zionist associations and advocacy, as well as through Zionist literature and propaganda. The small but effective Zionist movement in Morocco was organized and led locally by a faction of secular, urban Jews educated in elite European educational systems, especially the schools of the (AIU), and it had considerable support and sometimes direct intervention from Zionist organizations abroad.
The influence of Zionism in urban centers and along the coasts was very different from its influence in rural areas in the hinterland, such as villages in the Atlas Mountains, Sous valley, Draa valley, and pre-Sahara, and it appealed to different groups for different reasons. Urban, elite Moroccan Jews were divided on the question of Zionism: there were those who supported modern secular Zionism; there were those who were invested in the project of Westernization and who saw Zionism as an obstacle to achieving integration with the Europeans; and there were those who saw Zionism as an obstacle to a favored Jewish-Muslim alliance and coexistence in Morocco. The latter school of thought is perhaps most pronounced in the post-independence organization al-Wifaq. Scholars have seen Zionism and the Moroccan Nationalist Movement in the years leading up to Moroccan independence in 1956 as two nationalist movements in competition for the membership of Moroccan Jews, particularly those living outside of urban areas, characterizing both as seeing this population as 'theirs.' For many rural Moroccan Jews, in addition to economic reasons, the religious importance of the Land of Israel in their beliefs had a major role in their decision to emigrate.
Only after the establishment of the State of Israel in Palestine in 1948 was there significant Zionist emigration from Morocco. Emigration, organized and facilitated by Zionist groups from outside of Morocco, increased significantly in the period before Moroccan independence in 1956. From 1949 to 1956, Cadima, a migration apparatus administered by Jewish Agency and Mossad Le'Aliyah agents sent from Israel, organized the migration of over 60,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel. From 1961 to 1964, almost 90,000 Moroccan Jews were migrated to Israel in Operation Yachin, an Israeli-led initiative in which the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society paid King Hassan II a sum per capita for each Moroccan Jew who migrated to Israel. Although Moroccan Jews seeking to migrate to Israel faced restrictions from both the Moroccan and Israeli governments at different times, roughly two thirds of the Jews of Morocco eventually migrated to Israel.
The Kingdom of Morocco formally normalized relations with the State of Israel in 2020 when it joined the Abraham Accords brokered by the United States during the first presidency of Donald Trump.
History
1900s and 1910s Organized Zionism appeared in Morocco in the period just before colonization, around 1900–1912 due to the influence of European Zionist activists, with interest in Zionism in this early period mostly limited to secular coastal elites, affluent merchants, and a number of influential rabbis, especially in Fes. The Israeli historian Michael Laskier cites some early sources of Zionism in Moroccan coastal cities, which had more direct contact with Europe as well as populations of Jews who received a European education, especially through the : in Tetuan, where the Russian physician Dr. Ya'akov Barliawsky settled and established the Shivat-Zion ( 'Return to Zion') Association around 1900; in Mogador (now Essaouira), where an association called Sha'are Zion might have been the first to popularize the Zionist shekel in North Africa (Sha'are Zion sent 200 shekelim to the Zionist Federation in Cologne, allowing them to send two delegates to the Zionist Congress, though they did not); and in Asfi, where an association called Ahavat-Zion was founded. In 1908, the Hibbat-Zion Society was founded in Fes, the inland capital, by 20 leading rabbis and notables. It was in contact with the Zionist Federation in Cologne, popularized the Zionist shekel, and expanded its activity to nearby Sefrou and Meknes. According to the historian Zvi Yehuda, these early associations followed instructions from the Zionist Organization (called the World Zionist Organization after 1960), which did not initiate or structure Zionist activity in Morocco as it did in other Muslim countries.
Zionist activity in Morocco came to a halt after the formal establishment of French and Spanish colonial rule in Morocco in 1912, with the activity of local Zionist associations mostly limited to the dissemination of Zionist literature and the popularization of the shekel. The French government saw Zionism as an ally of its British imperial rivals. Zvi Yahuda credits the (FSF), the London Office of the Zionist Organization, and Abraham Yahuda, then lecturing at the University of Madrid, with renewing Zionist activity in Morocco after World War I.
The Balfour Declaration and San Remo conference were celebrated among Moroccan Zionists and inspired them to strengthen their connections with European Zionism. After the Balfour Declaration, a man named Joseph Levy of the Maccabean Land Company of London went to Fes to distribute Zionist literature and sell land in Palestine to some Fessi Jews. In 1919, the Tetuani Rabbi , a pillar of Zionism in the Spanish zone, published an article in support of Zionism in El Eco de Tetuán, a Spanish newspaper, in which he fuses political and religious Zionism, describes Zion (Palestine) as the birthplace of the Jewish nation, and describes Zionism as "the idea of a people living in their free homeland." In March of the same year, Rabbi Pinhas Khalifa Ha-Cohen Azogh led a Zionist office in Marrakesh, from which leaflets from the were translated into Arabic and distributed, and from which Zionist fundraising efforts were organized. Rabbi Pinhas Cohen collected money from the Jews in Marrakesh and in April, May, and June expanded his fundraising to Jewish communities in the Sous region south of Mogador. He sent the money collected, about 2000 francs, from the Jews of Marrakesh to the Jewish National Fund bureau in Paris, at which time he also made contact with the Zionist Organization. Through the Maccabean Land Company, Cohen also sold 36 plots of land in Palestine to Jews in Morocco, who were told years later when they attempted to move and settle there that the land had been reserved for Eastern European Jews to settle.
The French Résident Général Hubert Lyautey, safeguarding his , began monitoring Zionist activities and propaganda in Morocco, with the approval of his advisor Yaḥyā Zagury, inspector general of Jewish institutions under the French protectorate.
1920s
In the early and mid-1920s, Morocco received envoys from the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod, Zionist organizations established in Europe fundraising to support and establish Jewish settlements in Palestine. Visitors included Avraham Elmalih, who represented the Sephardic Zionists in Jerusalem, as well as Nathan Halpern and Ariel Bension of Keren Hayesod. They encouraged Moroccan Zionists to set up more associations and intensify the activity of the existing ones, but they encountered difficulties in soliciting donations and support from Northern Moroccan Jews in cities such as Tetuan and Tangier. According to Ariel Bension, a Jewish Palestinian delegate of the Jewish Foundation Fund sent to Morocco, the main reasons for resistance to Zionism among Northern Moroccan Jews were that they saw it as an irreligious movement and not concerned with the interests of Sephardim. The Zionists in Spanish Morocco elected to send Ariel Bension as their delegate to the Twelfth Zionist Congress in 1921, marking the first time Moroccan Jews were represented at any Zionist Congress.
Samuel-Daniel Levy established the Société Maghen David for the propagation of Hebrew in 1920.Nacik, Lhaj Mohamed. "'Bulletin de renseignements sur la colonie juive du Maroc et sur le mouvement sioniste. Le 31 Janvier 1948,”(Document inédit)." Hespéris-Tamuda 58, no. 1 (2023): 273-354.
Zionism was met with disinterest in the early period in the north and its advocates had a difficult time garnering donations and support. It was seen as irreligious and that it did not consider the interests of the Sephardim. High Commissioner General José Sanjurjo and Plenipotentiary Minister Diego Saavedra were supportive, citing Spain's connection with the Sephardic Jews.
Colonial policy In 1923, French colonial authorities allowed Zionists in Morocco to establish a Moroccan section to the , which acted as an umbrella organization for Zionist associations in the territory under French control and in Tangier.
Officially, French and Spanish colonial authorities held positions against Zionism in Morocco. The French shut down Or ha-Ma'arav, a Zionist paper published by the Hadida brothers in Casablanca and in May 1924 they banned the Zionist Organization's Hebrew publication ha-Olam. The French position against Zionism was not ideological (France supported the Balfour Declaration and the decisions made at the San Remo conference) as much as it was politically pragmatic due to pressure from the Muslim majority against the foreign propaganda.
1930s The urban, elite Moroccan Jews were divided on the question of Zionism: there were those formed by the AUI who were invested in the project of Westernization, Europeanization, and especially Gallicization who saw Zionism as an obstacle to achieving integration with the Europeans; there were those who supported modern secular Zionism; and there were those who favored a Jewish-Muslim alliance in Morocco, perhaps most pronounced in the organization al-Wifaq in the early 1950s. Newspapers partial to the cause disseminated Zionist information and propaganda: in the Spanish zone there was the and in the French zone there was the Casablanca newspaper L'Avenir Illustré (1926–1940)—established by Jonathan Thursz, a Polish Jew with a British passport who took it upon himself to represent Moroccan Jews at World Zionist Congresses (in 1925, 1931, 1938...). The Zionist press in Morocco was challenged by the AIU's L'Union Marocaine (1932–1940) and by Muhammad al-Kholti in the Moroccan nationalist newspaper L'Action du Peuple.
When a scouting group raised the Zionist flag in a parade in Tangier in 1934, the matter almost clashes between Muslims and Jews in the city.
There was an aliyah office established in Meknes in the mid-1930s and directed by Meir Amar to facilitate migration to Palestine with immigration certificates, but there was no substantial migration from Morocco at this time.