Raphael Israeli

Back to Nowhere: Moroccan Jews in Dream, Nostalgia and Reality Raphael Israeli

There is a considerable Moroccan Jewish community in Israel which, since its massive immigration to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s has come to constitute the second largest in Israel, just trailing the Russian one. Originally a community of 300,000, the largest in any Arab or Muslim country, most of whom have moved to Israel (some have elected to resettle in France and Quebec), and have grown, together with their descendants over 3 generations, into a large and thriving population of almost one million (one sixth of the general inhabitants of the country). This volume sums up the tribulations and rejection of the Jews by the host Muslim culture of Morocco and the private experiences of a young boy growing amidst those difficulties and finally electing to abandon all and immigrate to fledgling Israel, to be followed by his entire family, thus exemplifying the fate of most Moroccan Jewry.