New Book Exposes Discrimination Against Moroccan Jews in Early Israel

"If you want my advice, stay in North Africa," is written in one of the letters used by historian Shay Hazkani to show the extent of the discrimination suffered by Moroccan Jews who arrived in Israel after World War II. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has consulted this book which contains private letters from Moroccan soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In these letters, the Moroccan members of the IDF denounced the discrimination they suffered, the injustice suffered by the Sephardic Jews of Morocco at the hands of the Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Europe.

"The European Jews, who have suffered greatly from Nazism, consider themselves a superior race and the Sephardic [Mizrahi] Jews as belonging to an inferior race," wrote a Moroccan soldier to his parents. "Instead of [showing] gratitude, they treat us like savages..." In a letter, another soldier reports: "The Poles control everything," and "95% of people here are dissatisfied and would just like to return where they came from." Many of them preferred the French Empire, which at the time still controlled a large part of Morocco. The "Pole thinks the Moroccans are savages and thieves," wrote a soldier, who expressed his desire to return to Casablanca.

Israel was "worse than prison," described a Haaretz correspondent, stressing how European immigrants exploited Moroccan Jews in every way and gave "the best and easiest jobs to the Poles." According to the IDF, 70% of Moroccan soldiers enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces wanted to return to Morocco, while 76% recommended that their relatives in Morocco stay there.