Moroccan Jews Celebrate Direct Flights to Israel as Diplomatic Ties Strengthen

In a statement to the AFP, Fanny Mergui, a Moroccan Jew living in Casablanca, said that Moroccan Jews "are already packing their bags" to board direct flights to Israel. She says she is happy that the five-hour journey will be served by direct flights.

The Israeli-Moroccan rapprochement is a "miracle", said the Moroccan Jewish singer Suzanne Harroch, who was forced to wait 14 hours in transit at a Paris airport on her last visit to Israel. "A large part of my family lives there. [...] I look forward to seeing them more and more often," she said.

Avraham Avizemer, who left Casablanca at a young age and has lived in Israel for decades, is delighted that the restoration of relations between the two countries will allow children and grandchildren to return home without difficulty. Businessman George Sebat, 56, says he is "very happy and very optimistic" about the Morocco-Israel normalization. He also highlighted the positive impacts for tourism and the economy.

In Israel, the some 700,000 Jews of Moroccan origin have often maintained very strong ties with the kingdom, its Darija dialect, its culinary and musical traditions. Many of them left with their families in the early 1950s, after the creation of the Hebrew state. According to estimates, Morocco had hosted the largest Jewish community in North Africa (250,000 to 300,000 souls). It now has less than 3,000. The kingdom hopes for an influx of Israeli tourists to boost its tourism, which has been severely affected by the Covid-19 health crisis.