Zionism and the transmigration of Moroccan Jews through transit camps in France

• In Event: Multilayered Israel-Diaspora Relations: a Sephardi-Mizrahi Lens

Abstract

North-African Jews transmigration for Israel was managed and organized by several Zionist organizations working in Morocco well before the establishment of the state. While the pogroms of Oujda and Jerrada also played a role in their departure, with 80 000 jews leaving their home between 1948 and 1952, most of these populations went through transit camps in France before boarding on boats to Haifa. My parents and Cohen family, uncle and aunts and their families, were amongst them.

What were these migrants’ routes, from their departure from Méknès in the summer of 1948 to their arrival in the Marseille region and departure again and settlement in the suburbs of Haifa later that year? As for my parents, this journey brought them to a transit camp in France the same year, where they spent many years working for the Jewish Agency, in camp of Aubagne, before returning to Méknès in 1953.

What can we learn from their (temporary) stay in the transit camps located in southern France and from their circulation within this diasporic field?

Tracing those migrations routes implies to question the agency of those migrants as well as the role played by the Jewish Agency and its Ashkenazi emissaries in this population relocation in Israel.

My family’s experience of Zionism encompasses a complex web of memories and history. While my
maternal Berdugo family was not particularly attracted to Zionism and was vocal in claiming a strong attachment to its Moroccan identity, my father’s Cohen family had a deep longing to messianic Zionism, which very early on brought most of its members to move to Israel. I also use extensive archival material found at the French National Archives regarding the administration of those camps.

The paper outlines the many encounters these migrants had with Messianic Zionism, Modern Zionism, Zionist utopia, and Zionist agents, in Morocco, France and Israel, and analyze the radical disruption and displacement of these large population in the light of the post-Shoah, post-colonial period.

Author

• Yolande Cohen, UQAM