King Mohammed VI, King of Morocco has endorsed a reorganization of the Jewish community in Morocco, a component of the national culture, during a council of ministers meeting he exceptionally chaired at the Royal Palace in Rabat.
At the end of the council meeting, Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit presented the monarch with new measures concerning the organisation of the Moroccan Jewish community, according to a statement by the royal palace spokesman, Abdelhak Lamrini.
According to statement issued after the meeting, these measures, “elaborated in application of high royal instructions”, come to consecrate the Hebrew tributary as a component of the Moroccan culture rich in its multiple tributaries.
The Moroccan Jewish community, estimated today at 3,000 people, remains the largest in North Africa, despite a massive departure to Israel after the creation of the Hebrew state in 1948.
Present since Antiquity, strengthened in the 15th century by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, this community reached 250,000 souls at the end of the 1940s. The new provisions were drawn up after consultations with representatives and personalities of the Jewish community, according to the Royal communiqué.
They establish a National Council of the Moroccan Jewish Community, in charge of "the management of the community's affairs and the safeguarding of the heritage and cultural and religious influence of Judaism and its authentic Moroccan values".
They also provide for the creation of a Commission of Moroccan Jews abroad which "works to consolidate the links of Moroccan Jews established abroad with their country of origin, to strengthen their cultural and religious influence and to defend the supreme interests of the Kingdom". The 700,000 or so Israelis of Moroccan descent have often kept very strong links with their country of origin.
The statement added that a Foundation of Moroccan Judaism was created, whose mission is "to promote and watch over the intangible Jewish-Moroccan heritage, to safeguard its traditions and to preserve its specificities".
This new organisation of Moroccan Judaism comes at a time when the rapprochement between the Cherifian Kingdom and the Hebrew State is continuing at an accelerated pace.
Israel and Morocco re-established diplomatic relations in December 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, a normalisation process between the Jewish state and several Arab countries, supported by the former US administration of Donald Trump