Moroccan Jews in France and Canada - (Canadian Studies) by Yolande Cohen

About the Book

In this book, the post-colonial migration of many thousand Jews from Morocco is analyzed. Based on oral histories and historical archives, these essays show the importance of colonialism and Zionism as disruptive forces that precipitated their massive exile and their settlement in France and Canada during the post-Shoah period.

Book Synopsis

In this volume are gathered articles published by Yolande Cohen and her team, offering for a first time a global perspective on Moroccan Jews post-colonial migrations to France and Canada. Having herself migrated from Morocco to Montreal, she is uniquely attuned to the difficulties of living through such a massive exile. Why did they leave Morocco? When did this migration happen? And how can we analyze their journey?

She explores the many vivid memories of departures that she encountered when collecting oral histories of migrants both in France and in Québec. She finds the deep attachment some of them have to their King and to Morocco, making it an exception in the Arab Muslim world. The main disruptive forces in the displacement of these populations were French colonialism and its emancipatory promises and Zionism, both messianic and modern.

After the establishment of the State of Israel and the subsequent Israel-Arab wars, most of them joined in the mass exodus of Jews from Arab lands, leaving their countries to go to Israel. With the ending of the French colonial empire and the decolonization process, a minority of westernized Jews went to France and to Canada, with the help of transnational Jewish organizations.

In Montréal, a city with a strong multi-ethnic Jewish Community, those migrants understood the crucial aspect of French language as an essential factor of integration. Yet, analyzing their trajectories and the words they used to represent their exile, allows us to understand the underlying traumas of their exiles.

About the Author

Yolande Cohen (Author)
Yolande Cohen is full professor of Contemporary History at the Université du Québec à Montréal and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Knight of Québec Ordre national, and of France Légion d'honneur, she has received an Honorific Doctorate from Université de Montréal and ACFAS André Laurendeau 2024 prize for human sciences, arts and letters. Fervent adept of oral history, she has shown the multiple facets of women's and gender history in France and Canada and developed a unique historical perspective of Moroccan Jews' complex migrations patterns in the post-Shoah period.