Expanding the dimensions of Moroccan (Jewish) migration: postcolonial perspectives from Venezuela

ABSTRACT

Analyses of the migrations from Morocco in the second half of the twentieth century tend to view them as part of a larger pattern of South-to-North postcolonial circular migration, while Jewish Moroccan migration is deemed an exceptional national phenomenon, unrelated to the study of these global developments. Yet, Jewish migration from northern Morocco to Venezuela was characterised and influenced by a number of sub-regional, ethno-religious, linguistic, and even racial peculiarities, whose analyses may broaden our perspective on the global dynamics of Moroccan postcolonial migration: for example, the status of northern Morocco and Venezuela as a hub for Spanish settlers, Venezuela’s post-1945 open-door policy toward European immigration, and the Judeo-Spanish backgrounds of immigrants from Morocco. In the absence of bilateral migration agreements between Morocco and Venezuela, examining Moroccan Jewish migration to the latter can also shed light on the prominent role of informal networks in shaping global migration from North Africa, and explain why Muslim Moroccans did not immigrate to Venezuela even as many were migrating elsewhere. A focus on grassroots histories of this sort may help advance the scholarship beyond the narratives of mass minority departure, labour migration, and integration that usually treat Morocco and other countries of emigration as homogeneous national units.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration networks
• migration bridgeheads
• Sephardi diaspora
• North Africa
• Jewish historiography
• South America

Acknowledgement

I thank my fellow members of the ‘Jewish Life in Modern Islamic context’ annualfellowship group at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, for their valuable inputs on an earlier draftof this paper. In addition, I thank the two anonymous reviewers from the journal for their valuable comments, as well as Matthew Berkman, Patrick Martin, Piera Rossetto and Roy Shukron for their help in preparing the final draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 These interviews are stored in the Division of Oral History at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The interviewing project number is 213. The specific interviews used for this study include: an interview with Moisés Garzón-Serfaty, held by Leonardo Senkman (interview number 12), an interview with Isaac Sananes, conducted by Rachel Gemer (interview number 44), and with Perla Sultan, conducted by Merche Bendayan (interview number 45)

2 Three pioneering exceptions that did include Morocco in the broader story of Ottoman and MENA migrations to South and Central America are Cohen 2012, 15–23; Juan José Vagni 2012; Epstein 2008.

3 I thank Michal Ben-Yaakov for drawing my attention to this document. This document is stored at the HIAS Archives at The YIVO Archive, New York, organized under the title United-HIAS-Service, Main Office, NY, 1954–1967; RG 245.8, I-363, box 612.

4 These interviews are stored at the Division of Oral History at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The interviewing project number is 213. The specific interviews used for this study include: an interview with Moisés Garzón-Serfaty, held by Leonardo Senkman (interview number 12), an interview with Isaac Sananes, conducted by Rachel Gemer (interview number 44), and with Perla Sultan, conducted by Merche Bendayan (interview number 45)

5 This and the following communications are stored at The Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, Call no. Ven/84.