The Egoz and Operation Yachin: the departure of Moroccan Jewry

The prelude. 2 March 1956—Moroccan independence; emigration to Israel was suspended, then formally banned from 1956–57. The clandestine departures were run by the Mossad unit ha-Misgeret ("the Framework," established 1955). On the night of 10–11 January 1961 the vessel Egoz (ex-Pisces) sank some ten miles off Al Hoceima in the Rif, on her thirteenth voyage, at about three in the morning. Lost were 43 Moroccan Jewish emigrants from ten families, one Israeli—the radio operator Ḥaim Sarfati—and Spanish crew; totals of 44 and 46 both circulate, and the Israeli commemorative figure is 44. Only the captain and two crewmen survived. An Israeli report declassified in 1993 attributed the loss to a chain of operational failures, including a communications breakdown with the Paris monitoring station. In February 1961 Hassan II acceded, and the Egoz disaster with the pressure that followed forced a change of policy.

Operation Yachin is named for one of the two pillars of the Temple: emigration as a pillar of the state. The dates are November 1961—spring 1964; it was run by Alex Gattmon for ha-Misgeret and the Mossad together with the Jewish Agency. The channel was HIAS, for deniability; people left openly through Casablanca and Tangier, and onward through France and Italy. The terms: $500,000 down; $100 per emigrant for the first fifty thousand and $250 thereafter; the total cost, borne by HIAS, is estimated at some $50 million.

The number who left must be given as a range: "between ninety and ninety-seven thousand" in some accounts, "almost ninety thousand" in others, 97,005 in some Israeli versions and about eighty thousand in others. Print 80,000–97,000 and note that no audited figure is public. The operation did not stop because of Moroccan obstruction: departures fell off because negative reports about absorption conditions in Israel reached Morocco—the maʿabarot, the development towns, the Wadi Salib disturbances of 1959.

The community's size: 1948—some 250,000–265,000; early 1961—162,420; 1967—53,000–60,000; 1971—35,000; 2012—two to two and a half thousand; 2025—about a thousand. The departure rates by city under Yachin: Tangier 17.9%, Casablanca 54.5%, Marrakesh 77.2%—the gradient tracks class, francisation and Alliance schooling exactly.

Three corrections. Yachin was not a clandestine rescue from persecution: the clandestine phase was 1956–61, to which the Egoz belongs, while Yachin itself was a negotiated, paid, semi-public transfer with Hassan II's consent, with Moroccan passports and departure through the main ports; two different operations are constantly merged. "Israel bought the Moroccan Jews" is a contested framing: the payments are documented, their characterisation is not—Moroccan officials presented them as indemnity for the loss of a taxpaying, skilled population and for administrative costs, while Israeli and organisational accounts describe an exit levy; both readings should be given. And "Moroccan Jewry went to Israel" is incomplete: a large part—the francophone, Alliance-educated bourgeoisie of Casablanca, Rabat and Tangier—went to France (Paris, Marseille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Nice) and Canada (Montreal, Toronto, from the 1950s), and later to Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and the United States. The Israel-only account erases a quarter to a third of this diaspora and misrepresents its class structure.

And last: in November 1992 Hassan II authorised the repatriation of the Egoz dead; the covert operation "Ayelet ha-Shaḥar" of 29 November 1992 brought them to Israel, and in December of that year they were reburied on Mount Herzl.