1948 — Oujda and Jerada

On June 7 and 8, 1948, mobs swept through the Moroccan towns of Oujda and Jerada, attacking the Jewish quarters. More than forty people were killed in two days of violence that fell on communities whose roots in Morocco stretched back for centuries, through generations of life in the mellahs.

The violence marked a turning point. Within months, tens of thousands of Moroccan Jews began the first great wave of emigration to the new state of Israel, ending centuries of life in Morocco. Two towns' terrible days thus became something larger: the beginning of a departure that would reshape a community and empty quarters long inhabited.