Tag Archives: Moroccan Jews

Jew of the Week: Isser Harel

Father of Israeli Intelligence

Israel “Isser” Halperin (1912-2003) was born in what is today Vitebsk, Belarus to a wealthy Jewish-Russian family. His father was a rabbi who had studied at the famed Volozhin Yeshiva, while his mother’s family ran a large vinegar factory. Following the Russian Revolution, they lost their business and the Communists confiscated all of their property. The family eventually fled to Latvia and were robbed along the way, arriving with absolutely nothing. Young Isser realized Jews would never be safe anywhere, and needed their own national home. He soon joined a Zionist youth group, and at 16 decided to make aliyah. The following year, he faked his age to get a British visa. Arriving in Israel, he joined a kibbutz and there met his soon-to-be wife. The couple later opened their own orange-packing company. In 1942, Isser changed his last name to the Hebrew Harel (“Mountain of God”), and joined the pre-IDF Haganah, which was working together with the British auxiliary forces to fight the Nazis. Harel took an officer’s course in intelligence, then joined the Haganah’s “Shai” intelligence unit. He eventually became the main aid to Shai’s chief, as well as the head of its Tel-Aviv office. With the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, Harel co-founded Shin Bet, Israel’s “FBI”, and built it from the ground up. In 1952, he became the director of Mossad, and over the next 11 years at its helm, turned it into one of the world’s most elite intelligence agencies. In 1955, he arranged meetings between Egypt’s Nasser and Ben-Gurion and nearly achieved a peace deal. Meanwhile, he convinced Morocco’s king to let 80,000 Moroccan Jews immigrate to Israel. It was Harel who obtained copies of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s critical 1956 “Secret Speech” denouncing his predecessor Stalin and marking an important shift in the USSR. He shared the speech with the CIA. Harel also exposed a number of Soviet agents. In 1960, Harel planned and led the successful mission to capture Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. He later wrote an account of the mission, The House on Garibaldi Street, which became a bestseller and was adapted to a 1979 film of the same name. In 1963, Harel oversaw Operation Damocles which targeted German rocket scientists working for Egypt. When Mossad mail bombs killed innocent bystanders, Harel resigned from his position. He later joined Ben-Gurion’s new political party and was elected to the Knesset in 1969, serving until 1973. After retiring, he turned to writing and published ten popular books, both fiction and non-fiction. It has been said that “No one terrified Israel’s enemies like Isser Harel”.

Important Thoughts on Palestinian Refugees

Words of the Week

The best way to understand antisemitism is to see it as a virus. Viruses attack the human body, but the body itself has an immensely sophisticated defence, the human immune system. How, then, do viruses survive and flourish? By mutating. Antisemitism mutates, and in so doing defeats the immune systems set up by cultures to protect themselves against hatred. There have been three such mutations in the past two thousand years, and we are living through the fourth.
– Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Jew of the Week: André Azoulay

Advisor to Moroccan Kings

André Azoulay (b. 1941) was born in Morocco to a traditional Sephardic Jewish family. He moved to Paris to study and, after completing degrees in economics and international relations, got a job working for Paribas Bank. He stayed at the company for 22 years, rising to the rank of executive vice-president, overseeing the bank’s operations in the Middle East and North Africa. In 1991, Azoulay left Paribas to work for the Moroccan monarchy. He became senior advisor to King Hassan II, and was put in charge of reforming Morocco’s struggling economy. He ran a program of privatization and deregulation that significantly boosted Morocco’s financial position, and brought billions of dollars in new investments to the country. Azoulay is also an international ambassador for Morocco and works to improve relations between Morocco and other countries, including Israel. He has participated in Arab-Israeli peace talks, and played an important role in the Abraham Accords. Azoulay is president of the Foundation of Three Cultures and Three Religions to boost interfaith dialogue and build bridges between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. He sits on the boards of several non-profits and educational institutions. Azoulay has received many awards, including Morocco’s Commandeur dans l’Ordre du Trône, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Sephardi Federation and, most recently, an Israeli Presidential Medal of Honour. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said “Azoulay has made an extraordinary contribution to Moroccan Jewry, the Jewish world, and the State of Israel, in cultivating and preserving relations with Morocco over the years, preserving Jewish heritage in Morocco, and providing support and advice to Israeli leaders in their quest for peace in the Middle East. His vision of establishing friendly and peaceful relations between Israel and Morocco was realized in the Abraham Accords and his influence is evident in every area of these relations.” Azoulay continues to serve as senior advisor to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI today, and plays an active role in his hometown of Essaouira, where he works to preserve and promote its history and culture.

How Sephardic Jews Shaped the World

Words of the Week

The Jewish people is permeated by an ancient and historically confirmed belief that nations who subject it to torture and persecution sooner or later feel the full measure of God’s punishing wrath. At the same time, God Almighty sends his blessing to those peoples who stand by the Jews in their time of peril.
– Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan

Jew of the Week: Shimon Lavi

Father of Libyan Jewry

Shimon ibn Lavi (1486-1585) was born in Spain and exiled with his family during the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. The family settled in Fez, Morocco, where Lavi studied to become a rabbi. He then sought to make aliyah to the Holy Land, but was kidnapped along the way near Tripoli by Arab brigands. After being ransomed, he found the Tripoli Jewish community in need of a rabbi so he stayed there. It was Lavi who opened the city’s first yeshivas, established a beit din, and went on to make the city one of the largest Jewish communities in North Africa. He is often credited with being the “father of Tripoli Jews”. Rabbi Lavi was the community’s official representative to the government, and served as the Ottoman governor’s personal physician. He was also a major Kabbalist, alchemist, and mystic. In fact, he wrote the popular song “Bar Yochai”, in honour of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai whose teachings would become the Zohar (the primary “textbook” of Kabbalah) and who is celebrated on Lag b’Omer. Lavi wrote a commentary on the Zohar called Ketem Paz, as well as a dictionary translating some of the Zohar’s most cryptic words. He was widely known as a miracle worker, and was revered by Jews and Muslims alike (the latter refer to him as “Ibn Limam”), with his tomb serving as a major pilgrimage site in Libya.

Lag b’Omer Begins Tonight!

How To Celebrate Lag b’Omer

Video: Secret Origins of Lag b’Omer

Words of the Week

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
– Carl Sagan