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Rabat – Many Jewish families have emigrated from Morocco in the past decades, leaving the North African country with only 2,000 Jews out of the 15.2 million living across the world, according to new data compiled by the Jewish Agency.
On Sunday, the agency said that around 27,000 Jews live in Arab and Muslim countries.
Turkey is currently home to 14,500 Jews, while Iran hosts 9,500, according to the same data.
Before Israel became a state in 1948, Morocco hosted as many as 200,000 Jews.
However, after Morocco gained independence from France in 1956, 8 years after the creation of Israel, most of the North African country’s Jewish population emigrated to Israel, Canada, and France.
Despite the heavy emigration of Jews from Morocco, the Jewish Agency’s figures show that the North African country is still home to the largest Jewish diaspora in North Africa.
Tunisia, for example, currently hosts 1,000 Jews out of the total.
Thousands of Jewish diaspora members also visit Morocco annually to celebrate Jewish holidays, such as Mimouna.
With the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel, projections are that the number of Israeli tourists visiting Moroccan cities will double in the coming months.
With the opening of direct flights, Morocco expects the number of Jewish tourists to reach 200,000 per year.
Israel is naturally the country with the largest number of Jews, with an estimated 6.9 million said to currently reside in the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, around 8.3 million of Jews live outside Israel, including six million in the US alone.
According to the Jewish Agency’s data, France is the third country with the largest Jewish population, with 446,000.
Canada hosts 393,5000 Jews, followed by the UK (292,000), Argentina (175,000), Russa (150,000), Germany (118,000), Australia (118,000), and Brazil (91,500).
