Morocco has been a rare example of a Muslim Arabic-speaking country that protected its Jewish population, with one of its rulers earning respect and gratitude from many generations of Jews.

Eighty-four years ago, in June, the Moroccan royal house of the Alaouite dynasty saved a quarter of million Jews from extermination.

In 1940, France fell and its collaborationist regime received orders from Nazi Germany to send the Jews on its territories to death camps. When the Vichy government passed those orders to Morocco – a French protectorate – its 30-year-old nominal ruler, sultan Mohammed ben Youssef, openly defied the colonial power. 

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Mohammed wasn’t supposed to sit on the Moroccan throne – his elder brother was entitled to inherit the role after the death of their father Yusef ben Hassan in 1927. The French, however, picked up the younger brother who was only 18 in a hope that he would act as an obedient puppet, easy to manipulate.

They proved wrong.

As many as 250,000 Jews lived in Morocco at that time and most of them were integrated into the Muslim dominated society. Though antisemitism existed, the Jewish community was not actively persecuted. It was actually allied with the ruling Alaouite dynasty and benefited from the royals’ protection. 

When the Vichy government started implementing the Nazi “final solution” decrees on Jews, Morocco – along with other French colonies – received orders to deport its Jews to labor concentration camps, where they would be eventually killed. 

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“There are no Jews in Morocco. There are only Moroccan subjects,” Mohammed was famously quoted as saying by contemporary historians. “… it is my duty to protect them against aggression.”

The sultan secretly gathered the Jewish leaders at his palace to assure them that all Jews in his country would be treated as Moroccans, his subjects, and none would be deported or prosecuted based on race or ethnicity.