The Moroccan "Yizkor Book": Holocaust Memory, Intra-Jewish Marginalization, and Communal Empowerment in Israel.

This article examines the genre of community-oriented autobiographical memoirs written by Moroccan Jews who migrated to Israel in the 1950s, situating these narratives within the broader context of Holocaust memory and Jewish communal remembrance. Unlike the European Jewish Yizkor books—memorial volumes commemorating destroyed communities—these Moroccan memoirs serve to construct collective identity, cope with cultural marginalization by Israel's Ashkenazi-European elite, and assert the significance of Moroccan Jewish experiences of persecution and displacement. The authors integrate elements of Israeli Holocaust discourse, such as references to ghettos and pogroms, to frame the dissolution of Jewish life in Morocco during World War II and subsequent migration as traumatic yet formative events, while also emphasizing communal solidarity and nuanced Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco. These memoirs function both as tools for community empowerment and as a means to negotiate inclusion within Israel's dominant national narrative, reflecting ongoing tensions of identity, memory, and marginalization faced by Mizrahi Jews.