72: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging with Alma Heckman

Jewish History Matters

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Alma Heckman joins us to talk about twentieth-century Moroccan Jews, and especially Moroccan Jewish communism and its broader politics, which is the focus of her recent book The Sultan’s Communists: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging.

Listen in as we dive into the history of Moroccan Jewish politics, the development of Zionism, communism, colonialism, and nationalism in Morocco and North Africa at large, and why it’s important to think through the choices and agency that Jews in Morocco and beyond have had in determining their fate and politics throughout the twentieth century.

Alma Rachel Heckman is an Assistant Professor of History and the Neufeld-Levin Chair of Holocaust Studies at the University of California–Santa Cruz. She is the author of ‌The Sultan’s Communists: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging, which was published by Stanford University Press in 2021.