154 · Daniel J. Schroeter
deeply affected the Jews of the rural south: between 1952 and 1957, about
40,000 or half the southern communities were brought to Israel.^43
Oddly enough, it was a controversy over restricting immigration of
Moroccan Jews to Israel that sparked a renewed interest in Jewish farm-
ers. Overwhelmed by the masses of new immigrants and unprepared for
the huge influx of Moroccan Jews, the Israeli government began imple-
menting regulations based on a quota system called seleqṣeya (selection)
to restrict the numbers of less “desirable” immigrants, requiring medi-
cal exams before authorizing aliyah, seeking the largest percentage from
young people already involved in Zionist youth movements, breadwin-
ners under the age of thirty-five who could support their families, es-
tablishing quotas for people over the age of thirty-five, and demanding
that candidates commit themselves to agricultural labor for two years.
Although this policy was designated for other countries of Europe, Asia,
and Africa, it most affected Morocco with its impending mass emigration
on the eve of struggle for independence.^44 The seleqṣeya regulations cre-
ated a stir among the tightly knit communities of southern Morocco, who
were usually unwilling to leave behind family members and relatives
and were vigorously protested by North African Jews in Israel.^45 The
Israeli scholar of Jewish North Africa, H. Z. Hirschberg, witnessed the
impact of this policy during his visit to Morocco in 1955. Writing about
the mellah of Tamnugalt, he observed that in the hope of immigrating to
Israel, many Jews sold their houses and plots of land to neighbors, but
meanwhile the “selection” order was implemented, disqualifying many
candidates for emigration and leaving them in limbo without further
livelihoods.^46 It is in the context of restrictive immigration policies that
Jewish farmers in rural Morocco were “discovered,” in all likelihood with
the aim of improving their chances to qualify for aliyah.
In 1952, when the Jewish Agency began actively seeking recruits from
the rural communities, leading the aliyah department in Casablanca was
Ze ̓ev Khaklai.^47 Despite the stiff opposition of some of the Moroccan
Jewish religious leadership, representatives from rural villages came to
the Jewish Agency office in Casablanca asking to emigrate. In May, Khak-
lai went on his first systematic tour of the Atlas Mountains, discovering
that in comparison to the Jews in the urban ghettos, the village Jews were
more suitable for aliyah because of their relatively good health and ca-
pacity to work. He found that they wanted to emigrate, but only on the
condition that they all emigrate together without separating the elderly