A legislative petition calling for Moroccan citizenship to be granted to all children and grandchildren of Moroccan Jews has been submitted to the country’s House of Representatives.
Petition 321183 was submitted by Moroccan citizen El Houssain Benmessaoud to Rachid Talbi Alami, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Nadia Bouaida, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on April 30, 2026.
This is actually the second time the petition has been submitted, but the previous time (in 2024) it failed to obtain the requisite signatures to be considered. The National Gateway for Citizen Participation has started receiving signatures for this second iteration.
At its core, the petition asks that Moroccan nationality be granted to all Moroccan Jews who previously renounced it, and to all their children and grandchildren.
It noted that many Moroccan Jews had to emigrate (individually and collectively) for economic, religious, and other reasons, and their descendants abroad therefore lost Moroccan nationality by descent over generations.
The petition says that Moroccan Jews have been an integral component of the nation, historically united under the monarchy, and that Moroccan identity persists in the lives of Moroccan Jews abroad.
It asks that any applicants who retain other nationalities (dual citizenship) should this legislation come into existence.
It also calls for the creation of an independent national body for Jewish religious affairs, and the protection of Moroccan Jewish communities from discrimination or attacks (inside and outside Morocco).
Not all Moroccan Jews support the idea
However, not all Jews in Morocco support the idea. Jacky Kadoch, President of the Jewish Community of Marrakech, told Sky News Arabia that descendants of Moroccan Jewish emigrants do not face any difficulties in obtaining citizenship or a passport, and that there is no need for a petition or a new law. He also said that Jews are Moroccan citizens who have the same rights as all other citizens, regardless of religion, and that those promoting this issue are “simply trying to stir chaos.”
Kadoch said he personally has a list of more than 300 grandchildren who have obtained Moroccan citizenship without issues in recent years.
It is true that Jews of Moroccan origin who want to obtain Moroccan citizenship can do so because the right to Moroccan citizenship applies by filiation up to fourth-generation descendants. Additionally, in July 2011, an amendment was introduced to the Moroccan constitution, in which Judaism was mentioned as part of the Moroccan heritage.
It therefore appears that a lot of the focus of the petition is on simplification of the process (for example, it calls for the creation of a national online portal to manage applications) and more work on integration (it asks that the state integrate descendants into economic, political, cultural, and social life).
An estimated 2,000 Jews live in Morocco. A significant number of Jews of Moroccan descent now live in Israel: About 500,000 to one million Israelis have Moroccan ancestry (roughly 10% of the population), making it the second-largest ethnic group in Israel.
