'Morocco is safer for Jews than Europe, US,' says Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto during spiritual tour

In Morocco, Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto remarked that the situation of the Jewish people is better than in the US and Europe as he embarked on a spiritual visit to the North African kingdom.

In Essaouira, a coastal Moroccan city with a rich Jewish history, Yoshiyahu arrived to pay respects at the grave of Rabbi Chaim Pinto (the Great), who passed away in 1845.

During his visit, the Israeli-Moroccan Rabbi, a kabbalist with a sizable and international following, also led a prayer "for peace for all Jews in the world and particularly for the citizens of Israel, engaged in a terrible war on the southern and northern borders of the country."

"We all pray for peace to soon come upon the land of Israel and throughout the entire world," he added, referring to the war on Gaza, in which Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians so far, mainly women and children. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led 7 October attack stands at 1,139.

This is not Rabbi Pinto's first visit to Morocco. In 2017, he moved to Morocco shortly after his release from prison in Israel for bribing senior police.

In 2019, Pinto was officially sworn in at Casablanca's main synagogue as the chief rabbinical judge in Morocco, the top Jewish legal authority in the country.

Morocco was the second stop in the Rabbi's worldwide spiritual tour, according to Israeli media outlet I24.

The controversial Rabbi started his tour in New York last month, where he celebrated the festival of Purim with thousands of his followers. After Morocco, he will continue his tour to Europe, starting in Poland.

However, for Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, no place is as safe for Jewish people today as the North African kingdom.

"The situation of Jews in Morocco is better than that in New York and Europe, thanks to the leadership of King Mohammed VI and the security efforts," he said as quoted by Israeli media on 1 April.

Morocco is home to some 3000 Jews, the largest Jewish population in North Africa. Once, it counted a quarter million, but most of the population has immigrated gradually since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Moroccan Jews and Jews of Moroccan ancestry make up about 1 million out of Israel's 9.1 million population in 2020.

Nevertheless, Morocco's Jewish community has preserved more than 167 Jewish cemeteries and shrines throughout the kingdom.

The country's Jewish history was one of Rabat's main arguments for normalising ties with Israel late in 2021, despite a sizeable social opposition to the Abraham Accords within the North African kingdom.

Last October, Israeli officials fled Rabat shortly after the start of the Gaza war for 'security reasons', according to Tel Aviv.

Since then, thousands of Moroccans have rallied daily, calling for revoking the normalisation deal and closing the Israeli office in Rabat. Rabat has yet to address the anti-normalisation protests officially.