In the narrative of World War II and of the Shoah in Israeli public discourse the subject of the Jews of North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya) has been lesser known. The fate of these communities was better than that of European Jewry but the plight of North African Jews cannot be overlooked. The members of these communities suffered greatly on many fronts akin to and separate from European Jewry. These hardships included the loss of family members in labor and internment camps, deportation to concentration camps in Europe, the exploitation of children in forced labor, expropriation of property, homes destroyed by aerial bombardment, the forced humiliation of wearing a yellow badge, and a constant unnerving uncertainty of what the future would bring.
The Documentation Center of North-African Jewry during WW2, which operates under the auspices of the Ben-Zvi Institute, was established in 2006 with the purpose of making information on this subject available. The Center seeks to raise the public's consciousness and awareness of the travails of Jews in North Africa by developing a curriculum and training teachers to incorporate the subject within the educational system in addition to advancing academic research.