Vanunu was born in Marrakesh, Morocco, the second of 11 children born to an Orthodox Jewish family that lived in the city's Mellah, or Jewish quarter. His father, Shlomo, ran a grocery store, and his mother, Mazal, was a housewife. Vanunu studied in an Alliance française school, and a Jewish religious elementary school, or cheder. In 1963, following a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment in Morocco, Vanunu's father sold his business, and the family emigrated to Israel. Vanunu was ten years old at the time. The family transited through France, spending a month in a camp in Marseilles before being taken to Israel by sea. Upon arrival in Israel, the family was sent by the Jewish Agency to settle at Beersheba, which at that time was an impoverished desert city. During their first year in Israel, the family lived in a small wooden hut without electricity.