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Gentlemen, Ladies, during fall of 1952, the first link between Morocco and Israel was inaugurated.
Mrs Schramm, who managed a travel agency in Casablanca in the Passage Tazi, invited my daily "Maroc-Presse" to delegate a reporter to witness this first flight. 

I requested that this trip to Tel-Aviv evolved into a full story of several weeks in Israël, the New Jewish state. The subject would be:
"WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE MOROCCAN JEWS IN ISRAEL."  The emigration had started in 1948 after riots that had killed 40 jews.The subject was sensitive.My idea was accepted.
During 3 weeks, with the help of the new ministry of information whose offices were still in a small villa of Tel Aviv,I was able to cover the whole country(what was left of it. Jerusalem was still divided) from East to West and from North to South.
From the most developped kibboutzim in High Galilee to the most recent, old Nahal, in the Neguev.
I saw the water brought to theNeguev. Barsheeba with six buildings. I saw the Marabroot of the time and the mochavim.
I was welcomed like a brother, and guided with friendship, I saw all the people I wanted to meet:  the moroccan jews, young and old, from every single corner of the moroccan kingdom, settled everywhere in Israel, but often disappointed,at the time, in their dream of "tomorrow in Yerushalayim", that they didn't get the red carpet treatment.
Israel was very poor. Had other problems to solve.
I saw dozens of people of all ages and all walks of life.
Unforgetable memories that were all translated into a "series" of nine articles of 2.500 words that had some success I think.
As far as the king in that time, Mohammed V, who had been curious (for reasons of his own) and intrigued by the writings of the unknown that I was, told me a "corsica man" close to the Royal Court.

Naturally I kept the precious text of that report like a talisman and fifty years after its publication in november 1952, I wonder if it isn't worth rewriting in the honor of those migrants of the "50s" to remind the survivors and their descendents the courage and determination that they had and the way they planted new roots in Israel.

Your opinion is very precious to me since it will show me the level of interest there is for the tale of such an epic where the names who all I interviewed back then are recalled.

"Sans tradition nous serions comme des violneux en equilibre sur un toit."
Sénèque écrivait dans sa première lettre à Lucilius "Réunis ce capital et ne le laisse plus se perdre. Dis toi bien que c'est à la lettre: il est des instants qu'on nous arrache, il en est qu'on nous escamote, il en est aussi qui nous filent entre les doigts; la perte à dire vrai n'est jamais jamais aussi sordide que lorsqu'elle est dure à la négligence."
(Sénèque - Lettres à Lucilius, I,1)



Bertrand C. Bellaigue

 

 
 

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 DAFINA 

Traditional meal of Shabbat, this delicacy made of wheat, dried peas and meat was slowly cooked overnight in a low-temp oven.
The word comes from arabic "dafina or adafina" meaning "covered, smothered".

 

 


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