La Voix des Communautés [French]
Place of Publication: Rabat (Morocco)
Years of Publication: 1950-1963 (with an intermission during the period 1957-1960)
Frequency: Monthly
Editors: Jacques Ohana (1950-1951); J.R. Ohana (1952-1956); Victor Malka (1961-1963)
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La Voix des Communautés (The Voice of the Communities) was founded by the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco (Conseil des
Communautés Israélites du Maroc)—a body which united the heads of the communities and served as the central organization of
Moroccan Jews since 1947. The council was founded during the period of the French protectorate, after World War II, within the
framework of reforms enacted by the colonial government in an effort to respond to the pressures of the young generation of Jewish
leadership and hush the latter's call for democracy and self-expression. The French entrusted the leadership of the council and
the management of the newspaper to their loyal supporters, at whose head was Jacques Dahan. Dahan, secretary-general of the council,
was not the official editor, but he stood at the head of the newspaper's staff, led it closely, and maneuvered between the dictates
of the French government and the expectations of his Jewish community. The editors of La Voix des Communautés, as well as the
majority of its readers, represented the central stream among the rising westernized stratum of local Jewry. Their language was French,
their culture was both Jewish and westernized, and was inspired by the same circles among French Jews and other western Jewish
communities who had not lost interest in their Jewish identity, but had also not become pro-Zionist. The newspaper gave a special place
to the special connection of Moroccan Jews to the branches of Sephardic Jewry and its organizations in western countries. Israel was not
given a great deal of attention by the editors; it aroused a certain interest and degree of identification, but it did not stand in the
center of their consciousness. Their French orientation was full and incontestable.
During its first period (1950-1956), the newspaper was published every month or two, often with even longer gaps, and included 4-8 pages. These
pages provided extensive information on the council's activities and on the public life of Moroccan Jews, on projects of reform in the fields
of health and education, and on the events of the Jewish world in general and the Sephardic Jewish world in particular.
With Morocco's transition to independence in 1956, the council's leadership was replaced and the newspaper ceased to appear for a period of five
years. It resumed its activities in 1961 under the new head of the council, David Amar, who was simultaneously a close associate of both the
Moroccan royal family and international Jewish organizations. This second period of activity was not long-lived, and it more or less coincided
with the time of the massive wave of aliyah which led the majority of Moroccan Jews to the State of Israel. Two main themes arise, during this
period, from the newspaper's pages: the first is loyalty to Morocco and its royal family, and the second is the upholding of the rights of Jews
as citizens of equal rights and obligations. The messages of this period are therefore substantially different from those of the first period,
but the paper continued its tradition as an invaluable source for information on Moroccan Jews, the dominant attitudes of their leadership, and
the vision which the heads of the council sought to impart to their communities.
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Quality Status
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Copy from a paper source in good condition. Mild problems of scribbling and tearing along the margins of the page are present.
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