And Morocco has a deep musical history worthwhile to discover it together step by step !!!!
Zohra El Fassia was the first female recording artist in Morocco. She born in Sefrou located at the feet of the mountains of Atlas near Fez in 1905 to a Jewish family She recorded dozens of records in her career in Morocco and at least seventeen 78s just between the years 1947 and 1957 for Polyphon, Pathe and Philips. She was a favorite of the King and of the people and took pride in the fact that her music was enjoyed by both Muslims and Jews.By 1962, Zohra El Fassia – at the height of her career in many ways – moved to Israel. She lived in Jewish Agency housing in Ashkelon, in conditions strikingly different from the ones she enjoyed in Morocco. Upon arrival in the country, she began recording in Arabic for the Koliphone (Zakiphon) label. Israeli-Moroccan poet Erez Biton, who visited her in Ashkelon, was so moved by her fate that he dedicated a poem to her story; this poem has now been added to the national school curriculum in Israel, and serves as a centrepiece in discussion of the state’s harsh Westernization policies in the 20th century. Zohra El Fassia died in 1994 in Ashkelon at the age of 87. Erez Bitton, along with the singer Shlomo Bar, of Habrera Hativit and born in Rabat and the Mayor of Ashkelon were some of the very few who attended her funeral.
Two months before her death, Zohra El Fassia said the following in an interview with Maariv: “When I made aliyah to Israel they [the Jewish Agency] gave me a horrible apartment. I suffered from loneliness, no one visited me…Do you know why I cried? I wasn‘t afraid of death, I knew one day I would die but I was afraid that after my death no one would remember who Zohra El Fassia was.”
