Zohra Al Fassiya

Zohra Al Fassiya was born in 1905 in Sefrou

Zohra Al Fassiya was born in 1905 in Sefrou, near Fez, to a modest Jewish family. Her father was a butcher and a hazzan. She attended a primary school supported by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, but left after marrying young.

As a child she sang religious songs in the synagogue. After her divorce she moved to Casablanca and sang in coffee houses and cabarets. Her repertoire was mostly secular gharnati and malhun songs.

In the 1940s she led her own orchestra and began writing her own songs, which were played on radio in Morocco and Algeria. Mohammed V invited her to sing at his court. Between 1947 and 1957 she released more than 17 albums, some with songs by Samy Elmaghribi.

She immigrated to Israel in 1962 and recorded for the Koliphon label in the 1960s. Her style received little support from Israeli cultural institutions, and she later lived alone in hardship in Ashkelon. Poet Erez Biton met her as a social worker and wrote a poem about her in 1976, later taught in Israeli schools.

In her last years she lived in a nursing home in Ashkelon. She died on November 4, 1994, and was buried in Ashkelon. Streets in Rosh HaAyin and Beersheba are named after her.