L'Avenir Illustre Newspaper (the Drawn Future), Morocco

Avenir Illustre is a Jewish newspaper that was published in Casablanca, Morocco, in French, between the years 1926-1940, under the French colonial rule. Its founder and first director was Yonatan Torsh, an Ashkenazi Polish Jew who was educated in Belgium and immigrated to Morocco in the beginning of the 1920's. In Casablanca he was appointed as an Inspector for Trade Agencies of a British company. Other editors of the newspaper were Shmuel Daniel Levy, Yaakov Ochayon and others. In the first years of the newspaper, it was published once a month. Starting in 1929 it was published bi-weekly. The Vichy government stopped the publication of the newspaper. The newspaper included information on the Jewish community life in Morocco as well as articles on the Jewish world outside of Morocco. To a certain extent, the paper challenged the traditional Jewish organizations, turning to the younger generation and urging them to public actions to support the local Jewish communities, Jewish issues in the world in general and more specifically the Zionist Movement in Israel. The newspaper reported on the difficulties of the 'malach' – an isolated Jewish neighborhood in some Moroccan cities- on the situation in Israel, the poverty, and on the boycott on Nazi Germany organized by the Zionist Movement. Many editions of the newspaper were dedicated to the Jews in the Atlas Mountains who immigrated to Casablanca. After a decade of journalistic struggles to change the face of the communities, the newspaper presented the readers, on the eve on the New Year of1937, thirteen wishes which revealed the first aspect of the dialectic tension: the physical difficulties and distress in the 'malach', the poverty, education, the attitude of the French and the functioning of the Jewish Community, and on the other side, the wish to rehabilitate the community both physically and organizationally. The newspaper attempted to promote solidarity between the various Jewish communities throughout Morocco, in an attempt to help in the Zionist dream of settling in Israel. Many photographs (brought in this collection), through which we can learn about the life of the Jewish Communities in Morocco and abroad, were published in the newspaper. Reports in the newspaper included local events, problems of poverty, the opening of Jewish organization, official visits of French leaders along with news about European Jewry. There were many reports on the Zionist Congresses and on what was happening in Israel which was then under the rule of the British Mandate. Read more