Noar [journal]

Published in Casablanca from 1945 to 1952 in French, Noar replaced the pre-war pro-Zionist journal L'Avenir Illustré and became the organ of the new generation of young, local Zionists. The initiative to publish Noar came from the Charles Netter youth movement, whose leaders—Alfonso Sabah, Daniel Levy Maurice Timsit and Joe Lasry—were committed to communal work and belonged to the religious conservative camp of Zionism.From 1945 to July 1948 the journal served as the youth movement bulletin, fighting for local social reforms, teaching Jewish and Zionist values, and supplying news about the movement, the local communities and the post-Holocaust Jewish world. After Noar celebrated the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948, it temporarily ceased publication, but it resumed again in April 1949. In the end of that year the bulletin changed its format, becoming a biweekly, and under the new editorship of Meyer Toledano it aspired to both increase its circulation from 2,000 to 4,000 copies, and to become the central journal of Moroccan Jewry. By the end of 1950, Toledano—while still maintaining a pro-Zionist approach— had begun to promote an attitude of openness to the Muslim society and Moroccan nationalist aspirations, and encouraged his fellow Jews to manifest their local Moroccan identity. The journal ceased publication in September 1952.