The appointment of a Jewish Minister to the new Moroccan Cabinet, the country’s first autonomous government, continued to be delayed today by the failure of Jewish organizations and institutions to agree upon a suitable candidate. The original candidate chosen, M. Ben Simon, was not acceptable to the Moroccan community and he did not accept the post, which was offered last week.
In an interview here, Premier Bekkai declared that he and his fellow ministers “were sorry at the absence of our Jewish colleague when the Cabinet was presented to the Sultan. There is no question of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraph being assigned to anyone other than a Jew,” he declared.
Premier Bekkai added that both he and Sultan Ben Youssef were anxious that the Jew chosen for the post should have a background of sympathy for the nationalist cause, which would “prove of benefit both for the future of Morocco and the Jewish community.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.