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Mayer Obadia, Moroccan Jewish Leader, Elected to Country’s Legislature

May 20, 1963
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Meyer Obadia, president of the Casablanca Jewish Committee, and secretary-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco, was elected a deputy to Morocco’s Chamber of Representatives, according to today’s tabulation of Friday’s voting in the general elections. He ran on the royalist FDIC ticket, which did rather badly in Casablanca, electing only one other member in this city–Interior Minister Reda Guedira. Mr. Obadia obtained more than 12,000 votes.

Another Jewish candidate, Meyer Toledano, a member of the opposition National Union party, was defeated, leaving Mr. Obadia the only Jewish member of the Chamber. Before the election, the extreme nationalist Istiqlal Party distributed pamphlets in Arabic asserting that a vote for a Jew was treason to the homeland. “It is for Jews to vote for Jews,” the pamphlet declared, adding that “Moslems are united against Jews.”

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