The Jewish Community Council of Tunis appealed today to all eligible Jews in this city and in the country at large to vote in today’s general elections for the first Tunisian Legislative Assembly. At the same time, the Ministry of Education declared a two-day holiday for Jewish teachers and pupils for the Passover festival.
There are some 18,500 Jews eligible to vote in the elections, 12,500 in this city and 6,000 in the rest of the country. As the campaign drew to a close, the Neo-Destour movements “national Front” made a special effort to attract the overwhelming majority of the Jewish ballots. In speech after speech, National Front candidates assured the Jews that they are not “a national minority in Tunis” but rather “an integral part of the Tunisian people and, as Tunisians, the Jews have the same rights as the Moslem majority.”
The theme of the equality of the Jews has been emphasized in addresses by Azouz Rebai, chief of the Neo-Destour press service, as well as by other Tunisian leaders. The friendship between the Jews and Moslems here has been lauded by Chief Rabbi Moise Cohen; Meyer Belliti, president of the Tunisian Zionist Federation; and by the two Jews on the Neo-Destour list of candidates, Andre Barouch and Albert Bessis. Posters in the Jewish quarter stress the same theme.
The Communist Party has also been campaigning for the Jewish votes but has met with rebuffs, very few Jews attending the Communist rallies–those few Jews who have shown up at the meetings run by the Communists coming only as hecklers.
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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.
