A Sephardic synagogue here has raised $500 from its members to help defray the costs of a life-saving heart operation for a 15-year-old Moslem girl from Fez, Morocco. Rashida Didouh, one of 13 children, requires long periods of rest after even the slightest activity. When doctors in her native Morocco couldn’t perform the delicate operation to help her overcome this ailment, her parents sold their valuable possessions to pay for her flight to Toronto.
However, $6000 is needed for the operation, and when Maurice Benzacar, president of the Magen David Sephardic Congregation, a synagogue whose members stem from Morocco, read of the girl’s plight, he enlisted the help of his synagogue’s members. “Morocco has been friendly to the Jews,” Benzacar said. “On humanitarian grounds we wanted to help. Many of our members come from that city.” Benzacar said the majority of the Funds are being raised by Toronto’s Moslem community, but he felt the $500 donation was the least his 150-member congregation could do.
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.
