MOROCCO

Photography by Debra Friedman

Sally was born in Tangiers in 1949. Her family lived in Morocco for many generations. Sally has two brothers. Jews lived well in Morocco for a long period; however, she and her husband Simon wanted to look for other opportunities for themselves and their children. Her parents moved to Israel and stayed for 15 years before moving to Toronto.

Simon’s family was in the jewelry business for generations, and Simon continued to go back and forth to Morocco for this reason. They chose to come to Toronto as they had a lot of family here, as well as a large
community.

At one time, there were 300,000 Jews in Morocco, and now there are only 3,000. However, Sally and her family still have Moroccan passports and are full citizens of Morocco.

Simon and Sally lead tourist trips to Morocco often to show people their backgrounds and roots.

They have two children, Jack, a mortgage broker, and Nina ben Bihy, a court clerk. They also have five grandchildren.

They are glad they came to Canada and feel it is an amazing country.

The traditional dress that Sally is wearing belongs to her and is often borrowed by brides at their Henna. Sally helps them dress for this event. Her great-grandmother wore the dress for High Holidays. It is over 100 years old, and the embroidery is 24 karat gold.