In Morocco, everyone knows André Azoulay and Serge Berdugo. But few people know Léon Benzaken, David Amar, Raphaël Botbol, Nessim Max Cohen. However, they are celebrities known to have been very close to the kings of Morocco.
Who does not know André Azoulay, this Jew, Amazigh and adviser to two monarchs. Serge Berdugo is also not totally unknown to a large section of Moroccans, a former close friend of Driss Basri, powerful interior minister under Hassan II, roving ambassador to the king and secretary general of the Council of the Jewish community of Morocco. These are two personalities known to have served their king, and who persist in doing so today, while common people play BetAmo, hoping to have the same way of life as them. Symbols of the Moroccan community today, they are therefore no longer to be presented, differing from certain Moroccan personalities of the Jewish faith who have also been in the service of the Throne for a long time.
Many Jewish personalities have indeed been in the service of the Throne, to the point that it is impossible today to draw up an exhaustive list, writes the daily Al Akhbar in a file attributed to these outstanding men in its edition of the 18 , 19 and 20 December.
David Amar is one of these personalities. A tragedy brought him closer to the Palace, when the ship Egoz sank in 1961, with about forty Jews on board who wanted to go to Israel and who all perished. Then head of the Moroccan Jewish community, it was he who alerted the authorities to this tragedy. During the funeral of the victims, part of whose bodies were fished out of the waters of the Mediterranean, he met Prince Moulay El Hassan, then crown prince. From the status of friend, he quickly evolved into that of financial and economic adviser to King Hassan II. David Amar was later appointed managing director of the ONA, but towards the end of his life he decided to follow his son to France. He spent the rest of his life between Casablanca and Paris.
Léon Benzaken, another leader of the Moroccan Jewish community, since he won the creation of the Universal Israelite Alliance of Morocco, was also very close to the Palace, continues the daily. A doctor by training, he was expected to become Minister of Health in the very first government of independent Morocco. He was appointed in 1956 during the first government of the El Bekkay government, Minister of PTT. He was then appointed to Health, at the same time as he officiated as private doctor to the late Mohammed V.
It was a time when the Jewish community was very present on the Moroccan political and social scene. It was precisely at this time that another Moroccan Jew was able to enter the very close circle of King Hassan II. Raphaël Botbol was both the king’s official tailor and his political adviser. His father, Haïm Botbol, was already the official tailor of the late Mohammed V, but when Hassan II acceded to the throne, weakened by illness, he could no longer assume this function. His son therefore took over the torch in the service of Hassan II. The relationship between the two men was so strong that when he died, the king expressed himself to his family with his words: “You have lost a father and a husband, I have lost a brother”. It was because the king called on him for all sorts of matters. Later, it was Roger, son of Raphaël, who took over, at the request of the late Hassan II, the function of the king’s tailor.
In this saga of Jews in the service of the Throne, History will remember the particular career of Baruch Chriqui. Born in Casablanca into a Jewish family, he left Morocco at the age of 25 to settle in Hollywood, in the USA, where he opened his hairdressing salon, which very quickly became the meeting place for movie stars. One day, he receives a visit from the late Prince Moulay Abdallah in his living room. Seduced by the human and professional qualities of the young hairdresser, the prince invites him to attend the birthday of King Hassan II. An invitation he accepts. A few days later, King Hassan II asked him to come and do his hair. What he did. A little later, Chriqui receives an offer to become the king’s personal hairdresser and the relationship between the two men turns into a friendship. The hairdresser played golf with the king and accompanied him on his hunting trips, among other things. After the death of King Hassan II in 1999, the hairdresser (60) decided to settle in Israel with his four children.