Moroccan Jews in Their Hour of Decision

Carlos de Nesry was born in Tangier, Morocco, the son of chief rabbi Yaḥya Nizri. De Nesry believed Tangerian Jews were more agnostic and West European in their thinking than their coreligionists in North Africa; he attributed these characteristics at least partly to their formal education in European schools like the Alliance Israélite Universelle. A strong supporter of Moroccan independence, de Nesry encouraged his fellow Jews to contribute to the cultural and political life of the new country, an appeal he pushed in his 1958 Les Israélites marocains à l’heure du choix. In addition to serving on the Tangier Court of Appeals and being an active journalist, de Nesry took an active role in Jewish community affairs. A man of keen literary ambitions, de Nesry once circulated a petition asking the Nobel Committee to award him the prize for literature.