Natives Remember Real Casablanca : North Hollywood: Fifty years after the Allied invasion of North Africa, Moroccan Jews gather to give thanks for their timely deliverance.

The 50th anniversary of “Casablanca” brings tears to Sidney Chriqui’s eyes, but his emotional response has nothing to do with the famous 1942 movie of that name.

Chriqui, like many Moroccan Jews, lived through the real thing: the Allied invasion of North Africa during World War II.

“It changed our lives completely,” said Chriqui, 76, who now lives in Van Nuys but was born and raised in Casablanca. “It saved us from the gas chamber.”

The historical period dramatized in the Humphrey Bogart movie “Casablanca” was a prelude to the November, 1942, invasion known as Operation Torch. That invasion and the battle campaign in Tunisia that followed are widely remembered as America’s first battlefield confrontation with German forces.

But a little-noted result of Operation Torch is that 500,000 Moroccan Jews may have been saved from extinction in Nazi death camps.

“The American forces landed on Nov. 8--just one week before they were going to take us all away to Germany,” Chriqui said. “If they had waited two weeks later, we would have all died in concentration camps.”

Although some historians contest Chriqui’s assertion that the Nazis had imminent plans to ship North African Jews to concentration camps, they acknowledge that people who lived in Casablanca at the time feared the worst.

Chriqui was one of about 150 Moroccan Jews who gathered Sunday in a North Hollywood synagogue to commemorate Operation Torch and give thanks.

They gathered for about four hours at the Em Habanim Congregation temple, where after a prayer service and several speeches, participants viewed newsreel footage of the invasion and then swapped tales--in several languages--of life in that era.

“I had no idea where these soldiers came from,” said Albert Bouhadana, 67. “I was just a kid. All I knew was they wanted to save us from the Nazis and they brought us chocolate and bubble gum.”

Bouhadana, Chriqui and six other Jews from Casablanca founded the synagogue more than 25 years ago, making it the first Moroccan Jewish congregation in the United States. They met at members’ homes until they could afford to build a permanent home in the 5800 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

Most people in the audience Sunday were old enough to remember Operation Torch, although a few younger people also had gathered to learn about a little-known chapter of Jewish history.

“Operation Torch changed all our lives,” Chriqui told the applauding audience. “It pointed us all in a different direction. It pointed us to America.”

In Operation Torch, a combined force of Americans, Canadians and British landed at several locations in Morocco and Algeria, various historical reports indicate. The troops’ goals were to divert Nazi resources from the invasion of the Soviet Union by attacking the German Afrika Corps, which was then fighting the British in Egypt and Libya.

Casablanca, which was considered the best Atlantic port in North Africa, was of clear strategic value to the Allies, and, along with Oran and Algiers, was picked as a focal point of the invasion.

Allied leaders believed they would face only token resistance from French military forces in North Africa. But in Casablanca, a French battleship, the Jean Bart, blocked the entrance to the port for three days until it was set on fire by Allied bombers.

“I’ve never understood why the Jean Bart fought so hard, everyone in Casablanca wanted the Americans to come,” said Chriqui, who watched the battle from a fifth-floor apartment. “The horizon was black with so many ships. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

The situation for Jews in North Africa had been unstable since the Germans conquered France in 1940 and installed a puppet government there, called the Vichy government, historians say. Soon afterward, French-run territories such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia adopted Nazi-inspired laws that discriminated against Jews, the application of which varied from region to region.

“The laws were applied differently in every place,” said Michael Laskier, a historian who has written several books on Middle Eastern Jews and spoke Sunday. “Often it came down to the whim of administrators.”

In Casablanca, French officials forced Jews to register all of their personal property and real estate, an edict that many of them feared was a precursor to being shipped to concentration camps. Many young Jewish men who were considered security threats reported being detained and harassed by French police.

“The Vichy French offered all the young Jewish guys, including my older brother, free cigarettes--which were then really hard to get--then they put those guys in jail,” said Elie Assayag, 67, who lived in Rabat at the time of the invasion. “They called us dirty Jews.”

For Moroccan Jews it was a painful period and marked the beginning of the end of the Jewish community in North Africa. Most of the Jews in North Africa had migrated there after they were expelled from Spain in 1492. Many held on to the language and customs of Spain for centuries after settling in mainly Arab parts of North Africa. For example, many members of the Em Habanim Congregation have Spanish names such as Perez, Moreno, Pinto, Franco, Luna, Murciano or Castiel. Some still speak a Spanish dialect called Ladino.

The downfall was a surprise. While the Jews fared well under the Muslim sultans in Morocco, their status had improved dramatically after the French conquered most of North Africa in the early 1900s. Jews were trained to work in the colonial civil service. For many Jewish families, French replaced Ladino as their first language.

“In Casablanca, we mainly spoke French at home, not Ladino,” said Solomon Perez, another founder of the synagogue. “We admired the French.”

Many Jews left the area during World War II. About 30 in the audience had worked for the Allied armies as civilians, often as translators. For example, Chriqui and Bouhadana followed the Allies to France and ultimately used their connections with U.S. officials to obtain visas to America.

After the war and the founding of the state of Israel, Arab nationalists turned against the remaining Jews in North Africa, historical accounts indicate, causing most of them to migrate to Israel, France or the United States.

At Sunday’s event, participants cheered--and some cried--when the newsreel footage showed Allied troops marching through the streets of Casablanca.

After the presentations, participants gathered in small groups, greeting old friends and reminiscing in French, English, Hebrew and Ladino.

Several people made light-hearted references to the classic film that won three Oscars and starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

“Bogart was great,” one older man shouted to a group of friends. “But the real Casablanca was even better.”

After most of the participants had already gone home, two older men stood humming “As Time Goes By” and then laughed and slapped each other on the back.