Jewish mother and child at the OSE trachoma center

A Jewish child and mother enter a medical facility in Casablanca, Morocco. The condition of the Jews of North Africa had first come to the attention of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) during World War II, when JDC was searching for sanctuaries for Jews fleeing the Nazi juggernaut and when camps for Jewish refugees were being established in Morocco. JDC found that many Jews in this part of the world were living in poverty, packed into overcrowded and unhealthy mellahs, or Jewish Quarters, plagued by malnutrition and attendant diseases. The misery of the needy Jewish population was made worse by outbreaks of violence after the founding of the Jewish State. JDC's early aid efforts led to the 1949 establishment of a full-scale assistance program for the remaining Jewish communities in North Africa, Iran, and other parts of the Middle East. In the ensuing decades, JDC assisted Jewish children throughout the Muslim world by partnering with OSE, a French Jewish humanitarian organization, supporting clinics and medical installations to combat tuberculosis, trachoma, and tinea; establishing milk depots; and by supporting summer camps and educational programs.