death_date death_place birth_place article_title background birth_date genre origin name occupation
1994 -lrb- 89 years old -rrb- ashkelon , israel sefrou , morocco zohra al fassiya
 solo_singer 1905 malhun , moroccan music morocco zohra al fassiya زهرة الفاسية singer
zohra al fassiya

zohra al fassiya -lrb- , -rrb- is a moroccan singer and poet .
considered as the queen of melhoun and gharnati , she was the first female recording artist in morocco , and her songs was celebrated specially in morocco and algeria , where she collaborated with lyricists and musicians from oran and tlemcen .
if her songs were mostly profane songs , her work has been modified to be fit religious lythurgical songs -lrb- called piyutim -rrb- .
born in sefrou , near fez , at the feet of the mountains of atlas in a modest moroccan jewish family , she started to sing at a very early age when she performed religious songs at her synagogue .
during her youth , she started to sing in coffee houses and cabarets near towns and in casablanca .
her songs were mostly secular gharanti songs -lrb- andalusian arabic songs originally from granada , spain , and very popular among the muslims of andalusian background and moroccan and algerian jews in the 19th century -rrb- , as well as malhun , which are long moroccan poems .
in the 40 's , she had her own orchestra and started to register her own songs .
she was heavily aired on radio stations , both in morocco and algeria .
the sultan of morocco , mohammed v , was so impressed by her voice that he invited her to sing at his court .
she worked with other artists such as samy elmaghribi , who wrote some of her songs .
she has released more than 17 albums between the years 1947-1957 .
in 1962 , she immigrated to israel and lived in miserable and lonely condition in ashkelon .
israeli-moroccan poet erez biton , who visited her , was very impressed by her fate and dedicated her a poem that is learned in school today .
in her last years she lived in a nursing home .
elfassia invited many celebrations of the moroccan community in israel and had many relatives in israel .
zohra died at age 89 in 1994 and was buried in ashkelon .
