Léon Benzaquen (1901–1977), whose father moved from Tangier to Casablanca in 1897, attended the Alliance Israélite Universelle primary school and the French lycée (secondary school) in Casablanca, then studied medicine in Paris, specializing in pneumology. On his return to Morocco in 1938, he settled in Casablanca and immediately became involved in Samuel-Daniel Lévy’s project to found  a tuberculosis  sanatorium, realized in 1946 with the construction of the Benaḥmed Preventorium.

Boycotted by his European colleagues during the Vichy period (1940–1943), Benzaque…