Zohra El Fassia (1905–1994) was one of the most celebrated Moroccan female vocalists of the 20th century. She was born in Sefrou, near Fez, Morocco, to Naomi and Eliyahu Hamou. Her father was a butcher and ḥazzan(Cantor​)​​ ​. Her repertoire included the piyyuṭim [Jewish liturgical poems] she learned while growing up and ​Click here to enter text.​religious songs performed at her synagogue as a child. 

During her youth, she moved to the former imperial capital of Fez, where she began singing in coffee houses and cabarets. It was there that she took on the appellation “El Fassia, " meaning from Fez. She earned the titles of cheikha or maalema [master] and became a prominent figure in the recording industry that thrived in colonial Maghreb. Her reputation as a shaʿbī and malḥūn singer, or one who sings long-form colloquial poems set to music that narrate tales of politics, history, beauty, and heartbreak, grew and garnered her much respect. She moved to Casablanca to be part of its burgeoning recording scene sometime in the mid-1920s. Beginning in the 1930s, she released numerous 78 rpm records through esteemed international labels such as Pathé, Philips, and Polyphon, making her among the first wave of singers to record in North Africa. At one point, she was deemed the most renowned of Moroccan female vocalists by Mahieddine Bachtarzi, artistic director for Gramophone. 

El Fassia was part of a group of distinguished Jewish musicians across North Africa who achieved significant mainstream success. She was the first Moroccan woman to write and compose songs and sing them in public, and to record discs for major record labels such as Columbia Records and Gramophone Company. Zohra’s Jewish identity was not considered to be problematic in Morocco during the height of her fame. In fact, the king of Morocco, Mohammed V, was so impressed by her voice that he invited her to sing at his court. Her music could also be political, and it is thought that her 1954–1955 recording of Hbibi Diali [My Love] was an expression of longing for the return of the then-exiled sultan. In fact, many of her later recordings were celebrations of Moroccan patriotism and the royal family and can thus be seen in the context of the anti-colonialism movement in Morocco of the early 1950s. 

In the early 1960s, Zohra departed Morocco after having built a prolific and illustrious career as a performer and recording artist across multiple genres. She was one of over 200,000 Jews who left Morocco between 1948 and 1967 and relocated in phases to Israel, France, and North America in response to the political and economic uncertainty that gripped North Africa as part of its decolonization. El Fassia immigrated to Ashkelon, Israel, where she was often invited to sing at private celebrations in the Moroccan community. 

On November 4, 1994, Zohra El Fassia passed away, leaving behind an extensive family that included numerous musicians and performing and visual artists in Israel, France, and the United States. According to family members, El Fassia's funeral and shivah [Jewish 7-day mourning period] were attended by prominent Israeli musicians and artists, as well as a representative of King Hassan II. 

Although in Israel El-Fassia did not attain the same level of fame she achieved in Morocco, her oeuvre has influenced a new generation of Moroccan and Israeli artists. Her music, life story, and personality served as a gateway through which these artists could explore the cultural diversity of the Jewish Diaspora and a means with which to share their stories of loss during migration to Israel. As early as the 1970s, Algerian-born poet Erez Bitton paid tribute to El Fassia by writing "Zohra El Fassia's ​​​​​​Song," which was initially published in the Maʿariv daily in 1975 and later in his first anthology, Moroccan Minḥa, in 1976.