* * * click HERE for an architectural description of Shaar Hashamayim * * *

AMERICAN JEWISH YEARBOOK - 1985

Report on Egypt / 309

The celebration in August 1984 of the first Jewish wedding in Egypt in 19 years poignantly demonstrated the sorry state of Egyptian Jewry. Only 250-300 elderly Jews remained out of a community that once numbered more than 80,000.

There were some 120 Jews in Cairo and a similar number in Alexandria; Cairo also contained a Karaite community numbering perhaps 40.

In all of Egypt, there were no rabbis and only two functioning synagogues. Following the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in March 1979, the Jewish community was able to renew its ties with coreligionists in Israel and elsewhere, thus leading to some improvement in its situation. In 1981, for example, the World Sephardi Federation contributed funds to renovate and restore Sha'ar Ha-Shamayim, Cairo's main synagogue.

Israel regularly dispatched Egyptian-born rabbis to Cairo and Alexandria to lead services on the high holy days and other special occasions. Israeli diplomats maintained informal contact with the Jewish community and occasionally participated in the minyan at Sha'ar Ha-Shamayim. Israeli officials on state business, including former president Yitzhak Navon, included a visit to the synagogue in their itineraries. In addition, services were held at a synagogue in al-Maadi, a Cairo suburb that was home to many diplomats, including Israelis.

While they had once been the target of attacks and demonstrations, Egypt's Jews, in recent years, had been well treated. The government posted riot police to protect Jewish institutions and took various measures to insure the safety of the members of the Jewish community and the Israeli diplomatic corps.

In February 1981, three Palestinians and two Egyptians were put on trial for conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy and the Cairo synagogue.

Since 1974 Egyptian Jews had been permitted to draw fixed sums from blocked bank accounts, although the money had to be spent in Egypt. This policy applied to former Egyptian Jews as well, and many took advantage of the opportunity to pay nostalgic visits to Egypt.

The only Jew known to have been arrested of late was Shehata Haroun, a lawyer and leftist sympathizer, who was detained in April 1980 along with 30 other left-wing political activists for allegedly setting up a Communist party.

A distinctly negative development was the reappearance in the Egyptian press of antisemitic cartoons and articles. This material surfaced as a response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982, which also prompted Egypt to withdraw its ambassador from Tel Aviv.

Still, despite the subsequent freeze in Egyptian- Israeli normalization and the opposition of many Egyptian intellectuals to the Camp David peace process, the Jewish community remained relatively unaffected.

Serious concern was expressed about the future of Jewish cultural treasures in Egypt, since the community lacked the resources and manpower to take care of them. The issue was discussed in 1979, following the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, in meetings that American-Jewish leaders held with top Egyptian officials.

Felix Iscaki, head of the Cairo Jewish community, also submitted a petition on the matter to Jihan Sadat, wife of President Anwar Sadat. The situation became more acute as much abandoned property was sold by community officials in order to generate sufficient revenue to meet communal welfare needs.

Over the period of a decade, six of the ten ancient synagogues in Cairo's old Jewish quarter had been sold, some with their interior furnishings intact. The remaining synagogues, among them one known as the synagogue of Maimonides, were in varying states of disrepair.

The cemetery at Bassatine, near Cairo, had reportedly been vandalized, with many tombstones and monuments being defaced or removed. Ironically, some of the grander mausoleums were preserved because people were living in them, as was the case in other Cairo cemeteries. The synagogues, cemeteries, and archives of the Alexandria Jewish community were in somewhat better condition, reflecting the relative affluence of Jews there.

No trace had ever been found of some 50 torah scrolls confiscated by the Egyptian authorities as they were being taken out of the country in 1967.

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