The City Of The Dead, "We're almost there, I can smell it."

July 3, 2000

“We’re almost there, I can smell it”

Staten Island has nothing on the City of the Dead., where the Bassatine Cemetery resides, and where we have been working for the past 3 weeks, mapping out graves. Living in Cairo has been an eye opening experience for all of us, work is mixed with exploratory excursions and late night discussions about the quirky inhabitants of this sometimes charming section of Cairo.

When we arrived, Aaron had already gotten started with the map of the cemetery. He and Wafik, measured and mapped out the perimeters of the cemetery, creating sections and giving each section a letter. There are 16 sections A-P. With this as an outline, the rest of our group had a good base to work with. I arrived next followed by Erin, Rachelle, Tony and Jack. We started working right away, marking grave placement, giving each grave a number within its section (see map for examples), and photographing each marked grave. Spending each day there has felt empowering because we can see the progress—we have definitely been making our mark, and are proud of our work.

Besides graves, there is also a family that is paid by the community to reside within the walls of the cemetery. “Ataoui” (who’s real name is Mohamed and got his nickname after being found living in one of the bigger graves of a family called “Cataoui”) is the father of 4 beautiful children who live with him and his wife Aman. They take care of the grounds, making sure that no intruders come in. experience of a completely different lifestyle. We have found common boundaries with people who couldn’t be more different, at least on the surface. Soon enough, Jack and Erin were talking soccer with the boys and Rochelle and I complimented Aman on her choice of lipstick. Body language and facial expressions seem to work quite nicely in the absence of a common tongue.

Shabbat Minyan at Adli’s Shar HaShamayim Synagogue

On  July the 15th, 2000 we were lucky enough to round up ten Jewish men (actually 12) and a crowd of Jewish women for a lovely service and Torah reading, the first minyan in Cairo since Shavout!! In attendance was Jack Rosen, Anthony Zamlich, Daniel Kurtzer, Sheila Kurtzer, David Kurtzer, Bob Silverman, The Markovitzs (of Ohio), David Bensadoun (of Lyon), Linda Rabin (San Diego), Avi Jerash, Barak Barfi, Aaron Kiviat, Atif Yosef, Leah Harris, Carmen and Esther Weinstein and several other members of Cairo’s Jewish Community.

Getting a minyan in Cairo is very challenging and we usually rely on tourists and embassy folk to fill the bleachers. However, when successful we feel a real sense of purpose. It brings a spark of Jewish life to a community which feels disconnected from Yidishkite.

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