HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE JEWS OF EGYPT IN MODERN TIME

 

Editors    Ada Aharoni, Ph.D.    Aimée Israel-Pelletier, Ph.D.     Levana Zamir

 

 

2008  -  WCJE  -  History and Culture of the Jews of Egypt In Modern Times

By Suzy Vidal (Sultana Latifa)

 

 

Sometimes in life when you think nothing can bring appeasement to your state of Jewish refugee from an Arab land, a miracle comes about! 

I was on my hospital bed, physically suffering like I never had before (not to be mistaken with the mental torture we had gone through first in 1948 then in 1956), when the Golden Book of our WCJE was brought to me. In three languages if you please: English, French and Hebrew together with a CD of songs that sent goose pimples through me. And on that CD, the touching image of youths with their tarbush next to their teacher Mr. Hemsi.

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Already its coloured and inspiring front-page with the Alexandria Synagogue of Eliahu Hanavi made me feel better.

As I turned page after page, my physical pain receded and I found myself comforted by the knowledge and proof that we as Jews from Egypt had succeeded the tour de force of being people who - against all odds - today have their own weight and place in their new land. Success has accompanied those who from scratch and with nothing in hand managed to make a place in the sun.

Be it in Australia, Brazil, the U.S.A., Canada, Israel, France, Italy, Peru, etc.

 

And that question still preys on my mind; why did the then rulers of Egypt think they could do better without us?

We read about our ancestors and the dynamic society in which we evolved, all the infrastructures and social care ‘avant la lettre’. Our schools, hospitals, inventiveness and spirit of enterprise passing from fathers to sons: all those marvellous Jewish names, entrepreneurs and men of conscience.

And our love of life! Yes, we Jews from Egypt have an infinite love for life and we hang on to it.

When Jews from Egypt made Aliya, some said that it was because they had no money that they went to Israel forgetting the reason for which we had no money or terrestrial goods.

We Jews from Egypt were heavily punished for the birth of our Jewish state, everything we had was confiscated. In 1956 it was ‘rebelotte’, it all started again…

 

As penniless refugees (including myself and family) a lot lived through terrible events not receiving any help in their new foreign land. What to say of our dear ones who died before their time because they had lost their roots!

Why did my parents die so young or why did so many die of heart failure; why did that brother or cousin become so ill that it was unbearable to go on? What to say of those we never saw again?

Who will answer these questions?

But thanks to the texts we find the beginning of an answer!

If we need to prepare our future we must certainly find out about our past!

 

You will see some incredible pictures in that book as in my case I was overjoyed to see a picture of my great grandfather Elia Vidal, dressed in a flowing galabeya, jacket and tarbush! Not forgetting the virile moustache (Dated 1894).

This book has given me back my roots and proved the worth of Italian Jews in Egypt in reply to those who said we had acquired our Italian nationality when the archives burnt in Livorno!

 

We all have a different way of expressing ourselves and those of us who are concerned with our plight have made it their duty to study with earnestness the components of our Community over the centuries and provide evidence of their investment on that subject. I shall not point out one or the other writers personally for fear of creating a rift among us, but I am convinced that the book is an indissoluble link among us Jews from Egypt.

Nasser divided and dispersed us sending us out fe setin dahia, to sixty hells, now this Golden Book brings us together again.

 

We feel so indebted to those who took so much care to give us back a part of our inheritance: Initiators and Editors: Ada Aharoni, Ph.D, Levana Zamir, and Aimee Pelletier, Ph.D. – who industriously procured us with this tremendous labour of love.

My heartfelt thanks for this significant and colossal work!

 

May it be a Best Seller and teach our descendants a lesson in courage and intelligence.

Tell your children and grandkids; with the help and proofs gathered from The Golden Book of the WCJE - IT  IS A GOLDEN BOOK FOR FUTURE GENERATONS AND FOR POSTERITY. ALF SHOKRAN!