A dying community

Magda Haroun, the new leader of the soon-to-be-extinct Jews of Egypt, plans to focus her efforts on preservation

By OMAR MATTA
Magda Haroun521 (photo credit: KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)
Magda Haroun521
(photo credit: KHALED DESOUKI / AFP)
The Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue on Adly Street in downtown Cairo was, for perhaps the first time in decades, packed – including a massive media presence.
The crowd had come on April 18 to attend the funeral service for 82-year-old Carmen Weinstein, former president of the Jewish Community Council of Cairo (JCC), who, despite much controversy, is often credited as being instrumental in the recent preservation of Egypt’s Jewish heritage and its holy sites.
Her death marks the end of an era, and, for many, much of the memory that was left of a time when Egypt was far more diverse and multicultural than it is today. Weinstein’s death has helped bring into the open a number of issues previously discussed only in private, regarding the future of Egypt’s soon-to-beextinct Jewish minority that now numbers just two dozen or so elderly women.
The community’s newly elected president, Magda Haroun, stated at the funeral ceremony that she hoped to “break down the walls of sectarianism,” later adding that “religion belongs to God, while the state exists for all.” This revolutionary slogan was coined by Egypt’s once prominent Wafd party during the days of the monarchy, and became popular among liberals, leftists and Arab nationalists during Egypt’s independence movement, continuing up until the presidencies of Gamal Nasser and Anwar Sadat.
Avowedly secular in nature, Haroun’s choice of words hearkens back to a previous era, when issues related to religion did not play a role in political life or the public sphere, and reflected her experiences growing up Jewish in Egypt. Her father was Shehata Haroun, who was a member of the Egyptian Communist Party, an avowed anti-Zionist, and reportedly opposed to the signing of the 1978 Camp David Accords.
Consequently, there has been talk regarding the new president’s own political leanings, particularly relating to the existence of the State of Israel.
Those who are close to the new president, however, largely reject attempts made to place such views within the context of a black and white, pro- or anti-Israeli framework, or apply such views to Magda herself.
Samir W. Raafat is an Egyptian Muslim, a close friend of both Weinstein and Haroun, author of the book, “Maadi 1904-1962: Society and History in a Cairo Suburb,” in addition to being the founder and creator of the Bassatine News website, largely seen as the mouthpiece of the JCC. He comments on Haroun’s ideology to The Jerusalem Report saying: “Shehata’s opposition to Zionism did not necessarily reflect any conviction he had regarding Judaism, but rather stemmed from the fact that it was a nationalist ideology, one that was contradictory to the core principles and precepts of Communist theory. Shehata was, for the same reason, equally opposed to Nasser’s Pan-Arab nationalism beginning in the 1950s, which resulted in the mass exodus, either voluntarily or by force, of a number of Egypt’s non-Arab minorities, including Armenians, Greeks, Italians and Jews.”
Shehata Haroun lived during a time when Jews were actively involved in political life in Egypt, particularly in its myriad of leftist movements, which were divided along many fault lines and all espoused varying degrees of radicalism.
Asked about her politics, Haroun states to The Report, “The JCC and the Cairo Jewish community are not concerned with politics, but rather with history, religion and culture.
Our goal is to preserve our holy and historical sites, in particular the Bassatine cemetery, and make sure that our history is not swept under the rug. We are not spies and do not suffer from any kind of identity crisis, and refuse to be portrayed as anything other than citizens who love our country.”
The second-oldest Jewish cemetery in the world, after the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the Bassatine cemetery, is the burial site for many of Egypt’s Jewish community, whose numbers have been estimated to total in the past anywhere from 70,000 to 100,000.
Diverse within itself, the community was home to the descendants of both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, in addition to a large Karaite community, a small sect of Judaism that only recognizes the Bible as a source for Jewish law.
The cemetery is located in a neighborhood in Cairo, known locally as the City of the Dead, named in part for the large number of cemeteries located in the area, and also due to the nearly one million destitute Egyptians currently squatting within them, converting old graves into makeshift housing while looting others. Bassatine has been no exception to the kind of encroachment and acts of theft and vandalism that have plagued other cemeteries in the vicinity.
In addition to Bassatine, those sites that Haroun seeks to protect include Cairo’s remaining synagogues. Shaar Hashamayim, located in downtown Cairo and, formerly known as Temple Ismailia, was originally constructed in 1908 to serve as a Sephardi synagogue. It is the last of the city’s synagogues to remain in use, hosting annual Hanukka, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Passover services for Egyptian and ex-pat Jews.
Others include the Biton and Ben-Ezra synagogues. The former is located between Road 13 and Orabi Street in the Cairo suburb of Maadi, and named after its founder, Meir Yehuda Biton, a Jewish landscaper who constructed the synagogue in 1934 to serve the area’s established Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities. A sprawling suburb built in the early 1900s, Maadi was once a sign of the diversity seen throughout Egypt, particularly during the pre-World War I and interwar years, being home to a number of foreign businessmen and dignitaries in addition to Cairo’s various ethnic and religious minorities.
The Ben-Ezra or El Geniza synagogue is located in the city’s Old Cairo district and is reportedly built on the location where the prophet Moses was rescued as an infant by Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithia. Initially a Coptic church that was sold to Cairo’s Jewish community in 882 CE, the building has undergone a series of renovations since then, with its current structure dating back to 1892.
Excavations of the temple in the 19th century found a number of abandoned Hebrew scrolls of Jewish scholarship, which were since collected and shipped to Cambridge, England, where they were then split among several historical libraries.
Preserving such sites in the future will undoubtedly be difficult for the new JCC president, especially considering that the Egyptian government announced on May 23 that it would be canceling its annual $14,000 stipend to the community, which has been a part of the state budget since 1988. Used to help pay for renovations to the Bassatine cemetery, in addition to round-the-clock security, the stipend began the same year that the Egyptian government attempted to build a ring road around Cairo, which would circle the city in an attempt to ease traffic.
Originally planned to cut through the cemetery, construction of the ring road would have endangered 300 Jewish graves.
Intense international lobbying by various Jewish NGOs and the US government changed the course of the road, and elicited commitments from the Egyptian government to protect the graves.
However, that aid has now been canceled.
The cuts come at a time when Egypt’s government is attempting to decrease government spending and close its massive budget deficit, which is expected to total upwards of $197.5 billion by mid-year.
Despite the predisposition of JCC members to downplay it, links between the organization and the State of Israel do exist.
Samuel Amiel, an Egyptian-American Jew with strong ties to the community, works as the Senior Executive of International Relations for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has ties to Israel. A non-profit organization, the Joint’s mandate is to provide much needed humanitarian assistance, either medical, food or otherwise, to overlooked Jewish communities throughout the world.
In Cairo, the Joint has mostly been responsible for providing medical aid to an aging, ailing population, in addition to supplying kosher food products, to be used during holiday services, Shabbat and on other occasions.
Weinstein was buried in the Bassatine Jewish cemetery, between her mother and father. The burial service, attended by foreigners, press and well-to-do Egyptians, was juxtaposed with the stares of the area’s poverty-stricken residents. Ten minutes after the service was over, some witnesses saw local children rush to steal the flowers off Weinstein’s grave.
After Weinstein’s burial, a small gathering was held at the Shaar Hashamayim synagogue. In an indication perhaps of the future, Haroun spoke to a group of young, open-minded Egyptian college students in attendance who claimed that they had no idea that Jews had ever existed in Egypt prior to the news of Weinstein’s death. They came to learn and catch a last glimpse of what was undoubtedly the last “major event set to be hosted by Cairo’s Jewish community,” as Haroun described it.
Who knows whether future generations of Egyptians will continue to display the same level of curiosity regarding their deceased compatriots, and at what point will there not be anyone left from the community for them to talk to? With Weinstein’s passing and the changing of the guard, Haroun has her work cut out for her. 