Although nineteenth-century Egyptian Jewry was an active and creative part of society, this work from 1969 is the main comprehensive work devoted to an analysis and appraisal of its activities. The period under review commences with the fall of the Mamluk regime in Egypt, and the incipient modernization of the state, with the resulting increase in Jewish activity. It terminates with the end of World War I and the new era in the history of modern Egypt, an era of extreme nationalism that led to the undermining of the Jewish community.
Up until the advent of Nasser and the 1956 War, a thriving and diverse Jewry lived in Egypt – mainly in the two cities of Alexandria and Cairo, heavily influencing the social and cultural history of the country. Histories of the Jews of Egypt argues that this Jewish diaspora should be viewed as "an imagined bourgeoisie". It demonstrates how, from the late nineteenth century up to the 1950s, a resilient bourgeois imaginary developed and influenced the lives of Egyptian Jews both in the public arena, in institutions such as the school, and in the home. From the schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Cairo lycée français to Alexandrian marriage contracts and interwar Zionist newspapers – this book explains how this imaginary was characterised by a great capacity to adapt to the evolutions of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt, but later deteriorated alongside increasingly strong Arab nationalism and the political upheavals that the country experienced from the 1940s onwards. Offering a novel perspective on the history of modern Egypt and its Jews, and unravelling too often forgotten episodes and personalities which contributed to the making of an incredibly diverse and lively Jewish diaspora at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East, this book is of interest to scholars of Modern Egypt, Jewish History and of Mediterranean History.
The Jewish community of Egypt in modem times-now practically non-existent-consisted in part of autochthonous Jews who traced their origins to the periods of Maimonides, Philo, and even the prophet Jeremiah, thus making it the oldest community in the Jewish Diaspora. It also contained Jews who were part of the waves of immigration into Egypt that began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Coming mostly from Mediterranean countries, this predominantly Sephardic community maintained a network of commercial, social, and religious ties throughout the entire region, as well as a distinctively Mediterranean culture and life-style. In this volume, international scholars examine the Ottoman background of this community, the political status and participation of the Jews in Egyptian society, their role in economic life, their contributions to Egyptian-Arabic culture, and the images of the community in their own eyes, as well as in the eyes of Egyptians and Palestinian Jews. The book includes an extensive set of appendixes that illustrate the wide range of primary sources used by the contributors.
In this provocative and wide-ranging history, Joel Beinin examines fundamental questions of ethnic identity by focusing on the Egyptian Jewish community since 1948. A complex and heterogeneous people, Egyptian Jews have become even more diverse as their diaspora continues to the present day. Central to Beinin's study is the question of how people handle multiple identities and loyalties that are dislocated and reformed by turbulent political and cultural processes. It is a question he grapples with himself, and his reflections on his experiences as an American Jew in Israel and Egypt offer a candid, personal perspective on the hazards of marginal identities.
The Cairo Geniza is the largest and richest store of documentary evidence for the medieval Islamic world. This book seeks to revolutionize the way scholars use that treasure trove. Phillip I. Ackerman-Lieberman draws on legal documents from the Geniza to reconceive of life in the medieval Islamic marketplace. In place of the shared practices broadly understood by scholars to have transcended confessional boundaries, he reveals how Jewish merchants in Egypt employed distinctive trading practices. Highly influenced by Jewish law, these commercial practices served to manifest their Jewish identity in the medieval Islamic context. In light of this distinctiveness, Ackerman-Lieberman proposes an alternative model for using the Geniza documents as a tool for understanding daily life in the medieval Islamic world as a whole.
Despite considerable research on the Jewish diaspora in the Middle East and North Africa since 1800, there has until now been no comprehensive synthesis that illuminates both the differences and commonalities in Jewish experience across a range of countries and cultures. This lacuna in both Jewish and Middle Eastern studies is due partly to the fact that in general histories of the region, Jews have been omitted from the standard narrative. As part of the religious and ethnic mosaic that was traditional Islamic society, Jews were but one among numerous minorities and so have lacked a systematic treatment. Addressing this important oversight, this volume documents the variety and diversity of Jewish life in the region over the last two hundred years. It explains the changes that affected the communities under Islamic rule during its "golden age" and describes the processes of modernization that enabled the Jews to play a pivotal role in their respective countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first half of the book is thematic, covering topics ranging from languages to economic life and from religion and music to the world of women. The second half is a country-by-country survey that covers Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, the Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
"An erotic scandal chronicle so popular it became a byword... Expertly tailored for contemporary readers. It combines scurrilous attacks on the social and political celebritites of the day, disguised just enough to exercise titillating speculatuion, with luscious erotic tales." —Belles Lettres This story concerns the return of to earth of the goddess of Justice, Astrea, to gather information about private and public behavior on the island of Atalantis. Manley drew on her experience as well as on an obsessive observation of her milieu to produce this fast paced narrative of political and erotic intrigue.
This volume, first published in 1973, brings together a wide range of Professor Landau’s work on recent Middle Eastern history and politics, reflecting the breadth of the author’s concern and research. The first section deals with aspects of political organisation in the Middle East, largely Egypt, towards the end of the nineteenth century. A little-known plan of the Islamic reformer al-Afghani is discussed, showing him in a rather more political light than the religious haze which normally surrounds this pan-Islamic campaigner. The role of the influential secret societies in modern Egypt is outlined, and the politics behind the fluctuations in the degree of responsibility allowed to Egyptian ministers is examined. This section is concluded by a chapter on two proposals for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Sudan in the early days of Zionism, throwing interesting light on the differing aims of early Zionists and alternative historical paths that might have been taken. The second section of the book contains studies on the Jewish situation in nineteenth-century Egypt, focusing on their position within the larger Muslim society and on socio-economic factors, as well as on the career of James Sanua (‘Abu Naddara’), an Egyptian Jew who played a prominent part in nationalist agitation. The two final parts of the book turn to recent and contemporary electoral politics in the Middle East, with special attention being paid to the political leadership and voting behaviour of the Arabs in Israel. Other studies deal with elections in Lebanon and Turkey, and the final chapter analyses the militant right-wing elements in the Turkish political spectrum.
