French radio focuses on Jews from Egypt

The story of the 80,000 Jews of Egypt - now reduced to 40 - reached millions of French listeners last Thursday when the series 'Surpris par la nuit' devoted a programme to a portrait of the community by Simone Douek, entitled 'Une sortie d'Egypte' (Flight from Egypt).

Douek conjures up a vivid picture of this heterogeneous community for the popular radio station France Culture. Its members had migrated into Egypt from all over the Ottoman empire - from Baghdad, Aleppo, Corfu. There were even Ashkenazim from Poland and Germany. Together with indigenous Jews and Karaites, they testified to the fact that different communities coexisted in harmony for generations in Egypt. One interviewee tells how Jews attended a Greek Orthodox convent, while Muslims learned Hebrew at the Alliance Israelite school.

The 1840 Montefiore census recorded Jews in a great variety of occupations - from merchants and tradesmen, to servants, midwives and even a donkey driver.

Douek interviewed Yves Fedida, whose Nebi Daniel mission is to persuade the Egyptian government to release synagogue birth, marriage and death registers. Some 300,000 people had their details recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries. For the 40 percent of Egyptian Jews who were stateless these records are the only ones they had. Fedida argues that this information, which would allow a sociological picture of the community to be built up, no longer belongs to Egypt since the Jews were expelled. So far, however, the Egyptian government has refused Nebi Daniel access. As a result, the Jews from Egypt have been stripped of their history.

Taking part: Yves Fédida, (association Nebi Daniel), Mireille et Elie Michaali, Claudine Terem, Gaby Schinasi, Elie Cohen ; (Egyptian hazanut) Maurice Tibboul, Lucien Perez, Laurent, Laurent Elguir (minister): Clément Ménascé, Robert Farhi, Renée Stambouli ; Isabelle de Botton, actress, author of Moïse, Dalida et moi, Serge Héfez, psychoanalyst and his mother Régina Héfez.

Listen here (2 mins into programme) - 5 March until 5 April