PDFs

Egyptian Jewry - why it declined
Ya'acoub Daoud Eskandarany
Published in 1978 in Khamsin 5 (which was the first issue in English)
In order to illustrate the particular problematic of Middle Eastern Jewries, we shall try to give a short historical outline of the Jews who lived in Egypt for 2,000 years, held important positions in the civil service, were rarely exposed to racial persecution and spoke the language of the people.
Their culture, customs and way of life were such that no problem of integration or participation in the revolutionary struggles of the Middle Eastern peoples ought to have arisen. Yet, in Egypt as elsewhere in the Mashreq, the Jewish population, with rare exceptions, has left the country.

We have also included this essay in both a text version taken from an older, translation available on Lloyd Spencer's site, as well as PDF format as it appeared on the Endpage archive.