Every once and while, particularly at times when Cairo and Tel Aviv are at odds with each other, the question of Jews' properties in Egypt rears its ugly head. In 1998, upon the revelation that Israeli officers had killed scores of unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war at the end of the 1967 war, Israel raised the issue of Jews' properties in Alexandria. Some two decades later, following the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in 1979, the Israelis wanted to get back the alleged Jewish property - but these calls fell on deaf ears.
In view of the Israeli persistence to raise the issue, President Mubarak decided that the Jews who still live in the country are solely entitled to dispose Jewish property. Hence the then head of the Jewish community became the one in charge of running Jewish property - before being followed by her daughter Carmen Weinstein. It is worthy of mentioning that the Egyptian Jewish community had decided a long time ago that the relationship with Israel is barely religious.
Obama's speech from Cairo aiming at opening a new page with the Muslim world provoked much gnashing of teeth among the Israelis who saw in the speech a change in terms of the US strategy vis-à-vis the region. Hence a group of US writers attached to the lobby discussed what they wrongly called "Jewish property in Egypt, and asked for this issue to be part of the file of US-Egyptian relations.
Historical background
Up to 1947, the Jewish community had 64,000-75,000 members. Nowadays, they are no more than 100 people. They live in Cairo or Alexandria and the majority of them are very old. Anyhow, no accurate statistics on the number of Jews are available.
Most historians agree that Jewish history in the 20th century is divided into two periods: the pre 23July 1952 revolution and the period from the revolution to 1967 war.
Egyptian Jews were divided into two sects: Rabbinic and Karaites. The Rabbinic constitute the majority of Jews in the world. Yet most Egyptian Jews had belonged to Karaite Judaism -which accepts the Old Testament and reject the Talmud -whose members used to work in trade and finance. As time went by, the Karaites became integrated into society.
According to Weinstein, Jewish property is divided into three sections: synagogues, cemeteries, and schools. Egypt has 21 synagogues, the most famous of which are Ben Ezra, Karaites, and the Synagogue on Adly Street - currently used for performing prayers. The Bassatin cemetery is the most important in Egypt. Jewish schools include industrial schools in Al-Husseiniya and Abbassiyya.
Property claims
After the Hebrew State was established in 1948 -on the seized Palestinian land-Egyptian Jews left the country voluntarily. The international Jewish movement pressured Jews the world over to leave their homelands to the Jewish State. Jews' property claims, therefore, are void of any real meaning.
Over the past few years, Israelis of Egyptian origin intensified their efforts to open the file of the alleged Jewish property. In 2006, 200 Jews who had left Egypt in the 1950s attended a conference in Haifa for the sake of establishing a database on Jews' marriage documents. These documents - often written in Hebrew-included family lineages, places of residence, properties and inheritances.
The conference issued a statement calling upon the Israeli government to urge Egypt to pay reparations to Israelis of Egyptian origin on the grounds that they had left their properties behind them.
By the same token, the Historical Society of Egyptian Jews (HSEJ) held a conference in Israel entitled "The Second Exodus from Egypt". The conference pretended that its main objective was to document testimonies by individuals from Jewish families who had lived in Egypt. It was obvious, however, that its real aim was to use the collected data to sue the Egyptian government and get huge compensations. Hardly surprising, the HSEJ managed to induce a group of congressmen to pressure the US administration to turn US aid to Egypt conditional on offering reparations to Jews of Egyptian origin.
The HSEJ was keen on forging links with US Commission on International Religious Freedom - affiliated to US State Department. The committee's members submitted a file to the Egyptian government including what they considered Jewish property in Egypt and recommending a return of this property to the owners who left after 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
US Jews of Arab origins formed committees to receive reports on Jewish properties in Arab countries. According to these committees' final account, these properties now amount to $ 6 billion. Yet the figure was challenged by another Jewish organisation on the grounds that such properties are currently valued at no less than $ 60 billion.
Voluntary exodus
When it comes to the history of Jews in Egypt, one could say that there were three turning points.
-WWII: At the time the Germans were marching into Egyptian western desert, scores of Jews fled the country to South African Republic out of fear for their safety. Exaggerated claims about the persecution of Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the Holocaust legend fanned Egyptian Jews' fears that they could face a similar fate as German Jews.
-The Arab-Israeli 1948 War: The establishment of Israel tempted numbers of Jews to leave Egypt to the "promised land".
-The 1956 Suez War: The war and the following nationalisation decrees pushed Jews to smuggle their money and leave the country. A process of trafficking Jews to France and Italy, then to Israel was carried out by a secret Israel network. Shlomo Cohen, Knesset MP, admitted this fact in his book on Egyptian Jews. He said that the Hebrew State spared no effort to encourage Egyptian Jews to leave the country for the sake of portraying the Egyptian regime as oppressive.
It is a historical fact that the departure of Egyptian Jews in the wake of the 1956 Suez War was entirely voluntary. Documents belie the claims that Egyptian authorities forced Jews to leave and show that most of those who left took Israel and European countries as their final destination.
The1955 Lavon Affair - a failed attempt by the Mossad and via Jewish agents to harm Egypt's relations with foreign countries - accelerated the process of Jewish migration. In the meantime, Egypt had 145,000 Jewish, the great majority of whom had been trafficked by a secret network.
In the immediate aftermath of the 1961 nationalisation decrees, the international Zionist movement intensified pressure on Jews to leave Egypt to Israel. From 1956-1960, around 36,000 Jews left Egypt 13,000 of them were transported to Israel via the Jewish Agency. In 1970, the total number of Jews was as small as 300. Now they amount to no more than 100. These chose Egypt to be their homeland despite all the temptations offered by the Zionist movement.
It could be concluded from the above that the tone of the Jewish property in Egypt reaches a fever pitch whenever Egypt rises up in defence of Palestinian legitimate rights. Seemingly, this is the situation at the moment.
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