Jewish life in Egypt, while in decline, still exists. Currently, the Adley Synagogue downtown and the Maadi Synagogue are opened alternately for Jewish holidays; while I was in Cairo, a Hannukah service and Passover Seder were held at Adley, and the Purim Megilah reading was held at Maadi. The Ben-Ezra Synagogue, in Coptic Cairo, as well as the Adley Synagogue are open to tourists. The Adley Synagogue houses a library of Jewish books, but it is not open to the public. Maimonides’ synagogue and former house of medicine was destroyed in an earthquake in the 2000s because the maintenance of it had been poor. The Egyptian government is currently in the process of restoring it and a few others. There is no kosher meat available in Egypt, unless brought in from Israel. The Jewish community of Egypt is serviced by a Jewish organization, headed by Carmen Weinstein, and supported by donations from Egyptian Jews living abroad, the Joint Distribution Committee and the Egyptian government.

The current Egyptian Jewish population of Cairo is about 25, only one of whom is a man, and Alexandria’s population is about the same. Most of these people are elder women, but two of their daughters (I am not sure if they are counted amongst the 25 because they have non-Jewish fathers) are now living in Cairo and in their 20s. I heard from one mother that when her daughter was enrolled in the French school, the children found out that her mother is a Jew, and they began to taunt her, “Your mom is a Jew-bitch.” According to her mother, this was a very traumatic time for this little girl. At the Passover seder I met the daughter of an Egyptian Jew and Christian. She is just now beginning to discover her Jewish roots, and she told me that she was planning a trip to Israel. Later, her mother explained to me that after a fight with her father and a few years rejecting Egyptian life and Arabs in general, she is trying to search for her real identity.

The ex-patriot and Israeli Jews in Egypt are also invited to share the holidays with the community, and in turn, give a boost to the vibrancy and attendance of these events. The Israeli population in Cairo is small, and consists of the Embassy and El-Al staff; heavily guarded and overly cautious, this population lives in Maadi (a smaller, wealthier expat town to the south of Cairo) and do not mix with the locals often.

The Israeli Academic Center in Cairo is the result of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty that stipulated each side was to set up a cultural center in the other’s country. While Egypt never managed to create one in Israel, the IACC, an outgrowth of the independent, non-political Israeli university system, brings “creators of Israeli culture” to Egypt, in order to share Israeli culture with Egyptians, according to the Center’s director Dr. Gaby Rosenbaum.