Encyclopaedia Judaica<Contemporary Period.
Jews in Cairo 05: Disaster 1945-1970
Partition of Palestine - Arab League - persecution, pogroms, murders, confiscations and exitus
from: Cairo; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971, vol. 5
presented by Michael Palomino (2008)
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[1948: UN decision of partition of Palestine - Muslim riots - Arab League in Cairo - murders in August 1948 - confiscation of a part of the Jewish property]
While some inhabited the Jewish quarter in the older part of the town, most Jews lived in mixed neighbourhoods, particularly in the new suburb of Heliopolis. (col. 31)
In 1948 riots broke out as a result of the UN decision to partition Palestine, which was a tremendous political defeat for the Arab League. A mob was aroused and joined by shouting gangs of students in attacks on Jews and Jewish property and businesses. In December of the same year, the Arab League met in Cairo to consider its defeat against the background of vast demonstrations. Afterward reports leaked out of Egypt that in August, 150 Jews had been murdered in a particularly violent pogrom during which three rabbis were killed in Cairo's slaughterhouse.
The real estate of many Jews was confiscated and transferred to the administration of a trustee for confiscated Jewish property (this occurred again after the Sinai Campaign in 1956).
[January 1952 riots and Jewish losses - mass arrests in 1954]
Many Jewish shops and businesses were damaged during the rioting of January 1952, when property valued at £10,000,000 - including the Jewish school in the 'Abbasiyya quarter and the chain of stores belonging to the Cicurel family - was destroyed or stolen. The chairman of the Cairo Community Council, Salvador Cicurel, resigned in protest against the rioting, returning to his post only in January 1953.
Mass arrests of Egyptian Jews began in June and July 1954. Those arrested, numbering about 100, were brought to two concentration camps. Many of the inmates of these camps were subsequently released, and only a minority of ten to 15 were brought to trial. Much attention was attracted to the trial of 13 Jews charged with spying for Israel. The trial was opened on Dec. 11, 1954, and the court concluded its sessions on Jan. 5, 1955. Two defendants were condemned to death, two others received life sentences, and the rest were sentenced to imprisonment (see *Egypt; *Marzouk, Moshe; *Lavon, Pinhas).
[1956: Sinai Campaign - the Jewish councils - confiscation of Jewish property]
In late 1956 Cicurel left Egypt and was succeeded as chairman of the Cairo Community Council by Albert Romano. The council administered the institutions of the community, which included schools (four in 1954 containing 700 pupils) and a hospital. The government confiscated the hospital in November 1956 and agreed to pay an annual rent to the council, which was also responsible for the charitable organizations and synagogues. Ashkenazi Jews had their own council, synagogues, and charitable organizations.
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Cairo's chief rabbi, Haim Nahoum, was also the chief rabbi of the country; upon his death in 1960, he was succeeded by Hayyim Duwayk.
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[1947-1970: Jewish population figures of Cairo]
<According to the 1947 population census in Egypt, there were 41,860 Jews in Cairo (constituting 64% of Egyptian Jewry), of whom 58.8% were merchants, and 17.9% were in industry. Although it contained a few wealthy Jews, the Cairo community was poorer than that of Alexandria. After the arrests of Cairo Jews in 1948-49 and the deportations of 1956-57, only 5,587 Jews remained, according to the census of 1960. In 1968, after the *Six-Day War, the population numbered only about 1,500 and by 1970 had dwindled to a few hundred.> (col. 31)
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<The 3,105 *Karaites living in Cairo in 1947 had dwindled to only a few hundred by 1968.> (col. 32)
Sources
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Cairo, vol.5, col.31-32
