Published: 22 April 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A special project, carried out with the aid of Egyptian authorities, seeks to preserve synagogues, cemeteries and documents left behind after Jews were expelled
THE VOLUNTEERS TRYING to revive Egypt’s Jewish heritage often encounter difficult scenes – synagogue courtyards that have become garbage dumps, Jewish cemeteries that have been destroyed and ancient manuscripts that have been discarded and neglected.
“We have come to places that were closed for 70 years, during which they became – it’s hard to say this – a garbage dump, with awful destruction and neglect,” says Professor Yoram Meital of Ben-Gurion University’s Middle East Studies Department.
Over the last five years, Meital, a 63-year-old specialist on Egypt, has been taking part in a project aimed at conserving synagogues, cemeteries and other Jewish sites in Egypt. The project is being carried out by the tiny Jewish community that remains in Egypt, with American funding and the cooperation of Egyptian authorities.
A consultant on the history of the Jewish community, Meital is documenting existing conditions through photography and texts, and creating a detailed database of remaining Jewish sites in Egypt.
“I document the height of synagogue pillars, the state of curtains covering the ark (parochet), the writing on memorial plaques in synagogues and the names of people on name plates affixed to synagogue chairs,” he says. No less important is the collection and preservation of Jewish manuscripts, some of them rare and valuable, that he have found in the course of his documentation.
FULL STORY Yiddish in Cairo: Egyptians rescue centuries of Jewish life from garbage dumps (Haaretz)
Photo: Eliahu Hanavi synagogue in Alexandria Roland Unger)
