Cairo: Egypt’s Jewish community has named Magda Haroun, a daughter of a prominent Egyptian nationalist and anti-Zionist, as their new head, following the death of previous leader Carmen Weinstein last week.
Magda rejects any Israeli offers to help finance renovation of the country’s ancient synagogues and intends to contact UN heritage organisation Unesco if she fails to find adequate funds for synagogue renovation.
Weinstein was instrumental in drawing the attention of Egyptian authorities to least four Cairo synagogues in need of renovation. Some 15 synagogues still exist in the megacity.
Magda has stressed that Egypt’s Jewish monuments belong to Egypt’s historical heritage, which extends over a very long period. “Jewish temples are like the pyramids and the Sphinx. They are a part of Egypt’s history that cannot be ignored. I promise to keep the heritage of Egyptian Jews so we can return it to the Egyptian people. They have to be remembered,” she told Gulf News.
Magda’s father, Chehata Haroun, was founding member of the leftist Al Tagammu Party. He was known for his anti-Zionist politics, outspoken criticism of Israeli injustices toward Palestinians and his defence of Egyptian Jews against accusations of having greater loyalty to Israel than to Egypt, at the peak of the Mideast wars.
Magda recalled her father as a resolute humanist. “He taught us to love all human beings, and not to judge people on the basis of their religion. He taught me to be proud of being both Egyptian and Jewish at the same time.”
When Haroun died in 2001 at age 82, he left instructions that no Israeli rabbi officiate at his funeral. It had been generations since Egypt had any rabbis of its own. Magda, along with her mother, Marcelle, and her sister, Nadia, two years younger, agreed to delay his funeral a week until a rabbi could be brought from Paris to conduct the funeral services.
“We didn’t want any of the Israeli embassy staff to conduct the service. We knew that my father would see this as contrary to his principles.” Magda said.
“Every human being has several identities. I am a human being. I am Egyptian when Egyptians are suffering, I am black when blacks are suffering, I am Jewish when Jews are suffering and I am a Palestinian when Palestinians are suffering.” These were the words that Haroun’s family chose out of his own writings to mourn him.
By the 1960s, Magda and her sister found staying behind difficult. Their only relatives in Egypt were each other and their parents. When she finished high school, she wanted to go abroad to college, but her father insisted she and Nadia attend an Egyptian university before deciding whether to leave. When they graduated, they were rooted.
“He was convinced until he died that he was an Egyptian citizen of Jewish religion. He believed nobody can force you to leave your country because of your religion. Many people did leave, but my father was a stubborn man,” she said.
Magda, who is fluent in Arabic, French and English, was born in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria on July 13, 1952.
The leader of Egypt’s dwindling and aging Jewish community expects to be the community’s last leader, and, as such, has vowed to protect Egypt’s Jewish heritage as much as possible.
“Egypt’s thriving Jewish community that once numbered in the tens of thousands has dwindled to about 40 people,” according to Magda.
Most Jews left Egypt, heading to the United States, Europe, Israel and elsewhere, more than 60 years ago at a time of hostilities between the country and Israel.
“My goal is to preserve the cultural heritage of the Egyptian Jews so that when we are gone, it will endure, because it belongs to all Egyptians,” Magda said.
She dismissed any fears from the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt after the 2011 overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak.
— Ayman Sharaf is an Egyptian journalist based in Cairo
