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| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 57,500+ | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Israel | 57,500[1] |
 Egypt | fewer than 20[2][3] |
| Languages | |
| Hebrew, Egyptian Arabic | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism, some today practice Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mizrahi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Yemeni Jews | |
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| Jews and Judaism |
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| History of Egypt | ||||||||||||||||||
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 Egypt portal | ||||||||||||||||||
Egyptian Jews constitute both one of the oldest and youngest Jewish communities in the world. The historic core of the Jewish community in Egypt consisted mainly of Arabic-speaking Rabbanites and Karaites. After their expulsion from Spain, more Sephardi and Karaite Jews began to emigrate to Egypt and their numbers increased significantly with the growth of trading prospects after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. As a result, Jews from all over the territories of the Ottoman Empire as well as Italy and Greece started to settle in the main cities of Egypt, where they thrived. The Ashkenazi community, mainly confined to Cairo's Darb al-Barabira quarter, began to arrive in the aftermath of the waves of pogroms that hit Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.
In the 1950s, Egypt began to expel its Jewish population (estimated at between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1948),[4] also sequestering Jewish-owned property at this time.
In 2016, an article in an Egyptian periodical contained a quote from Magda Tania Haroun (the president of Cairo’s Jewish community) which seemed to imply that there were only 6 Jews remaining in the entire country, all of them women over age 65.[2] However, a subsequent article in another periodical clarified that she was specifically referring to the Jews remaining in Cairo (where she is based) and that there are a further 12 Jews in the city of Alexandria, whose spiritual leader is Ben Youssef Gaon.[5] With the death of Magda’s mother, Marcelle Haroun, at the age of 93, in July 2019, left only five Jews in Cairo.[6]
Contents
Ancient times
| Religion in Egypt |
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| Religions in Egypt |
| Religious institutions |
| Religious Organizations |
| Unrecognized religions & denominations |
| Other topics |
Genesis and Exodus[
The Book of Genesis and Book of Exodus describe a period of Hebrew servitude in ancient Egypt, during decades of sojourn in Egypt, the escape of well over a million Israelites from the Delta, and the three-month journey through the wilderness to Sinai.[7] This episode is not corroborated by any historical evidence. Israelites first appear in the archeological record on the Merneptah Stele from between 1208–3 BCE at the end of the Bronze Age. A reasonably Bible-friendly interpretation is that they were a federation of Habiru tribes of the hill-country around the Jordan River. Presumably, this federation consolidated into the kingdom of Israel, and Judah split from that, during the dark age that followed the Bronze. The Bronze Age term "Habiru" was less specific than the Biblical "Hebrew". The term referred simply to Levantine nomads, of any religion or ethnicity. Mesopotamian, Hittite, Canaanite, and Egyptian sources describe them largely as bandits, mercenaries, and slaves. Certainly, there were some Habiru slaves in ancient Egypt, but native Egyptian kingdoms were not heavily slave-based.[8]
Later ancient times
In the Elephantine papyri, caches of legal documents and letters written in Aramaic amply document the lives of a community of Jewish soldiers stationed there as part of a frontier garrison in Egypt for the Achaemenid Empire.[9] Established at Elephantine in about 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign, these soldiers assisted Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign. Their religious system shows strong traces of Babylonian polytheism, something which suggests to certain scholars that the community was of mixed Judaeo-Samaritan origins,[10] and they maintained their own temple, functioning alongside that of the local deity Chnum. The documents cover the period 495 to 399 BCE.
The Hebrew Bible also records that a large number of Judeans took refuge in Egypt after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah in 597 BCE, and the subsequent assassination of the Jewish governor, Gedaliah. (2 Kings 25:22-24, Jeremiah 40:6-8) On hearing of the appointment, the Jewish population fled to Moab, Ammon, Edom and in other countries returned to Judah. (Jeremiah 40:11-12) However, before long Gedaliah was assassinated, and the population that was left in the land and those that had returned ran away to Egypt for safety. (2 Kings 25:26, Jeremiah 43:5-7) The numbers that made their way to Egypt are subject to debate. In Egypt, they settled in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros. (Jeremiah 44:1)
Ptolemaic and Roman
Further waves of Jewish immigrants settled in Egypt during the Ptolemaic era, especially around Alexandria. Thus, their history in this period centers almost completely on Alexandria, though daughter communities rose up in places like the present Kafr ed-Dawar, and Jews served in the administration as custodians of the river.[11] As early as the 3rd century BCE, one can speak of a widespread diaspora of Jews in many Egyptian towns and cities. In Josephus's history, it is claimed that, after the first Ptolemy took Judea, he led some 120,000 Jewish captives to Egypt from the areas of Judea, Jerusalem, Samaria, and Mount Gerizim. With them, many other Jews, attracted by the fertile soil and Ptolemy's liberality, emigrated there of their own accord. An inscription recording a Jewish dedication of a synagogue to Ptolemy and Berenice was discovered in the 19th century near Alexandria.[12] Josephus also claims that, soon after, these 120,000 captives were freed from bondage by Philadelphus.[13]
The history of the Alexandrian Jews dates from the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great, 332 BCE, at which they were present. They were numerous from the very outset, forming a notable portion of the city's population under Alexander's successors. The Ptolemies assigned them a separate section, two of the five districts of the city, to enable them to keep their laws pure of indigenous cultic influences. The Alexandrian Jews enjoyed a greater degree of political independence than elsewhere. While the Jewish population elsewhere throughout the later Roman Empire frequently formed private societies for religious purposes, or organized corporations of ethnic groups like the Egyptian and Phoenician merchants in the large commercial centers, those of Alexandria constituted an independent political community, side by side with that of the other ethnic groups.[14]
For the Roman period, there is evidence that at Oxyrynchus (modern Behneseh), on the west side of the Nile, there was a Jewish community of some importance. Many of the Jews there may have become Christians, though they retained their Biblical names (e.g., "David" and "Elisabeth," occurring in litigation concerning an inheritance). There is even found a certain Jacob, son of Achilles (c. 300 CE), as beadle of an Egyptian temple.
The Hellenistic Jewish community of Alexandria translated the Old Testament into Greek. This translation is called the Septuagint. The translation of the Septuagint itself began in the 3rd century BCE and was completed by 132 BCE,[15][16][17] initially in Alexandria, but in time elsewhere as well.[18] It became the source for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament.[19]
The Jewish community of Alexandria was "extinguished" by Trajan's army during the Kitos War of 115–117 CE, also known as the Diaspora Revolt.[20] The Jewish revolt, which is said to have begun in Cyrene and spread to Egypt, was largely motivated by religious zealotry, aggravation after the failed Great Revolt and destruction of the Temple, and anger at discriminatory laws.[21]
Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire
The greatest blow Alexandrian Jews received was during the Byzantine Empire rule and the rise of a new state religion: Christianity. It was the expulsion of the Jews from Alexandria (so-called Alexandria Expulsion) in 414 or 415 A.D. under the leadership of Saint Cyril. Later violence took on a decidedly anti-Semitic context with calls for ethnic cleansing. Before that time, state/religious-sanctioned claims of a Jewish pariah were not common.[22] Gibbon in his The history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 47, describes the Alexandria pogrom:
Some authors estimate that around 100 thousand Jews were expelled from the city.[24][25] The expulsion then continued in the nearby regions of Egypt and Palestine followed by a forced Christianization of the Jews[citation needed].
Arab rule (641 to 1250)
The Arab invasion of Egypt at first found support from Jewish residents as well, disgruntled by the corrupt administration of the Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria, notorious for his Monotheletic proselytizing.[26] In addition to the Jewish population settled there from ancient times, some are said to have come from the Arabian Peninsula. The letter sent by Muhammad to the Jewish Banu Janba in 630[27] is said by Al-Baladhuri to have been seen in Egypt. A copy, written in Hebrew characters, has been found in the Cairo Geniza.
Many Jewish residents had no reason to feel kindly toward the former masters of Egypt. In 629 the Emperor Heraclius I had driven the Jewish population from Jerusalem, and this was followed by massacres of Jewish residents throughout the empire—in Egypt, often aided by the Coptic population, who may have been trying to settle old grievances against Jewish groups, dating from the Persian conquest of Amida at the time of Emperor Anastasius I (502) and of Alexandria by the Persian general Shahin Vahmanzadegan (617), when some of the Jewish residents sided with the conquerors.[citation needed] The Treaty of Alexandria (November 8, 641), which sealed the Arab conquest of Egypt, expressly stipulated that the Jewish residents were to be allowed to remain in that city unmolested; and at the time of the capture of that city, 'Amr ibn al-'As, in his letter to the caliph, relates that he found there 40,000 Jews.[citation needed]
Of the fortunes of the Jewish population of Egypt under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates (641–868), little is known. Under the Tulunids (863-905), the Karaite community enjoyed robust growth.
Rule of the Fatimid Caliphs (969 to 1169)
At this time, Jews from North Africa came to settle in Egypt after the Fatimid conquest of Egypt in 969.[28] These Jewish immigrants made up a significant amount of the population from all the Jews living in Egypt. Due to the discovery of the Cairo Geniza documents at the end of the 19th century, a lot is known about Egyptian Jews. From private records, letters, public records, and documents, these sources held the information about the society of the Egyptian Jews.
The rule of the Fatimid Caliphate was in general favorable for the Jewish communities, except the latter portion of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah's reign. The foundation of Talmudic schools in Egypt is usually placed at this period. One of the Jewish citizens who rose to high position in that society was Ya'qub ibn Killis.
The caliph al-Hakim (996–1020) vigorously applied the Pact of Umar, and compelled the Jewish residents to wear bells and to carry in public the wooden image of a calf. A street in the city, al-Jawdariyyah, was designated for Jewish residency. Al-Hakim, hearing allegations that some mocked him in verses, had the whole quarter burned down.
In the beginning of the 12th century, a Jewish man named Abu al-Munajja ibn Sha'yah was at the head of the Department of Agriculture. He is especially known as the constructor of a Nile sluice (1112), which was called after him "Baḥr Abi al-Munajja". He fell into disfavor because of the heavy expenses connected with the work, and was incarcerated in Alexandria, but was soon able to free himself. A document concerning a transaction of his with a banker has been preserved. Under the vizier Al-Malik al-Afḍal (1137) there was a Jewish master of finances, whose name, however, is unknown. His enemies succeeded in procuring his downfall, and he lost all his property. He was succeeded by a brother of the Christian patriarch, who tried to drive the Jews out of the kingdom. Four leading Jews worked and conspired against the Christian, with what result is not known. There has been preserved a letter from this ex-minister to the Jews of Constantinople, begging for aid in a remarkably intricate poetical style.[29] One of the physicians of the caliph Al-Ḥafiẓ (1131–49) was a Jew, Abu Manṣur (Wüstenfeld, p. 306). Abu al-Faḍa'il ibn al-Nakid (died 1189) was a celebrated oculist.
As for government power in Egypt, the highest legal authority who was called chief scholar was held by Ephraim.[30] Later on in the 11th century, this position was held by a father and son with the names of Shemarya b. Elhanan and Elhanan b. Shemarya. Soon the chief of the Palestinian Jews took over the position of chief scholar for the Rabbinates after the death of Elhanan. Around 1065, a Jewish leader was recognized as ráīs al-Yahūd meaning the head of the Jews in Egypt. Later for a sixty-year rule, three family members of court physicians took the position of ráīs al-Yahūd whose names were Judah b. Såadya, Mevorakh b. Såadya, and Moses b. Mevorakh. The position was eventually handed down from Moses Maimonides in the late 12th century to early 15th centuries and was given to his descendants.
As for the Jewish population, there were over 90 Jewish inhabitants known during the 11th and 12th centuries.[31] These inhabitants which included cities, towns, and villages, contained over 4,000 Jewish citizens. Also for the Jewish population, a little more light is thrown upon the communities in Egypt through the reports of certain Jewish scholars and travelers who visited the country. Judah Halevi was in Alexandria in 1141, and dedicated some beautiful verses to his fellow resident and friend Aaron Ben-Zion ibn Alamani and his five sons. At Damietta Halevi met his friend, the Spaniard Abu Sa'id ibn Ḥalfon ha-Levi. About 1160 Benjamin of Tudela was in Egypt; he gives a general account of the Jewish communities which he found there. At Cairo there were 2,000 Jews; at Alexandria 3,000, whose head was the French-born R. Phineas b. Meshullam; in the Faiyum there were 20 families; at Damietta 200; at Bilbeis, east of the Nile, 300 persons; and at Damira 700.
From Saladin and Maimonides (1169 to 1250)
Saladin's war with the Crusaders (1169–93) does not seem to have affected the Jewish population with communal struggle. A Karaite doctor, Abu al-Bayyan al-Mudawwar (d. 1184), who had been physician to the last Fatimid, treated Saladin also.[32] Abu al-Ma'ali, brother-in-law of Maimonides, was likewise in his service.[33] In 1166 Maimonides went to Egypt and settled in Fostat, where he gained much renown as a physician, practising in the family of Saladin and in that of his vizier al-Qadi al-Fadil|Ḳaḍi al-Faḍil al-Baisami, and Saladin's successors. The title Ra'is al-Umma or al-Millah (Head of the Nation or of the Faith), was bestowed upon him. In Fostat he wrote his Mishneh Torah (1180) and The Guide for the Perplexed, both of which evoked opposition from Jewish scholars. From this place he sent many letters and responsa; and in 1173 he forwarded a request to the North African communities for help to secure the release of a number of captives. The original of the last document has been preserved.[34] He caused the Karaites to be removed from the court.[35]
Mamelukes (1250 to 1517)
In the mid thirteenth century the Ayyubid empire was on its knees. Plagued with famine, disease, and conflict; a great period of upheaval would see the Golden Islamic Period come to a violent end. Foriegn powers began to encircle the Islamic World as the French endeavored on the 7th crusade in 1248 and the Mongol campaigns in the east rapidly making its way into the heartland of Islam[36]. These internal and external pressure weakened the Ayyubid empire.
In 1250 following the death of Sultan Al Alih Ayyub, slave soldiers, Mamluks, rose up and slaughtered all the Ayyubid heirs and the Mamluk leader Emir Aybak became the new sultan. The Mamluks were quick to consolidate power using a strong spirit of defense growing among Muslim faithfuls to rally victoriously against the Mongols in 1260 and consolidating the remnants of the Ayyubid Syria in 1299.
In this period of aggressive posturing the ulema were quick to denounce foreign influences to safeguard the purity of Islam. This led to unfortunate situations for Mamluk Jews. In 1300 Sultan Al-Nasir Qalawan ordered all Jews under his rule to wear yellow headgear to isolate the Egyptian Jewish community. This law would be enforced for centuries and later amended in 1354 to force all Jews to wear a sign in addition to yellow head-wear. On multiple occasions the ulema persuaded the government to close or convert synagogues. Even major places of pilgrimage for Egyptian Jews such as the Dammah Synagogue were forced to close in 1301[36]. Jews subsequently were excluded from bath houses and were prohibited to work in the national treasury. This repression of the Jewish community would continue for centuries, but it would be relatively infrequent to Jews living in Christendom.
In all the religious fervor of the period the Mamluks began to adopt Sufi Islam in an attempt to assuage dissatisfaction with traditional Sunni Islam facilitated solely by the Sultan. At the same time the Mamluk government was unwilling to relinquish control of religion to a clerical class. They endeavored on a massive project of inviting and subsidizing Sufi clerics in an attempt to promote a new state religion[36]. All throughout the country new government-backed sufi brotherhoods and saint cults grew almost overnight and was able to quell the disapproval of the population[36]. The Mamluk Sultanate would become a safe haven for Sufi mystics all throughout the islamic world. Across the empire state-sponsored Sufi ceremonies were a clear sign of the full fledged shift that took hold.
Jews who for the most part were kept segregated from Arab communities first came into contact with Sufism in these state sponsored ceremonies, as they were obliged to attend out of a show of loyalty to the sultan. It is in these ceremonies where many Egyptian Jews first came into contact with Sufism and it would eventually spark a massive movement amongst the Mamluk Jews.
Now most Egyptian Jews of the time were members of the Karaite sect. This was a 1st century anti-Pharisee movement who rejected the teachings of the Talmud. It is believed the Karaites settled in Egypt as early as the 7th century, and Egypt would remain a bastion for Karaites all the way through the 19th century. As time passed in contact with these relatively new Sufi ideas many Karaites began to push towards reform. Admiration for the structure of Hanaqas, Sufi schools, and its doctrinal focus on mysticism begin to make many Egyptian Jews long to adopt something similar.
Abraham Maimonides (1204-1237), who was considered to be the most prominent leader and government representative of all Mamluk Jews, advocating reorganizing Jewish schools to be more like Sufi Hanaqas. Abraham would be the first to attempt borrow ideas and practices from Sufism in his Guide for the Perplexed. His heir Obadyah Maimonides(1228-1265) writes the Treatise of the Pool which is a mystical manual written in Arabic and filled with Sufi technical terms. In the book Obadyah lays out how one may obtain union with the unintelligible world showing his full adherence and advocacy of mysticism. He also began to reform practices advocating for celibacy and Halwa, solitary meditation, to better tune yourself to the spiritual plane [36]. Needless to say these were imitations of long held Sufi practices. In fact, he would often portrayed Jewish patriarchs such as Moses and Issac as hermit who relied on isolated meditation to remain in touch with God. The Maimonides dynasty would essentially spark a new movement amongst Egyptian Jews and thus the Pietist movement was formed.
Peitism gained a huge following, mainly amongst the Jewish elite, and it would continue to gain momentum until the end of the Maimonides dynasty in the 15th Century. Additionally forced conversions in Yemen, Crusader and Almohad massacres in North Africa, and the collapse of Islamic Andalusia forced large number of Jews to resettle in Egypt many of whom would join the Pietist movement enthusiastically [36]. This enthusiasm may have been largely practical as the adoption of Sufi ideas did much to ingratiate the Mamluk Jewish community with their Muslim overlords which may have appealed to many of these refugees. After all, even the Maimonides dynasty itself originated from Al Andalus and resettled in Egypt. That being said it is important not to understate the theological potency of Pietism. There is a massive and rich library of Peitist writings and manuscripts that speak to that truth.
Interestingly, Pietist would in some ways become indistinguishable from Sufism. They would clean their hands and feet before praying in the temple. They would face Jerusalem as they prayed. They frequently practiced daytime fasting and group meditation or muraqaba.
There was vehement opposition to the revisionism of Pietism just as there was with Hasidism. In fact opposition was so strong there are records of Jews reporting fellow Jews to Muslim authorities on the ground that they were practicing Islamic heresy. David Maimonides brother of Obadyah and his heir was eventually exiled to Palestine at the behest of other leaders in the Jewish community. Eventually Pietism fell out of favor in Egypt as its leaders were exiled and Jewish immigration into Egypt slowed[36]. That being said pietist texts would continue to be copied and circulated all the way through the 17th century where it found a small but dedicated following in Mamluk Palestine.
Today we can see the influence of Sufism still present in many Kabbalist rituals.Many of the manuscripts authored under the Maimonides Dynasty are still read and revered in Kabbalist circles[36].
Ottoman rule (1517 to 1922)
On January 22, 1517, the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, defeated Tuman Bey, the last of the Mamelukes. He made radical changes in the governance of the Jewish community, abolishing the office of nagid, making each community independent, and placing David ibn Abi Zimra, at the head of that of Cairo. He also appointed Abraham de Castro to be master of the mint. It was during the reign of Salim's successor, Suleiman II, that Aḥmad Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, revenged himself upon the Jews because De Castro had revealed (1524) to the sultan his designs for independence (see Aḥmad Pasha; Abraham de Castro). The "Cairo Purim," in commemoration of their escape, is still celebrated on Adar 28.
Toward the end of the 16th century, Talmudic studies in Egypt were greatly fostered by Bezaleel Ashkenazi, author of the "Shiṭṭah Meḳubbeẓet." Among his pupils were Isaac Luria, who as a young man had gone to Egypt to visit a rich uncle, the tax-farmer Mordecai Francis (Azulai, "Shem ha-Gedolim," No. 332); and Abraham Monson (1594). Ishmael Kohen Tanuji finished his "Sefer ha-Zikkaron" in Egypt in 1543. Joseph ben Moses di Trani was in Egypt for a time (Frumkin, l.c. p. 69), as well as Ḥayyim Vital Aaron ibn Ḥayyim, the Biblical and Talmudical commentator (1609; Frumkin, l.c. pp. 71, 72). Of Isaac Luria's pupils, a Joseph Ṭabul is mentioned, whose son Jacob, a prominent man, was put to death by the authorities.
According to Manasseh b. Israel (1656), "The viceroy of Egypt has always at his side a Jew with the title 'zaraf bashi,' or 'treasurer,' who gathers the taxes of the land. At present Abraham Alkula holds the position." He was succeeded by Raphael Joseph Tshelebi, the rich friend and protector of Shabbatai Zevi. Shabbetai was twice in Cairo, the second time in 1660. It was there that he married the ill-famed Sarah, who had been brought from Leghorn (Livorno). The Shabbethaian movement naturally created a great stir in Egypt. It was in Cairo that Miguel (Abraham) Cardoso, the Shabbethaian prophet and physician, settled (1703), becoming physician to the pasha Kara Mohammed. In 1641 Samuel b. David, Karaite, visited Egypt. The account of his journey (G. i. 1) supplies special information in regard to his fellow sectaries. He describes three synagogues of the Rabbinites at Alexandria, and two at Rashid (G. i. 4). A second Karaite, Moses ben Elijah ha-Levi, has left a similar account of the year 1654; but it contains only a few points of special interest to the Karaites (ib).
Sambari mentions a severe trial which came upon the Jews, due to a certain "ḳadi al-'asakir" (="generalissimo," not a proper name) sent from Constantinople to Egypt, who robbed and oppressed them, and whose death was in a certain measure occasioned by the graveyard invocation of one Moses of Damwah. This may have occurred in the 17th century (S. 120, 21). David Conforte was dayyan in Egypt in 1671. Blood libels occurred at Alexandria in 1844, in 1881, and in January 1902. In consequence of the Damascus Affair, Moses Montefiore, Crémieux, and Salomon Munk visited Egypt in 1840; and the last two did much to raise the intellectual status of their Egyptian brethren by the founding, in connection with Rabbi Moses Joseph Algazi, of schools in Cairo. At the turn of the 20th century, a Jewish observer noted with 'true satisfaction that a great spirit of tolerance sustains the majority of our fellow Jews in Egypt, and it would be difficult to find a more liberal population or one more respectful of all religious beliefs.’[37]
According to the official census published in 1898 (i., xviii.), there were in Egypt 25,200 Jews in a total population of 9,734,405.