On Saturday, the Jewish community in Egypt celebrated the Jewish New Year, “Rosh Hashanah,” for the first time in 70 years, according to a correspondent for Al-Hurra TV in Cairo.
The official page of the “Jewish community” on Facebook announced that the community celebrated the Jewish New Year, and published some pictures from the celebration, which falls on Saturday and Sunday.
The head of the Jewish community, Magda Haroun, appeared during a speech at the celebration, in front of dozens of members of the community, according to the same source.
For the first time in 70 years the JCC is celebrating the Jewish new year in Heliopolis Synagogue. Shana tova
Posted by JCC Cairo Jewish community in Cairo on Friday, September 15, 2023
For years, the Egyptian government has been keen to develop and restore Jewish synagogues and consider them historical sites and shrines, according to Al-Hurra’s correspondent.
At the beginning of this September, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly opened the Ben Ezra Synagogue, after the completion of its restoration project, in the presence of the Ministers of Tourism, Antiquities and Local Development, and the Governor of Cairo.
The temple is considered one of the most important and oldest temples of the Jewish community in Egypt. It was established in the 12th century AD, and contains valuable books related to the customs and traditions of the Jews and their social life in Egypt.
The Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Ahmed Issa, said that the temple restoration project included careful architectural restoration work, as well as work to treat and prevent danger to the temple’s ceilings, isolating the surfaces with the best insulation methods, cleaning and treating stones, and re-formatting the site in an appropriate manner that allows visual viewing of the monument.
He added that the temple contains the “Geniza” documents of the Jewish community in Egypt, which is a collection of their books, scrolls and papers, and is important to scholars and researchers interested in the social life of the Jews in Egypt.
He pointed out that the temple is attributed to Abraham bin Ezra in the twelfth century AD, and was rebuilt in the nineteenth century.
Until the middle of the last century, the number of the Jewish community, which had greatly diminished in Egypt, ranged between eighty thousand and 120 thousand people, according to Agence France-Presse.
Since the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948, thousands of Jews have fled or been expelled from Egypt. Others stayed after changing their religion, often because of marriages with Muslims.
Egyptian Jews participated in various economic fields such as trade and the cotton industry. They were also represented in cultural life through famous stars such as the singer and actress, Leila Murad, and the filmmaker, Togo Mizrahi.
2023-09-17 08:31:11
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