Joel Beinin. The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. xii, 329 pp.

Abstract

The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. xii, 329 pp. @T2first: During the past three decades, several major scholarly studies and personal accounts of Egyptian Jewry have been published in Europe, Israel, and the United States. The most noted scholarly publications include Jacob M. Landau, Jews in Nineteenth Century Egypt (New York: New York University Press, 1969); Gudrun Kramer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914–1952 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989); Michael M. Laskier, The Jews of Egypt, 1920–1970: In the Midst of Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the Middle East Conflict (New York: New York University Press, 1992); Yoram Meital, 'Atarim yehudiyim be-Miṣrayim (Jerusalem: The Ben-Zvi Institute, 1995); Zvi Zohar , Tradition and Change: Halachic Response of Middle Eastern Rabbis to Legal and Technological Changes [Egypt and Syria, 1880–1920]. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Ben-Zvi Institute, 1993); and Yosef Algamil, Pirqei Tuvia ben Simḥa Levi Babovitch: 'Aḥaron ḥakhmei ha-kara'im be-Miṣrayim, 2 vols. (Ramlah: Center for Karaite Jewry, 1998). Some of the best personal accounts are Maurice Mizrahi, L'Egypte et ses Juifs: Le Temps revolu, xixe–xxe siecles (Geneva: Imprimerie Avenir, 1977); Yitzhaq Gormezano-Goren, Blanche [Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1987); Jacqueline Kahanoff Mi-mizrah. shemesh (Tel-Aviv: Yariv Hadar, 1978); Ronit Matalon, Zeh ‘im ha-panim 'eleynu (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1995); Rachel Maccabi, Mitzrayim sheli (Tel-Aviv: Sifriyat ha-Poalim, 1968); and Andre Aciman, Out of Egypt (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1994). Joel Beinin's book is the product of several years of research in Israel, Egypt, France, and the United States, in which he consulted not only books but also newspaper articles in English, French, Arabic, and Hebrew, as well as archives, among them the YIVO Institute records; the Haganah, Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa‘ir, and the Central Zionist archives (Israel); the Jamie Lehmann Memorial Collection of Yeshiva University (containing the records of the Cairo community); and the U.S. National Archives . He also interviewed Egyptian Jews and non-Jews.