Lyn Julius
The Colonization Era in the Middle East & North Africa: A Golden Age?

Lyn Julius | The Colonization Era in the Middle East and North Africa: A Golden Age? | 07.29.21

- So let me just say good morning, good afternoon. Hello, hi, everybody. And wonderful to have Lyn back with us. And Lyn, whenever you are ready, I’m going to hand it over to you.

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

• Okay, well I’m ready and thank you very much. Okay, well, thank you, Wendy, for that very warm welcome and thank you, Judy, and thank you, Trudy. And it’s lovely to be back here. So the subject of my talk today is the Colonial Era, and was it a Golden Age? I’m talking about the Colonial Era in the Middle East and North Africa and how it affected the Jews. Now, the era I’m talking about really was relatively short. It lasted from the end of the 19th century to about 1950. There were protectorates, there were mandates, ruled by the French, the British, and the Italians. And this era was followed by decolonization and Arab states declared their independence.

Now, Egypt was never legally a protectorate. It was ruled by Khedive. But effectively the British pulled the strings so it can be referred to as a veiled protectorate. Iraq was nominally independent from 1932, but the British dominated foreign policy. I will just start sharing my screen. Hope you can see that. And this picture actually shows an Algerian Jewish family from Constantine in the 1930s. And Algeria was actually considered part of metropolitan France after 1830. Just to remind you, the Jews were amongst the oldest inhabitants of the Middle East and North Africa, outside Palestine. And the region is, of course, at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia. And until the 17th century, most Jews lived under Islam.

So this map is a map of the Ottoman Empire as it was in the 19th century. But already you can see that it is losing land, it’s begun to decline. And the early 19th century marked a low point in the fortunes of Jews in the Ottoman Empire. So what was the status of Jews? Well, they were dhimmi, which meant that they were allowed to practise their religion along with Christians. They were protected people, but they were also inferior. And they were continuously reminded of the fact that they had converted to the ultimate revelation of Islam by being subject to a set of restrictions and limitations.

Under the dhimmi status, you don’t have rights as such, you bought your protection with hard cash by paying a tax. A foreign visitor to Morocco called Reverend Brooks, wrote this in 1841. He said in Morocco they are equally ground down, referring to the Jews. They are ground down by a barbarus despotism. “The Moors consider that the object of a Jew’s birth is to serve Muslim men. And he’s consequently subject to the most wanton insults. The boys for their pastime, beat and torment the Jewish children. The men kick and buffet the adults. They walk into their houses at all hours and take the grossest freedoms with their wives and daughters. The Jews invariably coming off with a sound beating if they venture to resist.”

The dhimmi status wasn’t always uniformly applied. Some periods in history, the Jews were actually quite prosperous and thrived. At other times, they didn’t. It really depended on the rule of the day and how strictly they applied Sharia law. But the 19th century was also a time of commercial expansion. And… Creeping Westernisation made its mark. And here you see, David Sassoon, who’s sitting in the middle there with three of his eight sons. And the Sassoon’s actually founded an amazing business empire. They left their native Baghdad and they set up this empire in the wake of the British Empire. And this business network spanned India, Burma, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and China.

And you can see how Westernisation had had affected their family. You’ve got two sons dressed in traditional garb, and of course, David Sassoon wearing his turbine in the middle. But you’ve got one son who’s already wearing a western suit. He’s not the butler. He’s just a bit more western than the others. So the Sassoon’s were not the only Jews to leave their countries of birth. There were Jews who, Syrian Jews who left for Manchester and Brooklyn. There were Turkish Jews who left for South America, Yemenites for Ethiopia, Aiden in India, and Moroccan Jews for South America.

The reasons why these people left were manyfold. It was to escape persecution. It was to escape conscription. It was to escape the dhimmi rules or simply to seek economic opportunities. Already the European powers had rung one concession from the Ottoman Empire and that was the Capitulations. The Capitulations were a means of escaping the dhimmi rules because according to this system, Jews could be exempt from local prosecution, local taxation, local conscription, and the searching of their homes. And a minority of Jews acquired European passports without ever having visited the country concerned or even spoken the language.

At first, European powers intervened to protect minority rights, mainly the Christian minority. In North Africa, Western powers were fighting to gain footholds along the coast. And Moroccan ports came under Spanish control. The British and the French vied for influence in Mogador, the largest port in Morocco, that’s present day Essaouira. And here Jews could become proteges of foreign governments. And the British, in particular, had great influence. And one visitor asked whether Mogador was ruled by the Sultan or by Queen Victoria. The answer came back, both. And here you see the merchant elite with their top hats and they strutted around wearing Manchester suits and pretending to be English gentlemen.

But the 19th century was also a time when European antisemitism began to penetrate the Middle East and it was spread by local Christians. There were two affairs that actually shocked European Jews, excuse me, sorry, my notes have just fallen down. One was the Damascus affair of 1840. And this was a blood libel, a priest called, Father Thomas, disappeared. And the anti-Semitic French council in Damascus alleged that he’d been killed so that Jews could use his blood to make matzah. Jewish notables were rounded up, arrested and tortured, and 63 children held so they would confess where Thomas’ blood was stored.

News reached some Moses Montefiore in England and Adolphe Cremieux, who was a prominent lawyer in France, they set off together to demand the release of the prisoners. They then journeyed to see the Sultan, the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople to demand that he declared blood libels untrue and prohibit trials on the basis of such accusations. There was another affair that galvanised European Jews and that was the Mortara affair. And this happened in Italy and it concerned a six-year-old boy, Edgardo Mortara, who’s born to a Jewish family in Bologna. He was dangerously ill and his nanny baptised him thinking that he was about to die, but he recovered.

But despite the pleas of his parents, the Pope sent his guards to take Edgardo away and bring him up as a Catholic. And actually this is what happened. Edgardo Mortara eventually became a priest and he never returned to his family. So these two events, the Damascus affair and the Mortara affair had quite an impact on a particular group of French Jews who decided to do something about this. And 17 middle class French Jews, mostly from Alsace but some also from Sephardi background, got together and they set up a network, sorry, they founded an institution called the Alliance Israelite Universelle.

Now these people were imbued with the values of the French Revolution. They were educated in universities founded by Napoleon. They put their faith in science to regenerate society. And three years after the Alliance Israelite Universelle, also known as the AIU, was founded in 1860, Adolph Cremieux, who accompanied Sir Moses Montefiore on his journey to Damascus, Adolph Cremieux became the president of the Alliance. Now the Alliance had an amazing effect because these 17 French Jews, what they wanted to do was bring a western education to Jewish communities that up until then had only had a religious education.

And therefore, what these French Jews wanted to do was equip their more, less fortunate brethren, especially in Muslim lands, but not exclusively with the knowledge, with the skills to survive and even thrive in the modern era. So the Alliances’ aims were to protect less fortunate Jews to act as a lobby group to fight abuses, help bring about emancipation through education so that they could fight for their rights. And by 1914, 45,000 children, Jewish children had been educated in some 200 schools. And by 1960, it had educated almost half a million Jewish children. And it was very important because it actually educated Jewish girls for the first time.

So the key to emancipation was really through the mother, the mother who would bring up her children and they would be raised to be upright, emancipated citizens who’d be able to fight for their rights and do well in society and integrate in society. So education mainly followed the French curriculum and there would be maths and science. Religion would also be taught. But to Jews in Muslim states, it was important for it not to be based on superstition. It would be more of a Maimonidian approach, a rationalist approach.

Later on, Hebrew was introduced. I remember, well, my grandparents were educated in the Alliance in Baghdad and my grandfather learnt Turkish ‘cause it was still under the Ottoman Empire, French, English, and Arabic and Hebrew. And here you see the Tunis Girls School with the girls still wearing their traditional dress there and the Isfahan Boys school in Persia, as it was then. So… The Ottoman Empire, as I explained, was really the Sikh man of Europe. And it had no alternative but to concede to European pressure to give equal rights to the Christian and Jewish minorities. So in 1856, the dhimmi rules were actually abrogated.

Now this man here, Yakub Sanua, had a huge impact on Egypt. He actually founded the National Theatre in Egypt and he was the author of dozens of plays. Egypt was a veiled protectorate. And even though the British occupation had no legal basis, Egypt did constitute a de facto protectorate, sorry, Britain was the, it was a British protectorate. After the Suez Canal opened in 1869, the rule of Egypt, Ali Pasha, invited foreigners, including Egypt, sorry, including Jews, to settle in Egypt and develop the economy. Soon Jews became very prominent in land and urban development.

The wealthy families, Cattaui, Suares and Mansour bought thousands of hectares of land for development. Joseph Smouha built a whole city next to Alexandria, founded a whole new resort complete with Kosher hotels and synagogues called Ras El Bar. 90% of the stockbrokers in Egypt were Jews. Jews were heavily involved in the first public transport system in Cairo, in the first national rail network. There were three Jewish bankers, Cattaui, Suares and Diminash, who received the contract to build the Cairo Railway, The Mizrahi administered it and the trains did not run on Shabbat. Cattaui founded the National Bank of Egypt.

A Jew ran the largest sugar company, the Egyptian Petrol Company, the salt and soda company, cigarette factories, chocolate, candles, copper works, and on and on. And of course, they were very important in the cotton business because cotton was the mainstay of Egypt. They were involved in plantations, marketing, processing, and a member of the Cattaui family created the longest cotton thread in the world. And amazingly enough, Jews did dominate the retail trade or the department stores. Cicurel, Gattegno, Ades, Chemla, Benzion and Orosdi Back.

Can you see the Cairo branch of Orosdi Back, here on the right? They had branches in Syria and Iraq and Tunis, and Orosdi Back was actually founded by a family of Hungarian Jews. On the left, you see Salvator Cicurel and his department store, the Cicurel department store. Now Salvator Cicurel is an interesting character. He was the leader of the Cairo Jewish community in the first half of the 20th century. Educated in Switzerland, he became Egyptian national epee fencing champion in 1928 and Captain Egypt’s fencing team at the Amsterdam Olympics, besides which there were dozens of Jewish sporting champions usually trained at the local Macede sports clubs. And they ranged from tennis to swimming to table tennis, to all sorts of things, to boxing, very big in boxing.

Cicurel became a store owner in Cairo and he operated the Cicurel department store. And he was very well in with the royal family. And that meant he was spared, his department store was not nationalised like the other ones in 1948. And he actually survived, until the 1956 Suez crisis when the store was put under government control and thereafter, he immigrated to France. Now the 1920s were an era when Jews actually entered politics. And here you see two finance ministers. Sir Sassoon Heskel was active in Iraq and Joseph Aslan Cattaui in Egypt. And so Sassoon Heskel is best known for having tied Iraq’s oil revenues to the gold standard, which was actually a stroke of genius. And Joseph Aslan Cattaui was also extremely important and prominent.

Now, this was also an era of great cultural flourishing. Jewish culture blossomed. And amazingly enough, I think Tunisia was a great centre in the publishing world. And here you see a book that was produced in Judea Arabic. And apparently there were 150 authors in Tunisia who wrote and published in Judea, Arabic. And of course, this gradually gave way to more and more works being published in French as French became the lingua franca. But Judea Arabic was used to begin with, to introduce the Jewish readership to the great classics of European literature. For instance, Robinson Cruseau, The Count of Monte Cristo, et cetera.

And I mentioned Yakub Sanua, the great playwright, satirist and poet who founded the modern Egyptian theatre. So this era is one which Jews look back on with nostalgia. They had servants, nice houses, they joined sporting clubs, they mingled with the local aristocracy. Women played bridge, made shopping trips to Paris. And this is my grandmother actually on her return from one such trip. Families Holidayed in Europe. There was a cosmopolitan atmosphere, but you can imagine it might have created some resentment and even envy amongst the Arabs who were sort of lagging behind in education by at least a generation.

So there was a man called Amin Almunwez who wrote a book in 1930 called “Baghdad, As I know It.” And he gives a fascinating insight through the eyes of a Muslim into how Iraqi Jews were at the forefront of modernising the country. And I’ll read you a short passage from his book. “The Iraqi Jews ate the most expensive and rare of fruits and vegetables. As soon as the fruit is available in the market, the Iraqi Jew would buy it. No matter how expensive. The majority of the Jews wear the best quality clothes. The Jewish man will frequent the best snack bars and cafes in Baghdad. They own the best clubs in Baghdad.

These are exclusively Jewish and no one else is allowed to join. They also have the schools with the highest standards, both primary and secondary. And if, for example, an Iraqi Jew needs to defend himself in court, he can bring in the best lawyers from abroad. The Jews use the most luxurious and pedigree milking cows, handle the rarest of domestic birds, the parrots, canaries, and love birds. They were the first to import American cars into Iraq, for example, the Ford agents were Ibrahim and Shafiq Ades.” Shafiq Ades sadly came to a very tragic end. He was executed in 1948 for being a Zionist, which he was not.

And this author, Amin Almuez said, they will put up, “The Iraqi Jews will put up their summer tents on the riverside only in the best locations. The Jewish rabbi was the most skilled in circumcision, and many Muslim families resorted to using his skills to circumcise their boys. For foreign languages, the best teachers were Jewish, for example, for French and for the English language. The best swimming instructors were Jewish. The majority of the merchants who imported the hygienic artefacts and instruments from aboard were Jewish. Introduced the bathtub and the boiler to bathrooms.

The Shasha family imported the variety of cloths in the Safir warehouse. The family imported the Singer sewing machines, the gramophones lady’s voice and epiphone records.” Just to go back to a moment, to the impact of the Alliance Israelite Universelle on Jews in the Arab world, I think once you pay tribute to the superb education that Jews did get, and here are a few examples of Jews who actually excelled because of the education they received at the Alliance.

And this gentleman, NJ Dawood, his widow may well be listening, I hope she is. He is revered for his masterful translation of the Koran into English for penguin classics. He was born in Baghdad, went to the Alliance there and immigrated to London. The Koran, which he translated, was never out of print since 1956. In fact, it went through 70 reprints. Of course, if you’re a translator, people say you should never translate into a language that isn’t your mother tongue. So you can imagine what an achievement it was for NJ Dawood born in Baghdad whose mother tongue presumably was Arabic.

There’s another great alumnus of the Alliance, and that’s Naim Kattan, who would be known to Canadian listeners, perhaps. He only died three weeks ago. And he wrote in French, which again is a magnificent achievement when you are born in Baghdad. But he was able to go to the Saban. He ended up living in Canada for most of his life, and he wrote more than 30 books all in French. In Iran, which also benefited from the Alliance, although the the Alliance didn’t come to Iran until 1898, we have Solomon Hyem who produced the first Farsi English dictionary. And this dictionary is still in use today, although obviously the name Solomon Haim has been removed and royalties due to him have been stolen by the Islamic regime.

But perhaps the greatest alumnus of all of the Alliance is Albert Memmi, who died last year, age 99. And he was born in a very poor family in the Tunisian Hara or Jewish quarter in Tunis. And he is well known in France as a writer and philosopher. And he wrote about colonisation, decolonization, Zionism. And of course, he wrote in French. Now, moving on from the Alliance, this gentleman here was born in Baghdad, Nagi Dabby. And he’d always wanted to be a pilot. He came within a whisker of becoming head of Iraq’s Air Force in 1930, in the 1930s. And while living in Iraq, he became a very close friend of King Razi, who was the son of King Fasil and his personal pilot.

The Iraqi minister of Interior only flew in a plane if Nagi was the pilot. So he was offered the top job. He turned it down. And it was just as well as Iraq came under increasing Nazi influence in the 1930s. And the Iraqi army and defence ministry became very antisemitic. And if he had stayed on in Iraq, he probably would’ve had to fight the British on the side of the Nazis. So it was just as well. He left for England just before King Aziz was killed in a car accident. And when World War II broke out, he found himself in England. He volunteered to join the RAF. He was an instructor and he trained young pilots. And then he went on at least two bombing raids in Germany. Quite a remarkable fellow.

This guy, too, was extremely remarkable. He was a pioneer of film in Tunisia. His nickname was Chicklee. And he was a man of insatiable curiosity. He introduced the bicycle, the wireless telegraph, and the first x-ray machine to be installed in a Tunisian hospital. A keen photographer, he was instantly attracted to moving pictures. He made 11 films. And this was his daughter, Haydee Samama, who was the first actress to appear in a Tunisian film and the first screenwriter.

And Jews really were great, were the victor of modernization. And they brought entertainment from Europe into the Arab world. And Jews owned cinemas all over the Arab world. They owned the first cinema in Tunisia, this one here, the Royal Cinema in Baghdad and many other cinemas, the Al-Zawra Cinema, the Odeon Cinema in Tripoli and Libya. Now this man here is not well known in Egypt. In fact, his name is sort of, has been completely erased from the history books. But everybody knows the Cairo Tower, which he built.

So now Naoum Shebi was a Jew, the architect of the Cairo Tower, which is one of the great landmarks of Cairo. And he also designed other landmarks in the city. We now come to Leila Murad, who was the megastar in Egypt. Now Egypt was the Hollywood of the Middle East. Laila Murad was a great singer, an actress. She was not the only one. There were at least four other famous Jewish actresses. There were Jewish film directors. There were all sorts of people involved behind the scenes who were Jewish.

Now, Laila Murad was trained by her father and Dawood Hosni, who was also Jewish, she made her singing debut at the age of nine. She ended up making 20 films. But her father, very interesting, was actually a hazan or cantor. And I found this very rare recording of her singing , which if you ever attend a service in a Sephardi synagogue on Yom Kippur, you will hear this song introducing or the concluding service on Yom Kippur. Right. Just to give you the low down, she was a great rival of Umm Kulthum, who was also the great diva in the Egyptian singing states.

But in 1953, she was selected over Umm Kulthum as the official singer of the Egyptian Revolution. But then she was dogged by various rumours that she was an Israeli spy, that she visited Israel and donated money to the Israeli army. And her career was more or less finished. She converted to Islam. She married, I think one of her leading men, and she really retired age 38. But her songs are still played and sung today, her films are still watched, but most Egyptians don’t know she’s Jewish. This also happened to the Al-Kuwaiti brothers .

Their name comes from the fact that they used to play for the Emir of Kuwait. And they were the Simon and Garfunkel of the Iraqi music scene. Extremely popular, again, their music is still played today. For a long time, their names were erased. Nobody knew who composed their songs. They were just attributed to folklore. And one day it is said that, the Jews were actually very prominent in music, in Iraq.

In fact, almost all the musicians in Iraq were Jewish. And it is said that the prime minister of Iraq switched on the radio one day and it was Yom Kippur that day. And of course, the orchestra did not play. And he turned to his aids and said, “How come I hear silence? There’s no music today on the radio.” And his aids said, “But it’s Yom Kippur.” And you know, the Jews don’t play on this day. And so he got so angry, he determined to set up an orchestra that would play on Yom Kippur. We cannot really talk about famous Jewish personalities without mentioning Habiba Msika who I know Patrick Bate has mentioned. She was a phenomenal singer in Tunisia. She had a fantastic following. Sadly, she died very young, age 27. Everything ended tragically for her.

In 1930, shortly before she married a young non-Jewish Frenchman, she was murdered by an older Jewish man who was in love with her. And he set fire to her house. But some 5,000 Muslims and Jews attended her funeral. And in the aftermath of her death, her records circulated rapidly across North Africa. And the French who were in charge of the protectorate there in Tunisia were so alarmed they thought it might provoke unrest amongst the Muslims. And so the French authorities decided to ban and confiscate her records. Well, you’ve heard of synchronised swimming. We may well see some in the Olympics. Well, here are the exponents of synchronised dancing, .

These sisters, Leila and Lamia, were very famous in Egypt in the 1940s. They’re actually from a Ashkenazi Jewish family living in Egypt. Their father, Fishel Alpert, was a violinist in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, but they became the foremost stars of the Egyptian entertainment world in the 1940s. And they played to packed houses. And King Farouk was one of their greatest admirers. Right, so actually you mustn’t underestimate the amount of work that went into this synchronised dancing. They practised for hours to match the choreography to the musical repertoire. And they moved in wonderful harmony with the dance and the music completely in sync.

Come 1948, the Colonial Era really came to an end. Israel was established. Arab nation states began to emerge. There was a great current of anti-colonialism, current of anti-Zionism. Almost everybody, all the Jews had to leave and there were 850,000 Jewish refugees who were driven from Arab countries within a generation and a half leaving everything behind. Most went to Israel. Many had to endure terrible conditions in the Ma'abara, in the tent camps. 200,000 went to other places in Europe, the America, Canada, Australia, South America. Of course, there was a human cost to this uprooting, a great deal of suffering. And for famous stars who’d made their names in the Arab world, it was a particularly shocking experience.

For instance, the Al-Kuwaity Brothers I mentioned, basically lost the market for their music and they ended up a kitchenware shop in the HaTikva market in Tel Aviv. Recently, the Israeli, sorry, the municipality decided to recognise belatedly their contribution and unveiled a street sign in their name. In Iraq, since the Arab Spring, they’ve also begun to be recognised, you know, after really several decades of being ignored and their name erased. And the same thing happened, sorry, with this lady here. Her name is Zohra Al Fassia. And she used to sing for the King of Morocco. And she was actually the first female recording artist in Morocco. She ended up in Israel, in 1947.

A poet called Eres Vitan who lives in Israel composed a particular poem which I think is studied in Israeli schools. And I will just read it very briefly. He was very moved by Zohra’s story. “Zohara Al Fassia, a singer at the court of King Mohammed V, in Rabat, Morocco. It is said that when she sang, soldiers drew knives to push through the crowds and touch the hem of her dress, kiss her fingertips, express their thanks with a real coin, Zohra Al Fassia. These days she can be found in Askalon in the poor section of Attacotti, near the welfare office, the odour of leftover sardine tins on a wobbly three-legged table, splendid kingly rugs stacked on a Jewish agency bed and she clad in a fading house coat, lingers for hours before the mirror, wearing cheap makeup.

And when she says, 'Muhammad V, apple of our eyes,’ it takes a moment before you understand. Zohra Al Fassia has a husky voice, a pure heart and eyes awashed with love. Zohra Al Fassia.” So… I started this lecture and I called it the “Colonial Era of Golden Age?” And the reason why I put a question mark was really because the Golden Age was not as golden as all that unless you happen to be Zohra Al Fassia. Because the colonial powers really abandoned the minorities and they began to appease the majority. They stirred up trouble between Jews and Arabs as we know. The Colonial Era did liberate the Jews from the dhimmi status and bring greater security and rights.

But it created resentment from the Muslims who were left far behind. And the Jews appeared to them to be collaborators with the colonials. And also they appeared to be rather arrogant and big for their boots. But the Jews did not fit in with the colonials and they weren’t entirely accepted. There was a great deal of colonial antisemitism and they were really between two stools in a kind of limbo of identity. And of course, the Colonial Era ultimately did betray the Jews of the Arab world. This shows you Marechal Petain, who was the head of the Vichy regime during World War II, meeting Hitler.

And of course, the Vichy regime started stripping the Jews of their rights in preparation for the final solution effectively when they ruled North Africa during World War II. So this left the Jews who’d suffered during World War II with a great deal of disillusion and they were disillusioned with the colonials. And thereafter, they turned towards Zionism or communism. And of course, this was the great age of Arab nationalism. The Jews didn’t fit in with the Arabs either. The Arabs gradually excluded them from public space and ushered them towards the exit and eventually expelled them, as well.

Today, the Arabs lament the departure of the Jews, the departure of the Jews who contributed so much to their societies during the Colonial Era. But I ask myself, would all these Jews you see here have become successful if they hadn’t left? And here you see, Gaby Aghion from Egypt who started the fashion brand, Chloe. Albert Elbaz, from Morocco, who was a fashion icon who recently died of coronavirus, unfortunately. Bernard-Henri Georges Levy, the great philosopher and public intellectual originally from Algeria.

Sir Ronald Cohen from Egypt who left as a refugee with 20 pounds in pocket and became a great entrepreneur and businessman. Charles and Maurice Saatchi, the advertising gurus originally from Iraq. Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the worldwide bestseller, “Sapiens.” His family are from Lebanon. Audrey Azoulay, sorry, Audrey Azoulay, originally from Morocco who’s now the director general of UNESCO.

So with that thought, I will stop there and very happy to answer questions. Thank you for listening and I do apologise for that interruption we had. Thank you very much.

Q&A and Comments

Starting with Andrea, she says a descendant of David Sassoon as a member of the Israeli after the creation of Israel. I didn’t know that. Wonderful and another little snippet about the Sassoon’s, Grace and David Sassoon from Shanghai lived in Tokyo in the seventies and outstanding court refugees to his wife. That’s Robert Daniel. Told me this so, yes, the Sassoon’s spread all over the world, really. There are branches, you know, I mean you find them everywhere. Not all of them remain Jewish, unfortunately.

Barbara Schwartz, a comment, not a question. I love your slow clear way of speaking. Thank you. That’s very, very kind.

Carol Naim, when I was growing up in Cape Town, one of the sons of the Smouha family came to Ronda Bosch with his family. He was sent away as he had married for love and ah, not for family ties. Okay. My cousin in Canada, Toby and Ted, just to remind you that my uncle and your great-uncle Joseph Delwood was a doctor and he imported the first x-ray machine to Baghdad from Paris where he studied medicine. Oh, that’s lovely. I didn’t know that, actually, Toby.

Another famous Jewish family from Baghdad was the Kadoorie family who also moved on to China and India. I hope you’ll be hearing more about the Kadoorie’s and the great moguls from Baghdad who did so much in China and India later on in the lockdown university programme. I think Trudy is organising some lectures there.

Q: What tradition of uniform was worn by the young girls in the Tunis school photograph? A: Oh, thank you very much, Gerald, for saying it’s fascinating. Yes, well, the Tunisian Jewish girls or women actually wore this peculiar headdress and even well into the 20th century. So it wasn’t their uniform, I think it was their just traditional dress. Yes, so Pat has actually supplied an answer. This is how Jewish women used to dress before the arrival of the Europeans in Tunisia. Men and women were not allowed to be dressed the same way as Muslims did. So women and girls had to wear a pointy hat and men and boys had to wear a hat of a different colour from the Muslims in Tunisia. Jews had to get dressed differently so that they could be recognised. Thank you very much for that, Pat.

So Sheila, part of reform, Yom Kippur liturgy and sang to the same tune. I didn’t know that. Thank you for that, Sheila. sing beautifully. Yes, there are many different versions of (indistinct).

Thank you, Karen, for saying this is so fascinating, a world most of us in the US, reformed Jew speaking here, know nothing about. Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Q: Betty Lowenstein, what happened to the Jamal sisters after Farouk was overthrown? A: They went to America, Betty, and I think they changed their names.

Karen and Harvey, thank you for mentioning the Last Kings of Shanghai in your last lecture. I bought it. Fascinating story. You showed us…

This is Ron, Ron Bick. You showed a site indicating there were 850,000 Jewish refugees. I would be interested in a lecture or more than one on this issue. Well Ron, I gave you a sort of lecture on this, my last lecture was an overview which ended with the displacement of 850,000 Jews. You can find out more if you buy my book, “Uprooted.” And I did include a reading list with the notification email that you got about this lecture. So please do read up on the question.

Monica Goodman, sorry, Goodwin, my father was one of the Murad brothers. Leila Murad is a cousin. Isn’t that amazing? Fantastic.

Ronnie Feldman. More Jews left the Arab world than Arabs Israel. Very true. Very few know this. Very true. There were the largest number of non-Muslims to leave the Arab world up until 2003 when there was a massive exodus of Christians from Iraq.

And Yolan says, I bought for my father a beautiful table top book called, which is well worth reading. Lots of books about Egypt, lots of memoirs written by Egyptian Jews. You’ve got Andre Aciman who wrote, “Out of Egypt.” You’ve got Lucette Lagnado who wrote, “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit.” Lots of very interesting books.

Carol Surfet, thank you for your compliment. Betsy Brody, wants a Jewish focused tour. Some of these countries with me as the guide. Well, thank you very much for that, Betsy. Unfortunately, a lot of these countries are actually not welcoming of Jews. You can still go to Tunisia, you can go to Morocco, but I would dare you to try Iraq . And thank you, Shirley, for your lovely comment. Ah, June raises an interesting question.

Q: June Friedman, are you even suggesting can colonisation ever be described as golden? A: Well, nowadays I think colonisation has a very bad image. But I think from the Jewish point of view, there were many good things about colonisation. And as I said, it liberated the Jews from the dhimmi status and it was certainly preferable with all its faults to what had gone before. So I would say, colonisation was golden in parts, a bit like a Curate’s egg. But there were limitations to colonisation, obviously. And the colonial powers actually exploited the Jews for what they could get from them. They weren’t in a hurry to defend them at times of trouble and they were very mean when it came to giving them citizenship. So you know, a mixed bag there.

Oh, thank you, Victor. Too many Ashkenazis are too ignorant of their history and culture of our brothers and sisters.

Danny Wilson, oh, thank you for the plug for my book. Thank you very much. I think that might be the end of it, Judy, What do you think? Danny, with Danny’s question? Oh no, thanks. There is bit more, sorry, I’m just mastering my nearly acquired skill of scrolling up and down the Q&A.

Thank you, Joan, and Tess and Carol Naim, a very interesting book about a nurse went with a professor from Germany to work in the Jewish hospital in Alexandra. Yes, I know which book you mean. It was about Thea Woolf. What was the name of it? “The Woman in White,” I think. Very interesting book, actually. This Jewish woman who came to Egypt to work as a nurse from Germany. She’s rescued quite a few Jews and treated ill Jews and made sure they made their way either to Palestine or to the Far East. A very interesting book. “The Woman in White,” by Ada Aharoni, if I remember rightly. Thank you, Sharon.

Q: Did many of the Jews from the Middle East go to Rhodesia? A: Well there was quite a contingent from Turkey and Rhodes. I’m not sure who else. Yes, Egyptians did, Egyptian Jews.

Thank you, Linda, for your compliment. There was a banking family in Iraq called Zilkha, Valarie. You are absolutely right. They were very, I didn’t have time to go into what the Iraqi Jews did, but of course they were a very prominent banking family. Zilkha, in fact, my husband’s got an envelope addressed to Bank Zilkha Baghdad. It needed no address apart from that. Everyone knew Zilkha Bank. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Elena.

Betty Loenstein says, Audrey father, his name is Andre actually, not Albert. He’s not the finance minister of Morocco. He is the royal advisor, the Jewish advisor to the King of Morocco. And you happened to be in the same hotel in Casablanca and the staff were barring and scraping before him and well they might.

Hannah, in your last lecture you said to Nisia, didn’t get French. Yeah, French citizenship like the Algerians and were given if they held high office. My grandfather was an actualized French in 1875.

Q: Do you know why would he become French if he didn’t hold a high office in government? A: Well, I don’t think you had to have high office in government because there weren’t that many Jews who did. But I think about 25,000 out of a population of about a hundred thousand had French nationality. There was a law passed I think in the early 20th century that said you could actually become French. But there were various conditions to that.

Thank you, Lorna. Very kind of you to say. Linda, there’s a Kadoorie family in Toronto. I’m not surprised. She worked with a teacher who changed his name to Kadoorie to honour his father-in-law. They’re not all connected to the Kadoorie’s of Shanghai. I have to say. Kadoorie is quite a common name. There was a prominent political scientist called Ellie Kadoorie, who actually was also a product of the Alliance. And he taught at the LSC, wrote lots of books and as far as I know, he was not related to the Kadoorie’s of Shanghai.

Ruth, thank you for your compliment. Thank you. Mimi, thank you for an interesting presentation. I’m sorry, I need to leave now. You are forgiven. I’m sorry about my interruption in the middle.

Miriam Milam, thank you. Shapiro, love listening to you. Thank you.

And Rhonda, also another compliment, thank you. Excellent talks, wonderful mix of material. Thank you very much, Rhonda.

Oh, Veronica stayed in the Sassoon family house in Puna near Bombay. You lucky thing, you.

Q: And Hindi Hurt asked, how and when did Iraqi Jews go to India? A: I think that’s the subject of another lecture, but very briefly, basically there was a rather oppressive governor in Baghdad in the 1830s, called Dawud Pasha. And he persecuted Jews like David Sassoon. And that’s why the Sassoon’s decided to leave Baghdad. And they began and they migrated to India. And that was really the start of of their business, empire, which they set up first in Calcutta, then in Bombay, and then Indonesia, Burma, Hong Kong, Shanghai.

Moroccan women still do a henna before the modern wedding dressed in kathas and the bride dress called (indistinct), made in elaborate velvet and gold in a very beautiful headdress. Yes, I will mention that in my next lecture, which is going to be about the Jews of Morocco.

Q: Can you show us your book? A: Amazon has many books, “Uprooted.” Well, there’s only one written by me, Lyn Julius. So hopefully, you’ll be able to find that, Elena. And thank you, Yoland. Yes, you should be able to find it quite easily.

David, loved your lecture.

I am Linda Haim Meadows, the daughter of Naoma and Salim Hiam, ah, relatives. Saw you in London with your parents many years ago. Lovely to be reunited here.

Merci, Christopher Boule, for the compliment. A fascinating book is “My Father’s Paradise,” about an Iraqi family. Yes, I think somebody mentioned this last time and I did say that it wasn’t all rosy in that book because the main protagonist, his sister, was actually abducted as a child. This was not uncommon in the Kurdish lands where the Jews were actually little more than Chattels. So I think it was a slightly idealised picture of life in Kurdistan.

Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Carol.

Bernie says the Salem, a family immigrated to the USA and the Salem brothers became the top periodontist in the US. Lovely to know that.

Okay, yes, a lot of Sephardi Jews have done very well. And actually, you could say that their uprooting was a blessing in disguise.

Sarah Kemp, oh, nice to see you again. Thanks for that very positive presentation of all the achievements and our contributions to the whole world.

Q: And GL says is Paula Abdul not an Iraqi Jew? A: No, I think she’s a Syrian one. As Danny Wolfson says, from Aleppo.

Barbara says, a few Jewish Egyptian families came to South Africa with whom she was friendly.

Sonya, thank you. Thank you.

And Valerie Cooper worked for Celine Zilkha in London.

Now Celine Zilkha was the founder of Mothercare, I believe.

Q: Yoland, have you heard of Edmond Jabes in Cairo? A poet from Egypt and immigrated to Paris in 1958? A: Yes, I have heard of Edmond Jabes. There were so many prominent writers that I couldn’t mention them all.

Yvonne, thank you. Excellent and fascinating lecture. Very kind of you to say.

So Sonya, where can I access your last lecture as I was unable to listen? Well Judy, could I send her a link or perhaps you can? And … Sorry. Yeah. Sorry, it goes on. Say again?

[Audio fades]

• [Woman] Sorry, Wendy, we have a very bad reception. So what Wendy is saying is that we are currently working on our website.

• Yes.

• [Woman] And as soon as it’s up and running, past lectures will be, probably.

• Yes?

• [Woman] Sorry, we are crossing, we are crossing over. So all our past lectures will be available as soon as our website is up and running, which should be September.

• Sorry, I just want to say hello to Jean Kaz who I’ve met on a plane to Israel once, so nice to see you here and thank you for the compliment. Shall I just carry on quickly, scrolling down or have we come to? Shall I, yeah, shall I carry on?

Pearl says, we’ve had conferences in Montreal about Jews from Arab lands. Yes, of course. And Montreal is a great centre of the Sephardi community. There’s the Spanish synagogue in Montreal to which my relatives belong. And there are lots of Sephardic Jews from Morocco, as you say.

And Betty says, Grace Masha’s grandfather was the chief Rabbi Baghdad and the family immigrated Indian eventually to England and Canada. Yes, actually David Masha was the chief minister of Singapore, would you believe? And , Last Kings of Shanghai, yes. Very interesting book about the last king, about the Sassoon’s and Kadoorie’s, I believe. Thank you, Sheila.

And, brava, thank you, Martin. And one of the lectures you hosted was about the Jews of Tunis. Is it possible to put me in touch with the presenter of that lecture? I believe, my grandmother was in . Now that was about the Jews of Libya wearing my other hat, which is running Harif, which is the UK Association of Jews from Middle East and North Africa. We had a fascinating lecture about the Nahom family from Tripoli. And you can see the video on the Harif website, which is harif.org. Just go to videos and you’ll find the Harif YouTube channel there. And we have over 50 videos of our events there. So sorry about the advertisement.

So Yona asks…

Q: To what extent did the successful Jews get involved in teaching their skills to the Muslim populations? A: That’s very interesting. There were Muslims who actually attended the Alliance schools. I think you need to, I mean, it was a massive job. Jews couldn’t even begin to teach their skills to the Muslim populations. And they weren’t actually in charge of the place. They didn’t run the country. So there was a limit to what they could do. And you have to bear in mind that the great mass of Jews were actually not in a very good state when the Alliance was set up. I mean, there were terrible diseases.

You know, the Alliance had to actually look after the health and welfare of these Jewish children before it even started to teach them, you know? So it had to teach them to wash their hands and to, you know, elementary hygiene. So, you know, I think they had their work cut out just looking after the Jewish community. Nevermind the Muslim population.

Jews of the Arab world are so much more colourful than the Jews of Eastern Europe. Oh, I dunno about that.

Q: What’s the current status of Jews in Morocco? A: Listen to my next lecture and I will tell you.

David Marcal, Betty says, was Grace’s cousin. Interesting. I think we may be related as well somewhere down the line.

Q: Do you know the story of Judy Feldcar, a Toronto Jew? A: Yes, we actually invited her to do a Harif event and you can see the video on our website. She was an amazing woman, an Ashkenazi Jew who actually raised funds to ransom desperate Syrian Jews who wanted to leave. An amazing woman.

And thank you, Romi, for your kind words. Is that the end, I think…

• [Woman] Looks like that’s the last comment, Lyn. Thank you so much. And again to everybody, sorry about the few glitches we had along the way.

• Yes, I’m sorry about that.

• [Woman] That’s okay, ‘cause I lost you as well. And we seem to have lost Wendy because she’s had a bad connection as well. So thank you again everybody for joining us. And remember there are no talks tomorrow, so we’ll see everybody again on Saturday. So take care. Be well everybody. Bye-bye. Thank you.

• Bye. Thank you very much indeed. Thanks.

• Thanks, bye-bye.

• [Lyn] Bye.