From the Pages of Yedies

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

These days, as events in Egypt feature prominently in the news, little thought is given to the rich Jewish life and culture that once flourished there before 1967 when a wave of persecution drove almost the entire Jewish population from the country. Only a handful of Jews live there today.

Recent memoirs, such as Lucette Lagnado’s The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, have drawn some attention to the Egyptian Jewish experience. But few are aware that there was once also a Yiddish dimension to Jewish life in Egypt. The June 1952 issue of Yedies discusses the acquisition by the YIVO Archives of artifacts attesting to the existence of Yiddish theater in Cairo before World War II.