eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
David Ross have written a story about the Jews in Egypt from 1870 to 1970. It is a novel that he has been working on for over 15 years. It will be finished in September 2010. He is making the final revisions. It is a story of Sephardi family and their descent from wealth and stability to assimilation and poverty and exodus from Egypt.
He is a Jew from Egypt, and the story is based on first hand experiences and the lives of his parents, grandparents and family.
Synopsis
This is a rare, unique novel about a Jewish family in Egypt. Initially comfortable with their country, and religion, world events and internal Egyptian nationalism lead to their persecution. They are unable to hide from their identity, no matter how assimilated they try tobe. The novel details the complex dynamics between Jews, Muslims, Copts, and Europeansthrough the lives of the ALGAZI and CHALEM Sephardic families. The novel spans their settlement in Egypt in the mid 1800’s (from Greece, Turkey, and Jerusalem) through to 1969, the year when the last of them leave Egypt. The story takes place almost entirely in Egypt, amidst the backdrop of historical events (Zionism, Egyptian Nationalism, Communism, the 1952 Revolts, World Wars, Suez Crisis, and the Arab-Israeli wars) that changed the security of the lives of Jews in Egypt. Written in English, the story references Judeo/Arabic/French expressions.
The magic, Kabbalah, Angelogy and superstitions of Egyptian Jews are interspersed through the narrative. The story is based on actual events and people, but names have been changed to protect the identity of the living. Finally, the silence or perhaps numbness of the survivors of Egypt’s dark history of anti-Semitism is broken through the telling of this story.
The story opens in 1941 at the train station in Asuit, a few days after the death of SOPHIE’s husband. Sophie and her infant children take a train back to Cairo.
In Cairo Sophie is reunited with her daughter, NORA after five years in Asuit. Nora is hesitant to approach her mother, and eventually remarks that Sophie’s new children are ‘Nassarenes’ (Christians) while she is a Jew. Sophie points out that the Kabalistic Book of the Crown has ‘testified against her.” The second chapter of the novel recounts the history of this Book of the Crown which belonged to Sophie’s father YOUSSEFF ALGAZI.
The descendant of two Chief Rabbi’s of Egypt, Youseff AlGazi (born 1880) marries RACHEL CHALEM in 1908 in the textile town of Mitt Ghamar in Upper Egypt (Jewish population of 200 families). Yousseff has ties with Egyptian nationals and the communist party. Sophie, born in 1910, is the oldest of their five children (four daughters and a son). When Youssef is killed mysteriously in 1923 in the desert, the illiterate Rachel and her family are forced to move to Cairo (Clot Bey Street) near her well-to-do brothers. Rachel inherits the Kabalistic Book of the Crown from Youssef and uses it as an oracle, and amulet with the help of her children who consult it nightly. She measures time by the Jewish holidays and the happy Shabbat’s with her brothers.
Rachel’s exaggerated dedication and attention to her only son, ALBERT is accepted by her four daughters. Albert has a privileged education and first priority for money from his father’s inheritance. His bar mitzvah is attended by the Chief Rabbi of Cairo. In 1930, he persuades his mother Rachel to invest in his trip to Paris. Albert lives a wanton life in Paris and depletes his inheritance and the dowry money of his sisters on alcohol, women and hotels. Desperate to have her daughters marry, Rachel resorts to Jewish charitable organizations that help young Jewish women with no dowries to find husbands. Rachel’s daughters frequent modern synagogues where European Christian influence is prevalent.
In 1929 Sophie AlGazi marries JOSE MAURICE LEVY (fifteen years her senior), a Jewish French National. The lower class apartment where they live has non-Jewish neighbors. Sophie is repulsed by Levy, but he is patient with Sophie’s youth and inexperience. Their daughter NORA LEVY is born in 1930. They spend summers in Marsa Matroh by the sea, where Levy reads religious books. The synagogues of Egypt, B’Nai Brith, Jewish organizations, and the religious lives of Sophie and Jose form the background to the scenes in the story. The four-year-old Nora advises her father one night at dinner that her mother Sophie is going to marry AMIN SHAMSI. Amin is an Oxford educated Copt from Asuit, who visits his sister in Cairo in the building where Jose and Sophie live. The courtship of Sophie and Amin is facilitated by Amin’s sister, and involves Nora. A few months later, on Simchah Torah, the last day of the Jewish festivals, Sophie announces to her family that she is indeed going to marry Amin Shams in Asuit. As she leaves for the train station with bags in her hand, her uncles, sisters, mother and daughter scream in agony and curse Sophie from the balcony of Rachel’s apartment. Her Jewish marriage to Jose was outside of Egyptian jurisdiction, and would not stand in the way of Sophie’s plans. Her daughter Nora lives in Cairo with Rachel, and is further alienated from her father, Jose.
After five years in Asuit, the birth of two daughters and a son, and an apparent curse by a Gypsy, Amin Shamsi dies, and Sophie returns to Cairo in 1941. Although Sophie is recognized as a Jew, her children are labeled the Yadmah Zerah (Copts) by Rachel’s daughters and Nora, their half sister. Sophie moves to an apartment building in 5 Rue Combeez in Heliopolis where her orthodox sister and her family have an apartment. For the rest of the novel Sophie will have to deal with the militant Muslim and the Fascist German neighbors in her building.
She accepts a position as House Keeper in the English Mission School in Heliopolis. As a condition for employment, Sophie accepts Protestantism as her new religion and is subject to home inspections and constant interrogations by the missionaries. Nora Levy lives with Sophie but is a secondclass citizen to her siblings. Sophie tells the missionaries that Nora is her niece. Sophie reminds Nora constantly that she is indebted to Amin’s pension for her survival and she promotes the separation of Nora (the Jew) from Amin’s children (the Christians). Sophie rations food and toothpaste for Nora. Nora spends summers with her grandmother Rachel, while Sophie takes Amin’s children to Sidi Bishr (near Alexandria) for a work assignment at the YMCA.
Sophie’s catatonic episodes cause her children to panic. Sophie lives a secret Jewish life with her sisters and her mother, going on double dates with her sister and attending High Holiday services.
She rents a room in her apartment to boarders, strange men on transit, who often expose themselves to her maid. Sophie and the Zionist boarder RAFI, are caught together one night by Sophie’s young son.
Sophie’s daughters, ARABELLA and SONYA are the poorest girls in the English Mission School. They are known as the “daughters of the cook.” Their clothes are handed down from rich girls, and they are mocked for the smell of naphthalene (moth balls) on their clothes. Sonya performs exorcisms on “Nora the Yahoodya (Jewess).” At an early age, the independent Nora works in department stores and begins to entertain businessmen. Nora’s entire family is embarrassed with her antics. Sophie’s neighbors tell Sophie that they will expose her to the authorities if Nora does not stop coming at late hours up the back stairs of the apartment building.
Rachel’s life in Egypt is fraught with sadness; her youngest daughter and faithful servant die of Typhoid. Rachel’s mourning results in her deafness. Her son Albert settles in Bogotá Columbia and while successful, he marries out of his faith. Rachel’s daughter HENRIETTE, Sophie’s orthodox neighbor, leaves her husband, her son, and her religion in Egypt to marry an English Officer and start another family in England. Even SUZY, Rachel’s second oldest daughter, marries a Greek man who moves in with them. After the State of Israel is created, in 1948, Egyptians equate Jews with dogs. Under the Division of Jewish Affairs within the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of National Guidance, assisted by former Nazi-German technocrats the Chalems are forced/coerced to leave Egypt within a week, with none of their belongings.While Sophie and her children claim Christianity as their religion, they are constantly threatened with exposure (as Jews) from neighbors, and staff at the English Mission School. In 1956 (before the Suez crisis) Nora leaves Egypt for France to study cosmetology. She is reunited with her uncle Albert and his wife in Paris. Fascinated by Albert’s wealth and lifestyle, Nora visits Bogotá but has a falling out with his wife. She leaves for Florida, where she becomes a television cosmetic personality. Her excessive spending lands her in jail, and a psychiatrist recommends that she return to Egypt to deal with her family. Sophie and her children live in constant fear of Nora’s return. Albert rescues Nora, who eventually settles in San Francisco and makes a good living as a cosmetologist.
Arabella marries a modern Copt named FAWZY in Cairo. Fawzy looks Jewish and is circumcised prior to marrying Arabella. There is constant friction between Fawzy and Sophie. In the midst of the blackouts during the 1956 war, Sophie and her children and Fawzy flee from Heliopolis and stay with RACHEL. When Arabella’s first child is born in 1958, Sophie insists on naming him AMIN, after her dead husband. Fawzy eventually disowns the boy as Sophie’s and calls him a Jew. There are several inexplicable episodes of Fawzy’s violence towards his son. Amin is very fond of his grandmother Sophie and his aunt Sonya who is in medical school. Sonya marries a rich Coptic doctor, asking her mother Sophie not to expose her Jewish past. Sonya’s in-laws hint at Sonya’s ethnicity, and disinherit their son. Sonya believes that their hatred is due to her poverty. Sonya and her husband leave for England to pursue their Medical specializations. When Sonya sends her son to Egypt so that she can continue her studies in London, she has a breakdown. Upon their return to Cairo (1965) they live in Sophie’s apartment and their relationship is turbulent.
- Arabella and her cousins at the Egypt Zoo 1963
In the late sixties, Sonya, who continues to hide her past from her husband, is labeled a Jew by anti-Semitic Copts who know her mother, at the Evangelical churches she attends in Egypt.
As life for Jews in Egypt gets more dangerous, Albert’s wife, a Christian arrives to escort Rachel out of Egypt. At the Port in Alexandria (1963) the elderly Rachel is stripped naked, and ridiculed by Egyptian custom officers. She surprises her tormenters by quoting Koranic verses recited from the liturgy for the Purim of Egyptians. Her daughter Suzy and Stavro leave a month later as Greek Nationals. They meet Rachel in Greece, and eventually end up in an apartment in the suburbs of Paris that is paid for by Albert. Despite his many visits to Paris, Albert minimizes his time with his mother and sister.
Claiming discrimination at work because he is not a Muslim, Fawzy asks Albert AlGazi for a work visa. Albert sponsors Fawzy and his family to Canada on condition that Sophie joins them once they settle. Sophie curses Fawzy for taking her daughter and her grandchildren from her. Seven months after their departure to Canada, Sophie arrives to Montreal with visitor’s visa, on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War. At the request of Sophie, Nora is reunited with her mother so as to vouch to Canadian officials, that Sophie is a Jewish refugee. Nora and Amin develop a special bond based on their unique histories of rejection. A memorable day together in Montreal makes a significant impact on the young Amin who adopts later Nora’s pride of “French” identity.
Sophie’s first months in Canada are liberating; she works illegally for Jews at a bakery, embraces Shabbat with neighbors, and even enrolls her grandson Amin in Torah classes. The Coptic / Christian Egyptian circle of friends in Canada forces Sophie back into hiding. At eight years old, her grandson Amin is confused when he is hounded on the school bus with chants that he is an Arab. His name is chanted in jest. Now in possession of the Book of the Crown written by his ancestor, the Chief Rabbi of Egypt, the boy remembers his life in Egypt fondly.
Mountains of Separation is full of colorful supporting characters unique to the Egypt of the Jews and critical to the storyline. ZOHARA the Yemenite Jewish servant is Rachel’s conscience and tireless (to death) in supporting Rachel’s family. The brother of Rachel, ISAAC and her executor handles all her finances and serves as her guide until he leaves Egypt. The hunch backed street vendor, SHMUEL YOUSEF is the source of pleasure for Sophie’s children, providing them with Jewish delicacies, and Sophie with secret magic formulas to help her deal with a life of persecution and poverty. His exodus from Egypt in 1948 is sudden and missed. KOKO, the abandoned son of Henriette tries desperately to link to his mothers sisters, even when he leaves Egypt for Italy. His father PEPO is imprisoned in Egypt for spying when officers find a multi-colored flashlight in his apartment. MATHILDA, the sister of Amin Shamsi confides the truth of Sophie’s past to Amin’s three young children. The eventual involvement of Sophie’s neighbors, BERLUNTA, KHADIGA and FARDOZ with the Muslim Brotherhood cause them to suspect Sophie of espionage. Sophie’s Muslim servant ABDU abuses children. Sophie’s maid WARDA is raped by her brother in law. Sophie’s Nazi German neighbor GABRIELLE lives in the apartment beneath her and chants anti-Semitic tirades to Sophie and her family. Gabrielle’s mysterious roommate RAINER has illicit sex with Abdu the servant. STAVRO the Greek husband of Suzy is ridiculed by Rachel for reading papers upside down, and looking at pictures of pretty women. Fawzy’s Coptic family is described in detail. Fawzy’s Coptic colleague gropes Arabella, while another Coptic friend in Canada secures money that was released illegally out of the country. BERTHA AND NICHOLAS GIRGIS, the missionary uncle and aunt of Fawzy play a significant role and are the last people that the eight-year-old Amin sees upon his departure from Egypt in the airplane. Amin’s beautiful teachers, the students in his class, and his alienation as an outsider in the English Mission School are recounted. NARGUS, the Coptic ‘belle-mere’ of Sonya is depicted in her rich splendor as she scrutinizes Sophie’s past. Sophie’s son works in the ‘villages’ as a doctor and treats camels for diahherea. FARID HADAD, a communist friend of Arabella and Sonya is killed by Government spies, leaving his wife and children destitute. The persistent MISS LINDA at the English Mission School is keen on exposing Sophie’s Judaism and even that of Sophie’s children.
Another novel, Mountains of Spices, will detail the lives of Rachel, Sophie and their children out of Egypt.
