We'd been planning our trip for over a year: six first cousins, ranging in age from 50 to 70, who hadn't been together in one city (let alone one country or one continent) in at least forty years; a 93-year-old uncle who hadn't seen his nephews in more than twenty; second and third cousins -- children and grandchildren of the cousins -- who had never even met. For some of us, it would be the first trip back to the place of our birth since having left it more than fifty years ago. For others, it was a journey to the fabled place of origin, the ancient city about which we had all heard so much.
Along with my oldest cousin in the U.S., I was the informal organizer of what we had taken to calling our "family reunion," though it was much more than that and we all knew it. My brother called it a "reconciliation of sorts with the country that had made our parents unwelcome," and I shared his view. Overcoming my initial fears, I had already gone back numerous times, and I loved the place. The collective journey back to our homeland had been my idea, and I had worked to reassure everyone that we would all be safe and happy. As the date approached, we exchanged eager emails across the oceans . . . old photos were unearthed and shared, memories began to spill forth, anticipation ran high. An eleven-year-old in public school in London was excused from his exams so he might attend; a 65-year-old in California who rarely traveled because of a debilitating back injury decided he would come.
And then, on May 31st, in the international waters off Haifa, nine Turkish activists were killed by Israeli commandos who hoped to keep their ship from delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. The moment I heard the news, my heart sank. As a Jew, as an Arab, as an American: all of my identities came into play as I mourned the death of nine people, feared a rise in tension throughout the Middle East, and anticipated how this terrible incident might affect my family's plans.
For the city we were all planning to meet in on June 11th was Cairo. We were flying from our various homes in Israel, England, and the U.S., and we expected to spend our time exploring old haunts and introducing the children to the wonders of Egypt. My immediate concern was for my Israeli cousins: one of them had already had difficulties obtaining a visa; would they be able to cross the border safely, would they be free to travel? How would they be received in Cairo? In my previous visits to the city of my birth, I had never had any problems: I would always announce to people that I was Jewish and Egyptian, and they would inevitably respond with an embrace: "Welcome to your homeland." But in the face of Israeli violence, would Jews, and even more particularly, Israeli Jews be welcome in Egypt?
Not unsurprisingly, anti-Israel demonstrations blossomed overnight throughout Europe, the U.S., and, of course, the Middle East. In Cairo, on June 1st, several hundred protesters declared their support for Hamas, their critique of Mubarak, and their longing for Nasser. For my American cousins, who had been expelled from Egypt in 1956, this must have been the worst kind of déjà vu, reminiscent of the days in the 1950s when mobs roamed the streets of Cairo shouting "death to the Jews" and torching businesses and synagogues. How could they bring their children and grandchildren here?
The attack on the Mavi Marmara occurred on Monday. By Saturday my two American cousins decided they did not feel comfortable traveling to Cairo at this time. My brother concurred. My Israeli cousins, accustomed to conflict, announced their willingness to go ahead. But without the rest of us, my uncle lost heart. And I, the organizer, who, perhaps more than any one, had cherished the dream of reunion, lost my nerve as well. How could I guarantee anything? I call myself an Arab Jew, I believe in and work for peace, and I know how hard it is for all of us to hold a vision in which there are no victims or aggressors, only a collection of dispossessed and frightened peoples, seeking home.
A Muslim friend in Cairo promptly answers my email when I write to say that we will not, after all, be coming. "That's too bad. Things are calm here. No difficulties, thank God." I often anger Jewish acquaintances when I declare that my family lost its homeland because of the establishment of the Jewish state. It's an over simplified view of things, I know, but it holds a truth. Middle Eastern Jews lived peacefully in Egypt for generations before European Jews created their state in a place where Palestinians had lived for generations. Today I declare again: we lost our homecoming because of the actions of the Jewish state. And our own unwillingness to stand in the strength of our dream, to abandon our fear that the past must determine the present. Next year, I say then, in Cairo.
It is obvious that with this most recent incident, Israel is not doing a very good PR job for Jews around the world. If only Israelis and Palestinians would join together like the Semitic brothers and sisters they are and create a model of peaceful coexistence in the Middle East. All we have is the present, and we should demand better stewardship of the present.
I want to thank Joyce for her courage in initiating and risking this discussion. Her personal story, like many autobiographical accounts, reaches our hearts beyond borders. Perhaps this blog, from now on, should share only personal narratives. Personal experience can move our hearts and cannot be disagreed with. I know a family of five daughters in the U.S. that does not go "home" to visit Palestine because of the treatment at the borders--"sexual assaults" disguised as "strip searches," for instance.
Tragically, power, exercised as "power over," not "power with," corrupts individuals and governments, regardless of culture, nationality, religion.
This June 2010 press release shows a path toward inter-relatedness, peace, and justice:
http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=1095
Far too many times than I care to have experienced, I have heard American Zionist colonialists, on their occasional returns to the US for vacation, declare, "The [Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Turkish] Jews -- they are our [Blacks, Puerto Ricans]".
100,000 Accompany Hassidim to Jail
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138130
Chesnoff's selective version of history, failed to mention that the bulk of Egypt's Jews arrived there fleeing Catholic persecution in Spain and, later, European pogroms; and that for the most part they found acceptance and tolerance and thrived as a community.
True, there was some discrimination, and things got worst in the mid-20th century. But this must be seen fully in the context of Zionism and Jewish activities in Palestine; to minimize that is absurd.
The Zionist project in Palestine wasn't a footnote in the historical narrative of the Middle East.
In addition to the catastrophe of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, two episodes from this history also need to be mentioned, as both of them had a dramatic impact on the conditions of Egyptian Jewry:
1- The Lavon Affair, where Zionist terrorists campaign of secret bombings of foreign targets in Egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
2- The Suez Canal Crisis in 1956, where Israel participated in the invasion of Egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
What happened to Egyptian Jewry is wrong and nothing excuses it; not the facts mentioned above and not the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from their homeland by Israel.
However, if we’re looking at history for understanding, let’s be honest and look at the whole thing. Polemics are not good explanations.
"Some discrimination"? Are you referring to the fact that 90% of Egyptian Jews, including families in Egypt for centuries, were denied Egyptian citizenship? Are you referring to the1956 Sinai Campaign which Egypt used as a pretext for expelling 25,000 Egyptian Jews and confiscating their property after announcing that "all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state"? (The deportees were forced to sign declarations "donating" their property to the Egyptian government.)
Jews who remained in Egypt had their homes and property confiscated during the 1967 Six Day War when Egypt pledged to "throw the Jews out of the Mideast". Towards that end, Egypt had imported hundreds of former Nazi officials and scientists to Egypt and given them government jobs. (One of them, Leopold Gleim, who headed the Gestapo in occupied Poland, was given control of the Egyptian secret police.) .
It is true that there some Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces during the 1948 War that the Arabs launched against the new UN sanctioned Jewish state. But most fled because they feared war, were convinced by their leaders that Israel would be quickly destroyed and that they could soon return. I note you don't mention the 800,000 Jews who were expelled from their homes in other Arab lands. Nor do you mention the harsh, dictatorial rule that Egypt imposed on the Palestinians when it occupied the Gaza Strip between 1948-1967.
I'm rather horrified by the tone of most of the responses!
What is wrong with the world that we can't listen to honor one another......
Unfortunately, Ms. Zonana then went on to blame the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt on something that happened in another country, involving different people! How can a thinking person try to explain the brutal treatment of the Jews of Egypt on the founding of Israel?
It is shocking that she did not seem to consider that profound anti-Semitism in Egypt is what cost her family their home in Egypt. Egyptians used Israel as an excuse, but the hatred of native Egyptian Jews had to be well developed for the excuse to gain any traction.
As "Via Dolorosa" points out, many factors (including the establishment of the state of Israel) contributed to the changing circumstances for Egyptian Jews. Joel Beinin and Ammiel Alcalay provide useful insights here. Nothing justifies the expulsion of the Jews by Nasser; and nothing, in my view, justifies the suffering of the Palestinians. Yet one cannot separate what happened in Egypt (and other Middle Eastern countries) from what happened in Palestine.
"Mpj13" puts it succinctly: "no one side in the middle east fiasco . . . can claim the moral high ground." And, in the end, counting up crimes and victims accomplishes nothing. To the extent that my piece lends itself to this kind of thinking I have failed; let me say again that, indeed, I wanted to show the inter-relatedness of all our destinies and to suggest that fear traps us. Whatever may have happened in the past, I want to work to create a future in which we are all free to gather wherever we choose.
There is ugly tribalism throughout history. Neither side in the Palestine-Israel conflict is innocent.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,457002,00.html
http://www.meforum.org/17/syria-and-iraq-repression
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/arabs/christianme1.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8444851.stm
Furthermore, you expect a rational person to believe that there was no bigotry in these countries before the mass expulsion? Logic and established history dispute this notion.
Your cousin built his house on a land he thought he owned. But another family (say "the Bara's") believed they were actually the land owners; hence a conflict ensued. You had nothing to do with that conflict, as you undisputedly owned your house on a different street. However, friends and relatives of "the Bara's", unable to drive out your cousin, come and "take revenge" on you, kicking YOU out of YOUR house. And your conclusion is… "it's my cousin's fault"?? If so, something is seriously wrong not only with your logic, but with your ethics as well. Irrespective of whether your cousin is right or wrong, the people who kicked YOU out are guilty as hell and there's absolutely no justification for their act.
How can ANYTHING that OTHER PEOPLE did ELSEWHERE serve as a justification for "mobs [which] roamed the streets of Cairo shouting 'death to the Jews' and torching businesses and synagogues"?
How can ANY acts of ANY government justify (as you suggest) Jews not "being welcome" (i.e. being in danger) in Egypt? Would you justify Muslims being lynched in New York and blame it on Bin Laden??
It is a very, very long time since I last heard such a blatant apology of the concept of "blood vengeance".
And "fear harms us all"?? What does THAT mean? Was the Cairo mob torching and killing because it FEARED the Jews? Did they maybe "fear" that the Israelis will occupy Egypt and throw them all into the sea?
What "harms us all" is HATRED. And those who – deliberately or unwittingly – fan its flames. Or justify (sorry: "account for") it.
Thank you, that is very well put.