1. Aviezer Golan, as told by Marcelle Ninio, Victor Levy, Robert Dassa, and Philip Natanson, Operation Susannah (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), original Hebrew version: Mivtza‘ suzanah (Jerusalem: ‘Edanim, 1976).

2. Ibid., pp. 5–6.

3. al-Ahram, Oct. 6, 1954, p. 1.

4. Egypt, Ministry of Information, The Story of Zionist Espionage in Egypt (Cairo: Ministry of Information [1955]), pp. 25, 61.

5. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Jan. 6, 1955, quoted in Don Peretz, “Egyptian Jews Today” (a report compiled for the AJC, Committee on Israel, Jan. 1956), pp. 35–36, AJC/FAD-1/Box 15.

6. al-Musawwar, Oct. 15, Oct. 29, Dec. 17, 1954; especially Hasan al-Husayni, “Ma‘a jawasis isra’il fi al-sijn,” Jan. 7, 1955.

7. Maurice Fargeon (ed.), Annuaire des Juifs d'Egypte et du proche-orient, 1942 (Cairo: La Société des Editions Historiques Juives d'Egypte, 1943), p. 117.

8. Ibid., p. 118.

9. Maurice Fargeon (ed.), Annuaire des Juifs d'Egypte et du proche-orient, 5706/1945–1946 (Cairo: La Société des Editions Historiques Juives d'Egypte [1945]), pp. 80–86.

10. Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? (Paris: Pierre Bordas et Fils, 1991), p. 34.

11. Albert D. Mosseri, “L'espoir d'un vieux sioniste,” Israël 6 (no. 12, Mar. 20, 1925):1, quoted in 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), p. 51.

12. Maurice Mizrahi, L'Egypte et ses Juifs: Le temps révolu, xixe et xxe siècles (Geneva: Imprimerie Avenir, 1977), pp. 37–44; Gudrun Krämer, The Jews of Modern Egypt, 1914–1952 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989), pp. 126, 128.

13. Shlomo Kohen-Tzidon, Dramah be-aleksandriah ve-shnei harugei malkhut: mehandes sh. ‘azar ve-doktor m. marzuk (Tel Aviv: Sgi‘al, 1965).

14. For more detail on the issues in this paragraph, see Chapter 3.

15. Laskier, The Jews in Egypt, p. 187.

16. “Rapport presenté à l'Agence Juive Department du Moyen Orient sur la situation actuelle des Juifs en Egypte par un Juif d'Egypte ayant quitté l'Egypte vers la fin de l'année 1949,” p. 13, Matzav ha-yehudim be-mitzrayim, 1948–1952/no subdivision, CZA S20/552.

17. Haim Sha’ul le-mahleket ha-mizrah ha-tikhon, Cairo, Mar. 12, 1950, CZA S20/552/851/71/28754.

18. Felix Benzakein, “A History in Search of a Historian,” The Candlestick (monthly publication of Congregation Sons of Israel, Newburgh, New York), reprinted in Goshen: alon moreshet yahadut mitzrayim no. 7 (Dec. 1988):11.

19. For an elaboration of the points in this paragraph, see Aron Rodrigue, “Difference and Tolerance in the Ottoman Empire” (interview with Nancy Reyonolds), Stanford Humanities Review 5 (no. 1, 1995):80–90.

20. For a survey of these orientations, see Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, Beyond the Nile Valley: Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

21. Shimon Shamir, “The Evolution of the Egyptian Nationality Laws and Their Application to the Jews in the Monarchy Period,” in Shimon Shamir (ed.), The Jews of Egypt: A Mediterranean Society in Modern Times (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 41, 58.

22. Ibid., p. 34.

23. “Pe‘ulot ha-haganah be-mitzrayim, 1947,” Avigdor (Levi Avrahami) le-ha-ramah, Sept. 1, 1947, Arkhion ha-Haganah (Tel Aviv) 14/1024.

24. There are no statistics available, but the testimony of Egyptian Jews is nearly unanimous on this point.

25. al-Kalim, Apr. 1, 1945, p. 2; Apr. 1, 1950, pp. 2–3.

26. In a discussion with Maurice Farid Musa (Maurice Shammas), Chief Rabbi Haim Nahum noted that in Turkish, milla means “a people” and not a religious community and that for this reason the Rabbanite Jews called their communal council al-majlis al-ta’ifi. See al-Kalim, June 16, 1950, p. 6. Regardless of its etymology, the phrase used by the Karaite community could not but invoke the late Ottoman millet conception.

27. al-Kalim, Apr. 1, 1945, p. 2.

28. al-Kalim, Sept. 1, 1945, p. 10. A more secular formulation might have offered condolences to the Muslim umma or to Egyptian Muslims.

29. al-Kalim, Nov. 16, 1945, p. 6.

30. al-Kalim, Jan. 1, 1946, p. 6.

31. Matatya Ibrahim Rassun, “al-Qara’un fi al-‘asr al-islami,” al-Kalim, Dec. 1, 1945, p. 5; “al-Qara’un fi misr,” ibid., June 1, 1948, p. 2.

32. Yusuf Zaki Marzuq, “Sama‘tu…walakin lam usaddiq,” al-Kalim, June 1, 1948, p. 5. The observations of this article were confirmed by Maurice Shammas, interview, Jerusalem, May 5, 1994.

33. For example, the editor of al-Kalim interviewed five young women during a trip to Ma‘adi sponsored by the YKJA and printed their pictures in the paper. He considered this a bold step because of the many conservative ideas and social restrictions on women prevalent in the community; al-Kalim, June 1, 1945, pp. 6–7.

34. al-Kalim, Nov. 16, 1946, p. 12. See also the introduction to Tuvia ben Simha Levi Babovitch, In lam as‘a li-nafsi fa-man yas‘a liyya (Cairo: Jam‘iyyat al-Ikhwan al-Qara’in, 1946).

35. Eli Amin Lisha‘, “Makanat ta’ifat al-qara’in fi misr,” al-Kalim, Jan. 1, 1947, p. 3.

36. Rassun, “al-Qara’un fi al-‘asr al-islami.”

37. al-Kalim, Mar. 1, 1947, p. 1; Rassun, “al-Qara’un fi al-‘asr al-islami"; ‘al-Qara’un fi misr,” ibid., June 1, 1948, p. 2.

38. See Joel Beinin, “Writing Class: Workers and Modern Egyptian Colloquial Poetry (Zajal),” Poetics Today 15 (no. 2, 1994):191–215.

39. “al-Qara’un fi misr,” al-Kalim, June 1, 1948, p. 2.

40. al-Kalim, Dec. 1, 1945, p. 3; ibid., Jan. 1, 1951, pp. 4–5; ibid., Dec. 16, 1953, p. 2; ibid., Dec. 16, 1954, pp. 2–3; ibid., Dec. 16, 1955, p. 6.

41. Rassun, “al-Qara’un fi al-‘asr al-islami"; "al-Qara’un fi misr,” ibid., June 1, 1948, p. 2.

42. Eli Amin Lisha‘, “al-Qara’un fi misr,” al-Kalim, June 16, 1946, p. 8.

43. Ahmad Safwat basha al-muhammi, “Quda’ al-tawa’if al-milliyya wa-tashih khata’ sha’i” “anhi,” al-Kalim, Nov. 16, 1950, pp. 4, 14. Nonetheless, when communal courts were abolished in 1955, the community publicly supported the decision. See Abu Ya‘qub, “Tawhid al-quda’,” ibid., Nov. 1, 1955, p. 2.

44. Y K[amal], “al-Jinsiyya al-misriyya wa-a‘da’ al-majlis al-milli,” al-Kalim, Mar. 1, 1950, p. 6.

45. Lisha‘, “al-Qara’un fi misr.”

46. al-Kalim, Aug. 16, 1947; ibid., Oct 15, 1949; ibid., May 16, 1951; ibid., July 16, 1951; ibid., Feb. 1, 1952; ibid., Oct. 1, 1952.

47. The only reference to anything that could be considered Zionism in al-Kalim between 1945 and May 15, 1948, a period when Zionist activity was legal in Egypt, is a letter to the editor by Lieto Ibrahim Nunu on July 1, 1945, p. 11. He encouraged Karaite youth to settle in Jerusalem because only one Karaite currently resided there, and he could not perform his religious obligations alone. This proposal was framed entirely in religious communal terms and did not use the vocabulary of political Zionism. Nunu was neither a regular contributor to al-Kalim nor a recognized leader of the community. Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, p. 214, refers to this as a call for ‘aliyah. Because Krämer does not appear to have read al-Kalim, I suspect she relied on the opinion of Siham Nassar, al-Yahud al-misriyyun bayna al-misriyya wa’l-sahyuniyya (Beirut: Dar al-Wahda, 1979), p. 75. For a critique of Nassar, see Chapter 9.

48. Testimony of Lazare Bianco (interviewed by Shlomo Barad, Mar. 6, 1985), YTM.

49. Ibid.; Nelly Masliah, interview, San Francisco, May 8, 1992; Maurice Shammas, interview, Jerusalem, May 5, 1994.

50. Yosef Marzuk, interview, Tel Aviv, conducted by Shlomo Barad, July 17, 1985. (Shlomo Barad kindly gave me the tape recording of this interview.)

51. Ibid.

52. On the biography of Yusuf ‘Aslan Qattawi, see Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, pp. 94–101; Eric Davis, Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920–1941, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 93–97; Fargeon, L'Annuaire des Juifs d'Egypte et du proche-orient, 1942, p. 248.

53. Davis, Challenging Colonialism, pp. 91–97.

54. Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, pp. 95, 195.

55. Israël, Nov. 18, 1937, quoted in Bat Ye’or, “Zionism in Islamic Lands: The Case of Egypt,” Wiener Library Bulletin 30, n.s. (nos. 43–44, 1977):27.

56. Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, pp. 101–102.

57. R. Cattaoui and E. N. Goar, “Le point de vue des communautés Juives d'Egypte: Note sur la question juive,” CZA S25/5218.

58. Krämer, The Jews in Modern, pp. 201–202.

59. See Edna Bonacich and John Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 110.

60. On the Cicurel family and the early history of the store, see Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, pp. 44–45, 101, 107, 213; Robert L. Tignor, State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change in Egypt, 1918–1952 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 60, 66, 102; Mizrahi, L'Egypte et ses Juifs, pp. 64–65; Fargeon, L'Annuaire des Juifs d'Egypte et du proche-orient, 1942, p. 250; Nabil ‘Abd al-Hamid Sayyid Ahmad, al-Hayat al-iqtisadiyya wa’l-ijtima‘iyya li’l-yahud fi misr, 1947–1956 (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1991), pp. 38–40.

61. Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt, p. 107.

62. E. J. Blattner (ed.), Le Mondain égyptien: L'Annuaire de l'élite d'Egypte (The Egyptian Who's Who) [title varies] (Cairo: Imprimairie Française, 1947, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1959). A less comprehensive demographic analysis was performed by Ethel Carasso, “La communauté Juive d'Egypte de 1948 à 1957” (Maîtrise d'Histoire Contemporaine, Université de Paris X, 1982), pp. 31 ff.

63. Aron Rodrigue, French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).

64. Victor D. Sanua, “A Jewish Childhood in Cairo,” in Victor D. Sanua (ed.), Fields of Offerings: Studies in Honor of Raphael Patai (Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983), p. 283.

65. Jacqueline Kahanoff, Mi-mizrah shemesh (Tel Aviv: Yariv-Hadar, 1978), p. 17. The English version of this essay, “Childhood in Egypt,” appeared in The Jerusalem Quarterly no. 36 (Summer 1985):31–41. I have corrected the omission of a critical word in The Jerusalem Quarterly version that changed a meaning entirely.

66. For the political history of ha-Shomer ha-Tza‘ir and MAPAM, see Joel Beinin, Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948–1965 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

67. Jacques Hassoun, interview, Paris, May 30, 1994.

68. Ibid.; “Hitkatvuyot shel va‘adat hu‘l ‘im shlihim ve-‘im snifim,” especially “Du‘ah ‘al ha-tnu‘ah be-mitzrayim ve-hisulah,” July 9, 1952, YTM, Hativa 2-Hu‘l. Mekhal 1. Tik 2 and “Hitkatvuyot shel pe‘ilim ‘im ha-merkaz ba-aretz,” Hativa 2-Hu‘l. Mekhal 1. Tik 3.

69. Laskier, The Jews of Egypt, p. 155, cites an anonymous report from the Office of the Advisor for Special Tasks of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (which I located in CZA S41/449/bet/1/851/71, June 20, 1951) claiming that in June 1951 thirty senior members were expelled from ha-Shomer ha-Tza‘ir because they considered their primary loyalty to be to the Soviet Union and Marxism rather than to Zionism and the state of Israel. Several movement leaders, including Albert ‘Amar, Ninette Piciotto Braunstein, and Benny Aharon, who were on the spot, emphatically denied this in an interview in Tel Aviv on Apr. 28, 1994. Laskier's source may have been a report composed to impugn the reputation of MAPAM.

70. Before she became a spy for Israel, Marcelle Ninio had been a member (according to some accounts only a supporter) of ha-Shomer ha-Tza‘ir. Her brother, Isaac, was a communist. Aharon Costi (Keshet), the leader of the ha-Shomer ha-Tza‘ir branch in Dahir, was interned at Huckstep on May 15, 1948. His brother, Ralph, was a communist. Aimée Setton Beressi, was a member of the Central Committee of the communist Democratic Movement for National Liberation. Her brother-in-law, Victor Beressi, was the secretary of ha-Shomer ha-Tza‘ir in Egypt in 1950–51, and another of her relatives owned a travel agency that was critical in organizing illegal immigration to Israel. Avraham Matalon, a leader of he-Halutz, was interned as a Zionist in 1948. His cousin, Joe Matalon, was a communist.

71. Rahel Maccabi, Mitzrayim sheli (Tel Aviv: Sifriat ha-Po‘alim, 1968), p. 90.

72. Ibid., p. 9.

73. Ibid., p. 30.

74. Ibid., 10, 60, 83, 84–86.

75. Rahel Maccabi, “Mitzrayim sheli,” Hotam, Aug. 14, 1968, p. 12.

76. Kahanoff, Mi-mizrah shemesh, p. 17.

77. Ibid., p. 29.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid., p. 31.

80. Jacqueline [Kahanoff] Shohet, Jacob's Ladder (London: Harvill Press, 1951).

81. Rivka Gorfin, “Ashlayot poriot,” ‘Al ha-mishmar, Nov. 20, 1959, p. 6.

82. Ya’irah Ginosar, “‘Otzmat ha-kfilut,” ‘Iton 77 (nos. 8–9, May-June 1978):14.

83. Yitzhaq Gormezano-Goren, Kayitz aleksandroni (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 1978), p. 9.

84. Ibid., p.134.

85. Ibid., p. 136.

86. Shulamit Kori’anski, “Kmo shahar she-nirdam,” Maznayim nun (no. 1, 1979):151–52; Yisra’el Bramah, “Aleksandriah, hazarnu elayikh shenit,” Akhshav 39–40 (Spring-Summer 1979):341–44. Gershon Shaked adopts a similar attitude, explicitly consigning Kayitz aleksandroni and other novels of the same genre to the “margins of literary life” by designating it as “nostalgic-folkloric” in his authoritative history of Hebrew fiction, ha-Siporet ha-‘ivrit, 1880–1980, vol. 4 (Tel Aviv: ha-Kibutz ha-Me’uhad and Keter, 1993), pp. 173, 187.

87. Izah Perlis, “Sipurah shel aleksandriah,” ‘Al ha-mishmar, Dec. 29, 1978.

88. Ester Etinger, review of Kayitz aleksandroni, Yerushalayim 13 (no. 3, taf shin lamed tet):92.

89. Yitzhaq Gormezano-Goren, Blanche (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 1987), pp. 80, 81.

90. Dan Miron, “Ha-genrah ha-yam-tikhoni ha-yehudi ba-safrut ha-yisra’elit, Ha-‘olam ha-zeh ”, Apr. 8, 1987. Miron also discusses Amnon Shamosh's novel, Mishel ‘azra safra u-vanav, set in Aleppo.

91. Tamar Wolf, “Kitsh aleksandroni,” ‘Iton 77 (no. 87, Apr. 1987):7.

92. Anat Levit, interview with Yitzhaq Gormezano-Goren, Ma‘ariv, Feb. 6, 1987.

93. Robert Dassa, Be-hazarah le-kahir (Tel Aviv: Misrad ha-Bitahon, 1992).

94. Ibid. p. 7.

95. Ibid., pp. 18, 30.

96. Ibid., p. 14.

97. Ibid., pp. 11, 12.

98. Ibid., p. 13.

99. Ibid., p. 15.

100. Ibid., pp. 100, 102, 105, 106.

101. Ibid., p. 8.

102. Ibid., p. 10.

103. Ibid., p. 111.