Summary
The mutamassirun (sing. mutamassir): the permanently resident foreign and minority communities of Egypt — Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Syrian Christians and Jews — whose privileges were progressively abolished by decolonization, and whose identification with foreign interests and culture undermined their status long before measures were directed at Jews specifically, in the account of The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 198-210, 223-233).
Details
- “Even under the monarchy, there were clear signs pointing to the impending decline in the status of foreign nationals and the mutamassir minorities — permanently resident Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Syrian Christians, and Jews — in postcolonial Egypt. The abolition of the Capitulations in 1937 ended the tax immunities of foreign nationals. The Company Law of 1947 set quotas for the employment of Egyptian nationals in incorporated firms. The abolition of the mixed courts in 1949 established a unified legal system for resident foreign nationals and Egyptian citizens” (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 198-210).
- The Free Officers’ regime after July 23, 1952 “further eroded the privileges of foreigners and mutamassirun and in practice impinged on the status of non-Muslim citizens as well,” through the October 1954 Anglo-Egyptian evacuation agreement, the abolition of the communal courts in 1955, the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, the confiscation of the property of British and French nationals and Jews in 1956 and Belgian nationals in 1960, and the nationalization of large sectors of the economy in 1961–62, “which affected many mutamassir-owned firms along with enterprises owned by Muslim, Coptic, and Jewish citizens” (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 198-210).
- “The Jewish community as a whole was identified with the cosmopolitan culture, international business connections, and foreign citizenship of many of its wealthiest and most prominent members. Many Jews, in addition to the business elite, were passive beneficiaries of or active collaborators with colonialism. Insofar as Jews, like other mutamassirun, were identified with foreign interests and culture, their status was undermined by decolonization.” Most members of the mutamassir communities left Egypt after 1956, “which suggests that a large proportion of the Jewish community might have left Egypt in the 1950s whether or not there had been an Arab-Israeli conflict and regardless of any specific measures the Egyptian authorities directed against Jews” — though from the late 1930s the Arab-Zionist clash in Palestine “also generated a dynamic that affected the Jewish community specifically” (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 223-233).
- The legal machinery of exclusion ran through citizenship: in 1948 only 5,000–10,000 of Egypt’s 75,000–80,000 Jews held Egyptian citizenship, some 40,000 were stateless and 30,000 foreign nationals; Jews who had obtained foreign citizenship from European consuls “did not usually regard this as impugning their identity as Egyptians; most other Egyptians felt otherwise”; and bureaucratic delay and rejection of citizenship applications were “not directed specifically at Jews,” Syrian Christians, Greeks, Italians and Armenians being similarly treated (Chapter 2, notes 22–24) (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 514-533).
Related pages
The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, Communitarianism, Les Grands Magasins Cicurel et Oreco, Karaites