Summary
‘Awatif ‘Abd al-Rahman, a Cairo University College of Communications scholar whose al-Sahafa al-sahyuniyya fi misr, 1897–1954 (The Zionist press in Egypt), issued by a publishing house associated with the Communist Party of Egypt, adds Marxist themes to Siham Nassar’s line while following it, in The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 4129-4162).
Details
- She uses many of the same primary sources as Nassar and seems to rely extensively on Nassar’s unpublished M.A. thesis, readily available to her as a Cairo University colleague (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 4129-4162).
- Her distinctively Marxist themes: Zionism flourished as a consequence of an economic and social formation imposed by imperialism; poorer Jews were more closely linked to Egyptian society and culture; and the communists, including the Jewish Anti-Zionist League established by Iskra members, were sincere anti-Zionists (Chapter 9, note 6) — leading her to a less categorical condemnation than Nassar’s, though she follows the same basic line and is complicit in delegitimizing Jews as Egyptians (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 4129-4162).
- She regards al-Shams simply as a Zionist publication, and does not discuss Al-Kalim at all, avoiding a topic that would have demonstrated a community of Arabized Jews who considered themselves Egyptians and were not, as a community, political Zionists; she accepts Albert Mizrahi’s sincerity yet still concludes the Zionist press recruited “the great majority of Egyptian Jews to serve its propaganda objectives” (Chapter 9, note 12) (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 4129-4162).
Related pages
The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, Siham Nassar, Al-Kalim