Summary
Don Peretz, author of “Egyptian Jews Today” (American Jewish Committee, 1956), judged in The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry to be, with S. Landshut’s 1950 survey, “far more judicious than the typical publications of this era” on Egypt’s Jews — and, in Chapter 4, the AJC consultant whose findings that stories of Nazi-style persecution in Egypt were exaggerated were never publicized by the committee (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 1336-1345, 1842-1880).
Details
- Chapter 3’s note 2 lists the post-1948 report literature on Egypt’s Jews — the AJC’s A Report on the Situation in Egypt (January 1949), the World Jewish Congress’s The Treatment of Jews in Egypt and Iraq (1948), Nehemiah Robinson for the WJC (1951) and the American Jewish Congress’s The Black Record: Nasser’s Persecution of Egyptian Jewry (1957) — and judges Peretz’s “Egyptian Jews Today” (AJC, 1956) and Landshut’s Jewish Communities in the Muslim Countries of the Middle East (1950) “far more judicious than the typical publications of this era” (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 1336-1345).
- In 1955 or 1956 Peretz began to work for the American Jewish Committee as a consultant on Middle East affairs. After a two-week visit to Egypt in June 1957, he reported to the committee leadership that “the situation [of Egyptian Jews] in no way resembles that as portrayed by most of the American press or by the American Jewish Committee fact sheets,” which he regarded as “very misleading and not very helpful” (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 1869-1880).
- An AJC-commissioned investigation, apparently undertaken by Peretz, to verify a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung report about former SS leaders at the head of the Egyptian gestapo concluded that none of the persons named could be traced, that no evidence of the presence of former SS leaders in Egypt could be established, that all such press reports were based on information coming from the World Jewish Congress in New York and B’nai B’rith, and that “None of the known German councillors who have been active for years in Egypt has ever been able to have immediate political or other influence” (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 1869-1880).
- The committee never publicized Peretz’s unequivocal statements, and his most substantial piece of research for it — the comprehensive and judicious “Egyptian Jews Today,” released in January 1956 — was also never published; it discussed both Egyptian Jews’ material prosperity and their precarious position, documented anti-Semitic expressions in Egypt’s mass media in their historical and political context, drew attention to careful and correct official statements on Jews’ status, and did not mention that any Nazis held official positions of authority in Egypt (The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, lines 1873-1880).
Related pages
The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, American Jewish Committee, Operation Susannah