Egyptian-Jewish Emigrés in Australia By Racheline Barda

security and supreme confidence in which most Egyptian Jews basked pre-1948.

Jacob M. Landau’s monograph, Jews in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, was found to be much more precise and scholarly in its study of demography, place of residence, and occupation that was based on solid literary sources and official censuses. These elements attested to the inferior social, economic, and political status of Egyptian Jews in those days and shed light on the reasons why the Jews actively sought foreign protection. Landau meticulously outlined the community structure and its institutions, as well as the intercommunal relations. He also reviewed the domain of intellectual and religious life, pointing out the paucity of literary works written by Jews and published in Egypt until the end of World War I, apart from a number of religious studies and didactic publications. Nevertheless, Landau noted the high level of literacy within the community and listed the different schools attended by Jewish children, highlighting the critical role played by the AIU in the realm of Jewish and secular education. He also commented on the gradual decline in religious observance among the young with the advent of modernity and the growing attraction of European culture. In addition, he looked into the initial struggle of an organised Zionist movement in Egypt up to World War I, attributing this struggle to the apolitical nature of most Egyptian Jews and their deep sense of security in the country. Like Stillman, Landau included in his work a number of original documents in Arabic, English, French, or Hebrew—collected from various archives—that vividly illustrated the general situation of Jews in Egypt and their activities from about 1750 to 1916. In addition, Landau’s book titled Middle Eastern Themes, published in 1973, brought together a series of journal articles he had previously written. This collection included a number of chapters that concerned Egyptian Jewry. One particular chapter provided a review of the ritual murder accusations—mostly from the Greek Orthodox community—that occurred in Egypt during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, based on archival records of the Foreign Ministries in London and Rome.³³ Another chapter evaluated the part played by the Jewish community in the modernisation of