Egyptian-Jewish Emigrés in Australia By Racheline Barda

correspondence, and diaries. These documents bear testimony to the past vibrancy and diversity of the Jewish communities of the Arab world and their responses to the challenges of modernity. They speak for themselves by bringing to life the historical upheavals of the period and their impact on the local Jewish populations, providing the researcher with the opportunity to make an assessment of the situation based on these primary sources.³⁰

Specific study of modern Egyptian Jewry includes the works of scholars such as Joel Beinin, Maurice Fargeon, Jacques Hassoun, Gudrun Krämer, Jacob Landau, Michael Laskier, and Shimon Shamir, all of which were found to be invaluable tools for my own research. The 1938 monograph of Maurice Fargeon, Les Juifs en Égypte: Depuis les origines jusqu’à ce jour, was interesting because, as its title states, it strove to cover the whole period of Jewish history in Egypt from biblical times until the onset of World War II.³¹ The section that was relevant to my research dealt with the ethnic characteristics and the demography of Egyptian Jewry, from the time of Mohammed Ali, Viceroy of Egypt (1805–1848), to the beginning of King Farouk’s reign (1937–1952). The book endeavoured to paint a total picture by including both urban and rural Jewish communities, noting their religious, philanthropic, and cultural institutions, their communal leaders, their schools, their synagogues, and the individual rabbis who served the different congregations. It also presented interesting statistics, listing Jews according to place of residence, gender, and personal status. The importance of this book as a social document lay mainly in its perspective of a particularly golden era in the history of Egyptian Jewry. However, there are a number of problems associated with Fargeon’s study. Modern-day scholars have challenged some of his estimates, especially in regard to the Napoleonic period.³² In addition, Fargeon did not offer any critical evaluation of the situation of Egyptian Jewry. He painted an idealised picture of a community very much in command of its own destiny, very comfortable in its Egyptian home, and without a hint of the rising tensions in the political and social arenas. It is obvious that this picture reflected the world view of the author, as well as the general feeling of