The Jewish Quarter of Cairo, 1881
From Jewish Life in the East by Sydney M. Samuel, 1881.
From: 1881 C.E. To: 1881 C.E.
Location: Cairo, Egypt
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Jewish Life in the East by Sydney M. Samuel, 1881.
In sharp contrast to the proximate Pyramids and other colossal relics of bygone Egyptian splendour; in sharper contrast to the surrounding Desert with its ever-shifting sand and its strings of camels; in sharper contrast still to the broad streets, magnificent mansions, and luxuriant, well-watered gardens laid out by the deposed Khedive, whose ambition it was to make of Cairo an Eastern rival to the Western gaiety of Paris—an ambition, like so many other human aspirations, destined only for non-fulfilment—the bazaars of the Egyptian capital, teeming with noisy life, and full of bustle and variety, offer to the traveller a spectacle replete with novelty, and of never-ending interest.
Here, in narrow, tortuous streets, the petit commerce of the great city is conducted, and the tourist finds the completest realizations of the scenes depicted in the Arabian Nights. In fact, with the exception that Manchester goods and Sheffield cutlery form no inconsiderable portion of the wares offered for sale, nothing has changed superficially since the days when Scherezade told, in self-protection, the stories which the late Mr. Lane made familiar to British childhood.
At the entrance of the bazaars is a street known as the "New," although the date of its foundation is already remote. Still, its pathway is of sufficient size, and even affords room for carriages to pass, instead of the patient donkey which competes with the foot-passengers for the small space of the more ancient streets. The houses are high and from their tops a wooden trellis-work stretches across the road, to protect the wayfarer from the heat of the sun, which is as scorchingly hot here in the month of November as with us in the sultriest July.
In this street, in small, time-worn, decayed tenements, which an English suburban chandler-shopkeeper would consider beneath his contempt, are located the principal Jewish bankers and merchants of the city—gentlemen who possess palaces in the outskirts, in which the Khedive has not thought it unworthy of his Vice-regal dignity to attend fetes, and in which our own Duke of Connaught once attended a religious ceremony in the family of a great local Jewish banker.
Opposite to one of the most important of these establishments is the entrance to the "Jewish-quarter." Not that this term must be taken to infer the existence of any Ghetto-like restriction. Natural clanship causes the Jews, in common with the Turks, Arabs, Syrians, etc., to herd together and to confine themselves each to one especial district. The first indication that the traveller has entered the Israelitish section is found in the fact that the first street, or rather lane, is entirely occupied by money-changers' shops or booths, about six feet by ten, of which the sole furniture is an English iron safe, a desk, a stool, a ledger, and a more or less large quantity of coins. Unbroken, save by the stall of a vendor of Hebrew prayer-books and Bibles, this double line of money-changers forms an appropriate approach to the principal temple or synagogue.
The remaining streets are small winding lanes, wherein the inhabitants retail almost everything that can be required, from a bracelet to butcher's meat; from a drawing-room cabinet to a cigarette. If one can conceive Petticoat Lane on a Sunday, compressed into an infinitely narrower space, with the houses considerably heightened, the vendors and purchasers dressed in the most various and fantastic Oriental garments, chattering a perfect Babel of different tongues, pushing and struggling with the harmless donkeys aforesaid; if one can imagine the shops and houses, almost meeting, divested of glass and invested with the attributes of Eastern architecture; and if one can realise, above all, the narrow strip of bright blue sky which dominates the whole picture, a fair idea may be gathered of the Jewish quarter of Cairo.
It must be said that, in spite of the prevailing dirt and squalor, and the all-pervading influence of a vast variety of evil smells, the Jewish streets show a marked superiority over those inhabited by the remainder of the poorer population. As a matter of fact, this superiority to the Mahommedans is shown by the Jews of all classes. The Mahommedan woman is still the same degraded and down-trodden creature as of yore; isolated from all extraneous male society, forbidden to go abroad without being closely veiled, and purchased by her husband, who never sees her until the marriage ceremony is completed, from her father. The simple Mahommedan, be it understood, is not yet so far civilized as to comprehend the advantages of the system, not uncommon in Europe, of requiring a heavy pecuniary payment before undertaking the support of another man's daughter. He is, however, able to divorce his wife of his own free will, being forbidden to remarry her, should he be so inclined, until she has gone through the form of marriage with some one else. The story of the opera-bouffe (a La Jolie Persane "), played in Paris, is, therefore, no wild creation of the librettist's brain.
The Jewish woman, on the contrary, is the companion and true help-meet of her husband. In the better classes of Eastern Jewish society, she is possessed of every grace and accomplishment, frequently speaking four languages with facility, Parisienne jusqu’au bout des ongles, with the addition of an amount of domesticity and skill in household management to which few French women attain, and possessed of large-hearted views concerning the propriety of permitting her male friends to smoke in her drawing-room, which would appal the average European lady. It may not be uninteresting to note that, at an entertainment given by a Jewish gentleman for the purpose of enabling his friends to hear a celebrated Arab singer and improvisatore, the ladies of the company were kept in an adjoining apartment, where they could only hear through the half-opened door of communication. This was done out of respect to the prejudices of two or three Musliman gentlemen who were present, who also did not, like the rest of the guests, take wine or spirits, which, as is well known, are strictly forbidden to them by the founder of their faith. They drank beer instead, and in no inconsiderable quantities.
A Jewish servant, or labourer, is almost unknown in Egypt, our people here, as elsewhere, being infected with that dislike for manual labour, and that preference for earning their living with their heads, rather than with their hands, which forms, at once, the strength of our upper, and the destruction of our lower classes. In a country where a census does not exist it is difficult to arrive at a correct appreciation of the number of Jews in Cairo, but it is certainly not less, nor much more, than three thousand. They are possessed of ten public places of worship, nine of which are conducted according to Sephardi, and one according to Ashkenazi rites. There is, of course, no other difference of ritual.
The synagogues are by no means ornate—the arabesque style of decoration being considered Hukath Hagoyim. The interiors are studiously plain and poor. The ladies' galleries are high up towards the roof, and are fenced in by close trellis-work, with small circular holes, which must cause the complete despair of the Cairene coquettes. To each synagogue is attached a deep bath of running water. The sale by auction of the Mitzvoth strikes the more youthful European spectator with humorous effect, but the enclosing of the Scroll of the Law in a circular winding-box, so that it opens at the portion of the day, is a practice that might be followed, in Europe, with advantage.
Between two of the synagogues, at the top of the same building, is the boys' school, where education is gratuitously given in Hebrew, Arabic, Italian, French, and the ordinary branches of general study. The aspect of the little fellows in their red tarbouches, which, with their boots, are given to them twice a year, is striking in the extreme. The boys, who rise with military precision at the entrance of a visitor, acquitted themselves exceedingly well at an improvised examination, and their three class-rooms are clean and well ventilated.
The girls' school is in a separate structure, at some little distance. Here, in addition to the same advantages which are enjoyed by the boys, the girls receive instruction in sewing. One little girl was able to recite an Italian poem with correct accent and appropriate action, and to translate it, viva voce, into Arabic, to the entire satisfaction of the vice-president of the school, Mr. Moise Cattaui.
The children are all well nourished, and generally bright-looking, but the presence of ophthalmic disease is most painfully marked. This is accounted for by the constant influx of small grains of sand brought by the wind from the surrounding desert. The instruction is entirely gratuitous, the number admitted being limited, however, to one hundred and seventy-five of each sex, a number now fully attained. Not far from the girls' school is the hospital endowed by Cattaui Bey, which contains but ten beds, one only of which was occupied at the time of my visit. I am bound to say that the condition of the hospital leaves much to be desired.
Next to this is the Beth Hamidrash (House of Learning), where several venerable-looking old gentlemen were engaged in the study of the Law. They have an airy and comfortable room allotted to them for the purpose, with a large courtyard, wherein, in the extreme heat, they can continue their studies under the shade of six stalwart and spreading date-palms. The schools, where, by-the-by, the children begin their education by learning Hebrew, owed their initiative to Mr. Adolphe Cremieux, as did the existing Benevolent Society, which advances sums not exceeding £24 sterling to needy traders, without interest, and on the strength of one guarantor; which also gives sums not exceeding £4 to indigent persons on occasions of exceptional family festivity or of death, and allows two francs a day to the helpless paupers. With the exception of one or two ancient and picturesque beggars, the absence of the cry "Backshish, El Chivaga" ("a gift, my master"), which is so unceasing and mosquito-like in its persistent annoyance throughout the East, is conspicuous in the Jewish quarter.
A marriage society annually provides eight Hebrew maidens with dowries of £20 each, and a burial society provides for the due interment of the defunct. The cemetery, which is outside the city, is, apparently, in a state of extreme neglect. The Chief Rabbi of Cairo, who bears the singularly appropriate name of Yomtob Israel, is a man of commanding and venerable aspect, and of characteristically Oriental dignity of demeanour. He is the true father of his flock, attending to the spiritual and material needs of the disproportionately numerous poor with exceptional zeal, ardour, and intelligence.
Leaving the Jewish quarter, a visit to the magnificent mansion in course of construction for, Cattaui Bey, which is an enlargement of the former palace of the disgraced minister Cherif Pasha, is at once a contrast to, and a relief from, the squalor of the dwellings of the poorer brethren in race of the former gentleman, to whose munificence and to that of his sons much of the good work above described is due. His mansion is, as regards decoration, a marvel of he purest arabesque Renaissance style, glowing with colour, and graceful enough to make the late Mr. Owen Jones start from his grave with pleasure and admiration. Attached to the house is a private synagogue to accommodate about one hundred and thirty persons.
Samuel, Sydney Montagu. Jewish Life in the East. C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1881.
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