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PASSIONATELY COMMITTED
On 4th November Moïse Rahmani travelled from Belgium (accompanied by his charming wife Manuela) and delivered a 45- minute lecture to a packed Montefiore Hall followed by a 30 minute Q&A session. Like his biblical namesake, he comes across as a modest yet learned man with an impressive mastery of his subject, the history of Jews in Arab Lands up to the present day. Moïse sees unfortunately little to be optimistic about today with current efforts to resolve the conflicts in the Middle East, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, anti-Semitism etc. His diagnosis is a reflection of his sense of realism and knowledge of history although for some it may have been a bit too pessimistic. The subsequent death in Paris of Yassir Arafat has throuwn a different light on the political issues. With Chanucah close some of us are being inspired again by the story of the miracle of the lights : and as a speaker said recently ‘one light drives away the dark’. Moïse would like of course to see an ideal community between Arabs and Jews develop and at the end of his lecture quoted from a beatiful chapter reproduced in his book ‘L’Exode oublié’ (page 415).
As a dedicated student of the history of our People, Moïse has published several authoritative books on the subject (eg ‘Sous le joug du Croissant’, ‘L’Exode oublié – Juifs des Pays Arabes’). The web www.sefarad.org is wonderful and well worth regular visits. His contribution to the dissemination of facts to an often ignorant general public is important and he is to be admired for it. This other side of Jewish history was forgotten, unsurprisingly, with the attention given to the Shoah.
Moïse lived in Heliopolis as a boy and was member of the beatiful Sporting Club where my sister and I played after school and at week ends. The city was the idea of Baron Edouard Empain who was fascinated with Egypt. He bought 8000 hectares of desert in 1905 and built this ‘garden city ‘ from scratch with craftsmen from Belgium. He was buried in the Basilica of Heliopolis in 1929. It is the centenary of this incredible project which Belgium will be celebrating. Baron Empain was also responsible, among many other achievements, for building the Paris Metro and the Cairo tramway.
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of modern Heliopolis, a beatiful nostalgic look back by Moïse in his story ‘autour de la piscine’ was published in September this year. We reproduce it for your enjoyment (even by Alexandrins among us !) :
M Maleh
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