The Land of 60 Jews

I have it on the authority of Inji, our tour guide, that there are only sixty Jewish people in the whole of Cairo. (It might have even been all of Egypt.) That's right. Sixty Jewish people. It's not the first time I've heard this since I've been here. My dad said the same thing, but I thought he had been spreading some urban myth that he'd heard thrown around his work. But Inji is a trained tour guide. She went to school for four years learning Egyptian and World History, Religion, and many languages to do what she does. She had to take an exam to get her certification and has to renew it every five years. She knows what she's talking about.

Even hearing it from her, I thought it was bullshit. But I guess if you're Jewish, unless you're the Israeli Ambassador or his staff, you're probably not going to want to live here. At the very least, you probably won't admit you're Jewish to many people. And I don't think there are any synagogues that are functioning anymore. Egypt has had an established, if not fragile, peace with Israel for a while now. At least to the extent that the rest of the Arab nations halted trade with Egypt at some point over their objections. That said, Egypt is growing more and more conservatively Muslim every year; and I could imagine that it could be really dangerous to go to a synagogue here.

The Israeli Ambassador is just down the street from where I live, but the street leading up to it is barricaded with armed Egyptian guards on all sides. The synagogue is also blocked off. This Arab/Israeli tension is something all of us know about. We've seen the video clips of bomb sites and fighting and war torn streets. But it seems like something far away. Like if you just choose not to visit Israel or Gaza or the closely surrounding areas, it doesn't directly affect you and you'll be safe. It's only the metal detector you go through before you can go inside the 1st Synagogue in Cairo, (and the comment Inji made about how dangerous it is for the people who live so close to it) that reminds you of how close you really are to everything.

And it's not just the synagogues and Israeli Ambassador. Egyptian police and security check your trunk and run bomb detectors under the car before you enter any big shopping mall or hotel where tourists would go. And there are metal detectors before you enter some of the hotels and tourist attractions, and even high school graduations at the pyramids. I've heard that they won't let cars drive up to the front of hotels in Sharm El Sheikh, a Red Sea resort town on the Sinai where a bomb exploded last year. It's something that goes on in the background and really doesn't interfere with everyday life. But it's there. Reminding everyone that these people aren't fucking around.