A Synagogue in Ma'adi

Meyr Biton Temple from Road 13

A dusty, forlorn synagogue stands in Ma'adi just where Road 13 meets Orabi Street. From the pavement you can barely see the temple for all of the trees, reeds, and weeds. Look above the treetops though, and you can see the second story, the butternut colored blocks, the central dome. Walk around the building. Here and there you catch a glimpse of stained glass windows and inlaid Stars of David. See the hastily built brick walls surrounding the temple, the locked gate in front, the padlock encrusted with sand and dust. Tarry too long in front of the gates, and one of the bowabs from across the street will rise from his perch to shoo you away. Try to take a picture and you may be met with a vigorous shaking of the head, a wagging of the index finger, and a "la, la, la!" (no, no, no!). Even if you are not shooed away, you will be suspiciously watched. Given the bowabs' withering stares, you won't linger, and you will probably leave with many more questions than answers.

― That looked like it used to be a synagogue. What happened?

― Do you think it is abandoned?

― Does anyone still pray there? Does anyone take care of it?

Meyr Biton Temple, 1934
Courtesy, Bassatine News

In 1934, times were very different in Cairo and in Egypt. Howard Carter had discovered Tutankhamen's tomb just a a little over a decade before. Fuad was king. British influence was still strong. Those were the days before World War II and the pograms, before the Six Day War and the Arab-Israeli conflicts.

In 1934, landscaper and developer Meyr Yehuda Biton had a synagogue built for a burgeoning Jewish community in Ma'adi. It was not built to be grand or imposing. It was built as a place where a small but growing community could gather together to celebrate and pray. In 1934, the Meyr Biton Temple was finished and services began. Those services would come to an end just thirty short years later.

Barricades blocking all the streets around the temple

Today the streets around the synagogue are barricaded, blocked by palisades of police barriers, twisted metal bars, and recumbent spiked metal poles that look as is if they belong in a medieval weaponry museum. At half-block intervals, bowabs sit in their makeshift, metal stands warding off all but the most stalwart passerbyes. Overgrown trees and weeds choke the median between the street and the temple walls. It appears as though the same is true on the other side of the walls. At irregular intervals throughout the week, a policeman stands guard on the street in front. Motorists drive past, oblivious to the building's significance, its history, its legacy.

Jewish communities have been a part of the Egyptian social fabric since the days of Alexander the Great. Some Ottoman rulers in Egypt enjoyed the counsel of Jewish ministers and advisers. For hundreds of years, Alexandria and Cairo were renown for their vibrant Jewish communities. Just before the outbreak of the first Word War, the Jewish community in Egypt had been estimated at 80,000 strong; this according to most religious demographers.

But then the First World War was followed by another one. Pograms in Egypt's larger cities were not unheard of. And then came the creation of Israel. Some Egyptian Jews, Zionists dreaming of a Jewish state in the Middle East, left. Conflict between the people of Israel and the people of Egypt followed. More Egyptian Jews left, emigrating to Europe, South America, the United States. Then Nasser came to power, proclaiming Jews as enemies of the state. An exodus ensued.

According to a U.S. State Department report on international religious freedom published in 2007, only 200 native-born Jews remained in Egypt. Until this month, only 12 of the 200 were still here. Last week, Nadia Haroun, the sister of the President of the Jewish Community Council (JCC) of Cairo, passed away. The remaining 11 members of the Jewish community are all female and quite past child-bearing age. The future of the Egyptian Jewish community looks bleak.

But thanks to the work of the JCC, the interior of Meyr Biton Temple has recently been refurbished and is open to the public. It is advisable to contact the JCC first so that someone from the JCC office can contact the local caretaker, but entrance to the synagogue can be arranged. One blogger recounts his experience inside the temple,

In the entry, I saw a photo of the congregation from the early 1930s: women in old fashioned dresses and men wearing Turkish fezzes. Signs reminding the ladies to keep quiet still hung on the wall, in both French and English, as if the people from the photograph still gathered here. The bookshelves were filled with prayer books, many of which were close to 100 years old. I prayed that night from a siddur issued to soldiers in the British army during World War II. While this army prayer book did not contain a complete Shabbat service, it did include a prayer for going into battle, another for the wounded, and a special blessing for the royal family including Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II).

Although the synagogue's facade suggests otherwise, a light still shines inside the Meyr Biton Temple. One hopes that the light emanating from the altar will continue to shine on.

A Walk in Old Cairo

There are seven of us in our small traveling group today, and we are heading on a self-guided walking tour of Old Cairo, that section of the city dating back to before Roman times. Two thousand years ago, the Romans ruled Egypt from their administrative center in Alexandria, a city to the north of modern day Cairo. Cairo wasn't even Cairo when the Romans arrived. It was a tiny, backwater trading community that the Romans called "Babylon." As a part of their administrative occupation of Egypt, the Romans erected a fine, twin-towered trade post here at the base of the Nile Delta. The foundations of the mighty, Roman towers would one day serve as the foundations of the city of Cairo.

Roman Towers

Old Cairo is five metro stops to the north of us. Our group meets at one of Ma'adi's two metro stations. We pay our £1 Egyptian (about 15 cents) and board a modern, relatively clean train. Twenty minutes and no hassles later, we exit Mar Girgis Station. Crossing the street, we immediately encounter the remains of the old Roman towers. Cairenes call it the "Babylonian Fortress," and its robbed-out, stone-and-brick edifice looms three or four stories above us. Rebuilt and reinforced many times, the towers once guarded the lively river traffic sailing up and down the Nile. Two thousand years ago, the Nile flowed right up to the base of the Babylonian Fortress. Thanks modern engineers dictating the course of the Nile, today the river flows a couple of miles away to the west of us.

Coptic Museum

We follow the curve of one of the Roman towers towards the nearby Coptic Museum. This small museum (£60 entry fee) houses artifacts dating from the beginning of the Coptic Christian era of Egyptian history up to the Islamic era. We see delicate bronze pieces as well as a handful of extremely well-preserved textiles. The defining aspect of the museum however, is its richly carved wooden ceilings. The glorious ceilings, a product of skilled, local artisans, are a part of the 2006 restoration of the museum. The frescoes, bronzes, and ceilings make for a stunning masterpiece.

Interior, Hanging Church

Just down the street from the Coptic Museum is the famous Hanging Church, a Coptic Christian church that is over one thousand years old. The church has been in continuous use since being built. It was erected atop the ruins of the ancient Roman walls, hence its name. Inside, the church has the cozy feel of a small, wooded chapel, a nave packed with wooden pews and two side aisles. Gilded icons of saints and apostles adorn all of the walls. Light streams in from windows high above. A large stone pulpit, held aloft above the church pews by thirteen stone pillars, dominates the nave. Each pillar represents Christ and his Apostles. I note that one pillar, presumably the one representing Judas Iscariot, is hewn from dark marble, a stark contrast to the others.

We leave the Hanging Church to wander around the walls of the Christian Cemetery. These ancient walls surround most of the area that the Cairenes refer to as Old Cairo. We are on the outside of these walls, and we traipse through a lively Cairo neighborhood characterized by mechanics' shops, tiny cafes, mosques and trash heaps. Curious local residents eye us as they make their way to their afternoon prayers. Their awkward stares suggest that they have not seen foreign tourists in this neighborhood for a long time.

Jewish Cemetery gate,
Ben Ezra Synagogue

After wandering through an ancient Christian and Jewish cemetery, we stumble upon the Ben Ezra Synagogue. The oldest known synagogue in Egypt, there has been a house of worship on this site for at least 1100 years. Amidst the mosques of Cairo, it is easy to forget that northern Egypt was once the center of a vibrant Jewish community. Ancient records of land exchanges show that the land beneath the modern day Ben Ezra Synagogue was purchased by one Abraham ibn Ezra of Jerusalem for the purpose of establishing a religious community. It is believed that a synagogue was built not long after. As if this site needed any further historical gravitas, there is a powerful local legend about this place. According to the tale, several thousand years ago a pharaoh's daughter found an infant floating in a reed basket amongst the lush vegetation along the river Nile. She kept the child and named him, Moses.

Interior, Mosque of Amr ibn el-As

Having visited several Coptic Christian churches and a synagogue, we make our way north towards the Mosque of Amr ibn el-As, the first mosque in Egypt and on the African continent. 1300 years ago, Amr ibn el-As was the Arab general whose forces defeated a Byzantine army in the vicinity of what is now Old Cairo. Amr was a companion to the Prophet Muhammad. Legend tells that shortly before his death, the Prophet foretold that Amr would one day conquer Egypt and would be kind to its people. Muhammad's prophecy was fulfilled years later when Byzantine forces were beaten by Amr's crack troops. The rest of the region was occupied without much bloodshed. As it turns out, Amr ibn el-As was lucky. Relations between the people of Egypt and their Byzantine rulers had become quite uneasy in recent decades, and the people of Egypt seemed to welcome these new Arab invaders. Amr became a kind of governor of Egypt during the early days of

Visiting the Mosque

the Muslim Caliphate, and during this time, many Egyptians converted to Islam. It seems that the conversion was not coerced. Many Egyptians would have embraced the egalitarianism of Islam. Others may have converted to avoid the tax that Amr placed upon those who did not follow the tenets of this newly introduced religion. Whatever the explanation, the people of Egypt converted to Islam, setting into motion a spiritual revolution that would make Islam the religion followed by more than 95% of the people here.

Having started our journey at 10 a.m., we are exhausted by 3 p.m. Today, we stood before Roman gates; marveled at Egyptian wood carvings. We experienced the quiet piety of one of Egypt's most famous Coptic churches, and we gazed at the spot where Moses was plucked from the River Nile. At the end of the afternoon, we were consumed by the vastness and solemnity of Africa's first mosque. Our self-guided walking tour of Old Cairo proved to be a captivating and inspiring sojourn.

*This week's photos by Dana Purpura (and one by Rick Harman)