New list compiles surnames of 20th Century Cairo Jews

• Date: 05 April 2021
• Author: Dan Verbin
• Published date: 05 April 2021

To that end, demographic mapping consultant, Jacob Rosen-Koenigsbuch, has conducted a study revealing an extensive list of Jewish surnames found in 20th Century Cairo. The list was compiled due to the scarcity of primary Jewish documents dealing with the day-to-day personal lives of Jews living in Middle Eastern countries. Researchers, in the past, have had difficulty studying personal narratives of Middle Eastern Jews during this era, due to a past research focus which has largely been structured around general communal trends or communal organizations themselves, rather than the lives of individual members.

Rosen-Koenigsbuch called the Jewish communities of Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said "example(s) in place" with "no central depository or database which is accessible." For instance, some of the communities' documents which were able to be taken out of Egypt landed at Yeshiva University in New York City. However, they deal primarily with Jewish education and affairs. They do not tell the stories of the day-to-day lives of Jews who lived in the communities.

To facilitate research into the lives of Jews living in Egypt, Rosen-Koenigsbuch decided to compile a lengthy list of Jewish surnames from 20th Century Cairo.

The task was not an easy one. He faced several hurdles. Databases in Israel of Egyptian Jews...