Adonis Diaries

Archive for June 17th, 2012

The “Blue Moslem” Jews of Egypt: Same cultural sympathies?

I am reading a French book of childhood memories of 32 Jews who immigrated to France in the 50’s and 60’s from “Arab African” States of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt, and the Near East Mediterranean Sea States of Lebanon and Turkey.

Should the occupation of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe of Palestine and the establishment of a colonial apartheid State of Israel cancel out the centuries of cultural sympathies that the Sephardi Jews connected with the Arab and Islam culture, civilization and traditions?

I might review a few of these childhood memories and group them on gender and geographic location. I discovered that:

1. The male authors have very different recollections from the females, due to their greater freedom to mingle with other communities and stepping out of their homes…

2. The Jews in the northern African States during the extended French colonial period have been discriminated by the French from the Moslems and given French citizenship and forced to learn in French schools with French programs…

3. Most of the adult males, including fathers and grandfathers, had to be forced to immigrate, their feet first: They were totally unwilling to relocate to France and change their life style…

I am reporting in this post on the “Blue Moslems” of the Caraite (Karaite) Jewish sect community in Egypt.

Mireille Cohen Massouda was born in Cairo in 1940 and immigrated with her family to France in 1953. Mireille wrote that she belonged to the Caraites community in opposition to the Rabbanite Jewish sect.

Much later, in France, she understood the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.

The Cariates religion was transmitted by the father instead of the mother, and the young males were dispatched to Crimea in order to select a Jewish wife.

Josy Eisemberg said in one of her 4 commentaries in 1994 that the Caraites were considered as “Jews of the Jews“, meaning not really accepted as original Jews by the local Jews in Palestine.

In fact, Nazi Germany delayed defining the Caraites as Jews till 1944.

In the meantime, the Caraites would issue certificates to the Rabbanites that they were Caraites and saved them from certain extermination for many years.

The Caraites were called the “Blue Moslems” in Cairo because all their praying and eating customs and traditions were identical to the Moslems, with this slight difference: Their praying garment had blue stripes…

Mireille wrote that she was assigned a separate section of the house where she slept with the female servant.  Apparently, the well-to-do Caraite Jewish families preferred to separate the females from the males gender…

Lower class Caraite families sent their young girls to work as servants at richer Caraite families in order to save for their dowry…

Apparently, the family of the girl was to provide the dowery of the girls for their marriage?

Is it about time to separate political Resolutions of Israel/Palestine from cultural sympathies in the Near East?

Note: Mireille Cohen-Massouda works at the hospital of Argenteuil as pedo-Psychiatry.  She is engaged at disseminating the belief system of the Carait sect, a Jewish faction that was established in the 8th century by Anan Ben David. She wrote and directed the film “From silence to speaking”

Refrain of naming your establishment Lebanon: Civil War will break out…

The Pan-Arabia Enquirer published a humoristic fiction story under Civil war breaks out across Lebanon Island

The beach resort of The World development off the coast of Dubai,and the island of Lebanon being one of them, where the scene of sectarian violence erupted.

DUBAI: Just two weeks after it was opened as a luxurious beach club, the island of Lebanon, part of The World development project off the coast of Dubai, one of the Arab Gulf Emirates, has erupted into civil war.

Gunfire on the island was heard from mainland Dubai yesterday afternoon, and by the evening there had been reports of fierce street battles amid the island’s five-star facilities.

While journalists have been kept at bay from the island through its inflated membership fees, various messages received from Lebanon’s resident workers suggest that sectarian violence was sparked after an incident by the pool on Saturday morning regarding a sun-lounger and a club sandwich.

Within hours, this had spread to other parts off the exclusive resort, with various opposing factions taking control of different ‘zones’ and the central grassy area designated ‘no man’s land’, kept under watchful eye by snipers camped out in the changing rooms.

“There’s are two full bottles of Chateau Neuf du Pape 1978 and a Dom Perignon sitting on the bar counter, but nobody wants to get them for fear of getting shot. It’s such a waste,” one member who managed to escape from the island told The Pan-Arabia Enquirer.

Various countries have said they are now considering sending emergency transportation to the island to rescue those caught in the middle of the escalating violence, and the UN Security Council is to meet tomorrow to discuss the situation.

At least one member is expected to use their veto vote to ensure nothing happens.

Government officials in Israel yesterday said they were “deeply concerned” with the possibility of groups loyal to Hezbollah using the island as a launch pad for attacks to the neighbouring island that could or could not be Israel, depending on who you ask.

“We’ve sent troops to Lebanon before and we’re not afraid to do it again, albeit on a slightly smaller scale and in a completely different place,” fantastic Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters.

Further complications are likely to emerge with refugees escaping violence on the island of Syria expected to descend upon Lebanon in the coming days.

Note: I jumped at the link on facebook sent by Reine Azzi


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adonis49

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