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Home , Farouk Hosny, Rabbi

Introduction

The life of this book began when the author visited the Mūsā () Darʿī in , , in March 2010, on the occasion of the partial restoration of this Karaite synagogue located in the ʿAbbāsiyya quarter. Less than a year before the Arab Spring overthrew the then Egyptian pres- ident in February 2011, the orchestrated public relations campaign that seems to have accompanied his regime’s policy of syna- gogue restorations1 culminated in the official inauguration of the reno- vated Moses synagogue in Cairo’s Ḥārat al-Yahūd, or “Jewish Quarter.” This celebration was marked by a three-day event (March 7–9, 2010) consisting of visits to other (among which—besides the Mūsā Darʿī synagogue—were the centrally located Shaʿar ha-Shāmayim synagogue2 and the famous Ben Ezra synagogue, the site of the Cairo Genizah), scholarly lectures, musical interludes as well as festive dinners, all of which were organized by the late Carmen Weinstein (1931–2013), the president at that time of the Jewish Community Council of Cairo.3 That the Karaite synagogue, located in Sabīl al-Khizindar in the ʿAbbāsiyya quarter, was named after the Egyptian-Karaite poet and physi- cian Moses Darʿī in 1943 attests to his status as the most important poet of medieval Karaism. According to Joseph Algamil, it was the Karaite leader Tuviah Simcha Levi Babovich who gave this synagogue its present name.4 Babovich was born in the Crimea in what is now Ukraine and served the Karaite community of Egypt as ḥākhām akbar (“Grand ”) for more than 20 years (1934–1956). The synagogue was built in the 1920’s under

1 The then Egyptian of culture, Farouk Hosny, who in September 2009 unex­ pectedly lost the election to succeed Koïchiro Matsuura as Director-General of UNESCO, may have used the policy of synagogue restorations by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA, then headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass) to distract attention from his May 2008 pledge to burn any Israeli books found in Egyptian libraries. 2 On the architecture of the Shaʿar ha-Shāmayim synagogue, see H. Taragan, “The Gate of Heaven (Shaʿar Hashamayim) Synagogue in Cairo (1898–1905): On the Contextualization of Jewish Communal Architecture,” Journal of Jewish Identities 2/1 (2009): 31–53. 3 A biography of Carmen Weinstein by C. Maidhof can be found in the Encyclopedia of in the Islamic World, ed. N. Stillman et al., 4:607 (Leiden: Brill, 2010). See also: http:// www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/world/middleeast/carmen-weinstein-a-leader-of-- jewish-community-dies-at-82.html. 4 J. Algamil, History of Karaite Jewry [in Hebrew] (Ramla: National Council of Karaite Jews in , 1979), 2:190–201. 2 introduction

Babovich’s predecessor as Grand Rabbi, Ibrāhīm of Istanbul. It was intended for those Karaites who in the beginning of the twentieth century had acquired some wealth and education and who had moved out of Ḥārat al-Yahūd to the middle-class neighborhoods of ʿAbbāsiyya, al-Dāhir, and Ghamra. This Karaite middle class consisted for the most part of shopkeepers, government clerks, and representatives of the liberal professions. In contrast to this middle class, the majority of the Karaite community remained poor and continued to live in the Jewish quarter. Slightly more than half of the community was literate and most resi- dents were craftsmen, especially jewelers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths. However, the community also included leading intellectual figures like Murād Farag Līshaʿ (1867–1956). He was a lawyer but also wrote numer- ous books on a wide array of topics including religious law, theology, phi- lology, and biblical exegesis. He also published highly acclaimed poetry in Hebrew and , using classical Arabic meters.5 As early as 1900, funds were donated for the construction of a new synagogue in ʿAbbāsiyya to serve the needs of those middle-class Karaites who could no longer walk to services in the Jewish quarter. The syna- gogue was completed in 1931 and twelve years later named after Mūsā (Moses) Darʿī. At that point, there were between 5000 and 7000 Karaite Jews in Egypt and the community maintained two synagogues: Simḥa in Ḥārat al-Yahūd and the new one in the ʿAbbāsiyya quarter. The Mūsā Darʿī synagogue’s structure is reminiscent of Ottoman with its dome supported on pillars covering the entire central space. Some of its decorative features are Art Deco (lotus flower columns) and Neo- Pharaonic (two obelisks set in front of its façade). The marble hēkhāl, or Ark of the Law, faces the Temple Mount in . There is also a courtyard and a library (which used to be a Bēt Dīn, or communal court), with a collection of about 4000 books and manuscripts, including the community’s archives.6

5 His poems were collected in Dīwān Murād (consisting of four volumes, 1902–1935, and a lost fifth volume). He also published Al-Qudsiyāt, a collection of Hebrew and Arabic poems addressed to the Palestinians, calling for peace with the newly established State of Israel. See J. Beinin, “The Karaites in Modern Egypt,” in Karaite : A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources, ed. M. Polliack, 420–22 (Leiden: Brill, 2003); M. El-Kodsi, Karaite Jews of Egypt 1882–1986 (New York: Wilprint, 1987; reprint 2007), 244–57. 6 See plates III and IV in the Plates section for pictures of the synagogue and the former Bēt Dīn. Y. Meital offers a detailed description of the synagogue in Jewish Sites in Egypt [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1995), 81–86. For a survey of the Judeo-Arabic documents preserved in the Karaite library, see D. S. Richards, “Arabic documents from