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Maurice (Moussa) Wahba - One Story at a Time
By daughter Rachel Wahba, JIMENA Steering Committee member

Maurice/Moussa Wahba knew when it was time to leave his beloved homeland. It was 1939: “I saw the writing on the wall” he told me many times, the memory ever present in his mind. And how with his father’s blessing he accepted his older brother Jacques/Yacoub’s invitation to join his import-export business in Japan. In the same breath he always repeated, lest anyone forget, that the Wahbas were “real” Egyptians, rooted in Egypt for thousands of years, predating Islam.

Leaving Egypt was not on the mind of most Egyptian Jews in 1939. But dad was an intuitive, and always ahead of his time. He saw what was happening ---he saw how Hitler was being portrayed as a hero with bookstores featuring “Mein Kampf” in Arabic. He felt the change coming fast, the Jew was lumped in with resentment towards “foreigners” as a new nationalism took hold. Koranic distrust and diatribes against Jews were resurrected and concretized in Egypt.

The rest of the family, was exiled in l956. They fled their hometowns and cities of Mansoura, Cairo and Alexandria, penniless. They were forced to sign papers promising “never to return (to Egypt).” This humiliation my father did not have to directly experience. We were already settled in Japan and waiting (it took 20 years) to immigrate to the United States.

My father had many challenges and adventures in pre-war Japan, Shanghai, India during the war years, and post war Japan, before arriving in the America. He met his challenges with courage, creativity and grace. None of it was “easy.” After returning to Japan once the war was over, his Egyptian passport became invalid. He became a Stateless Jew, an import-exporter stranded without a passport.

Encounters in Japan ---Maurice, Mr. Toyota, and the Saudis.

In 1949 the Japanese were reeling from the war, desperate to rebuild their lives and businesses. Daily, Japanese exporters would bring samples of merchandise to my father that they wanted to sell overseas. At that time Dad was busy exporting porcelain (Turkish coffee cups, tea-sets, dinner sets), to Egypt and the Gulf states. Nicknamed “the king of porcelain”, he was also working with Mr. Toyota of future car fame. At that time Toyota was manufacturing weaving looms for export. Toyota faced a crisis --- his looms were ready, but there were no ships. It was too soon after the war and ships were hard to secure for commerce. He was also facing bureaucratic difficulties.

Toyota came to my father, who had a reputation for getting merchandise out, and told him “you can make it happen, you are king of Nagoya (in export)!” Dad has fun remembering this story. Dad promised Toyota he would find a way, and he did----he found a French ship about to dock in Nagoya for just a few hours and was able to secure the necessary papers from General McArthur in time to get the looms out. Toyota was happy, dad was happy he could help a fellow businessman. He marvels at how things were then and now; and how he saw history being made.

Dad remembers the strange looking contraption showcased in the Toyota building, a decrepit wooden structure. A small three-wheeled vehicle, (‘the ugliest car I ever saw”) sat proudly inside the entrance. Lovingly dubbed “bata bata” for its uniquely bumpy ride, this first Toyota eventually took over our hearts and the streets of early 1950’s Japan.

Business has its ups and downs, and some of my dad’s stories don’t end with a smile on my face.

In the mid-fifties Dad got “the biggest deal” of his export life. He received a cable from the Saudis requesting 16,000 army uniforms: “Can you make them EXACTLY like the American army uniform?” Dad replied, “Yes, exactly SIMILAR,” he replied, and got the order. He was thrilled with the order and with his ingenuity. He immediately contacted one of the big monopolies, Nomura Trading. Nomura agreed to open a sewing factory and produced the order for 16,000 uniforms. We were going to have money, But there was a problem.

Being Stateless for one thing, and being a Jew (even if my father had a passport Jews were not allowed into Saudi Arabia), Maurice could not travel. He had to send his Japanese business associate in his stead. This time perhaps the temptation was too much for the man. While in Saudi Arabia he converted to Islam and informed the Saudis: “Moussa Wahba is a Jew”. And that was the end of it. “My business was finished with Arabia---I had to find something else.” And he did. He never stopped improvising, creating, and growing.
As his daughter, I was privileged to witness a life lived with creativity and faith. He possessed and cultivated patience and acceptance rooted in his love of wisdom teachings. “Don’t be sad for me,” he said before he died, “I had a wonderful life”.