Personal Stories

Mark Levy recalls his cosmopolitan Jewish childhood in Alexandria, the antisemitic violence that forced his family to flee Egypt in 1949, and his experiences of displacement, discrimination, and resettlement in Israel and the United States while maintaining his diverse Middle Eastern Jewish heritage.

Rachel Wahba recounts her family's Iraqi and Egyptian Jewish heritage, the persecution and displacement that brought her parents to India, and her experiences of statelessness, religious discrimination, and Jewish communal life in Japan.

Joe Pessah recalls his Karaite Jewish upbringing in Cairo, his imprisonment alongside hundreds of Egyptian Jewish men following the 1967 Six-Day War, and his extraordinary marriage to his fiancée Remy while detained before their eventual exile and resettlement in the United States.

Remy Pessah recalls her Jewish childhood in Cairo, the persecution of Egyptian Jews under Nasser, and her extraordinary decision to marry her imprisoned fiancé before escaping Egypt and rebuilding their lives in the United States.

Watch JIMENA's video interviews with Jews from Egypt, including Remy Pessah, Rachel Wahba, and Mark Levy.

Nessim Hamaoui knew there was no future for him in Egypt. He wanted to go to the university in Cairo. His teacher had told him that he should change his name from David to Daoud to make sure he would be admitted as David was too Jewish of a name.

Most of my family on my mother’s side left for Israel around the 1950s and we were exchanging news by letters, subjected to Egyptian censorship, that were sent from Israel to Egypt through relatives in England.

Born in 1933, in Halfeyah, a suburb North of Khartoum, Sudan, Henriette’s father owned a restaurant and an ice cream parlor. Her Grandfather was a famous peddler who sold staple goods from a horse and buggy.