Born | Cairo, Egypt, 1947 |
Education | American University in Cairo; B.S. in Chemistry, San Jose State University |
Career | Process engineer in the semiconductor industry; designer of hand painted silk garments |
Expertise | Jewish life in Egypt; the 1956 and 1967 wars; the experience of Jewish women and families after 1967 |
Speaks to | Synagogues, schools, and community audiences, often with her husband, Joe Pessah |
Remy Pessah, born Remy Gazzar, was born in Cairo in 1947. Her father was a jeweler, and the family spoke Arabic and French at home and spent summers on the beach in Alexandria. She attended Les Soeurs Franciscaines, a French school run by Catholic nuns, and then the American College for Girls. During the 1956 war her family covered the windows at night, and afterward she watched relatives with European citizenship deported and lost non-Jewish friends one by one. She met Joe Pessah when he taught her Hebrew at synagogue, and they became engaged in 1966.
When the Six-Day War began in June 1967, Joe and hundreds of other Jewish men were imprisoned. Remy, then a university student, waited six months before a postcard arrived from him. Over the next three years she visited him at Abu Zaabal and Tora prisons whenever she could and pressed the police and the Red Cross for his release. In 1970 she brought two wedding rings and a rabbi to the prison, and the couple were married there. Joe was released and expelled that June, and Remy followed him out of Egypt days later.
After a few months in Paris, the Pessahs settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Remy completed a B.S. in Chemistry at San Jose State University and began a long career as a process engineer in the semiconductor industry, starting at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1974. She is also a textile artist whose hand painted silk garments have been sold in boutiques in San Francisco, Carmel, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. She recorded her oral history with JIMENA and has told her story to many audiences.
My story has never left me; it's as if it happened yesterday.
Remy Pessah, interview with the San Jose Mercury News
Speaking Topics
What Remy talks about
1. Growing up Jewish in Cairo
Family life, schools, and summers in Alexandria before Jewish life in Egypt came to an end.
2. The wars of 1956 and 1967
What the wars meant for Egypt's Jewish families, told from a young woman's point of view.
3. Waiting for Joe
Three years of prison visits, letters, and advocacy, and a wedding inside an Egyptian prison.
4. Starting over
Building a new life, career, and art in the United States as a refugee.
Select Talks
Selected talks and appearances
2022 | Niv magazine, Issue 12: joint feature with Joe Pessah drawn from JIMENA's Oral History Project |
2016 | Congregation Beth Sholom, San Francisco, with Joe Pessah (JIMENA) |
2016 | Seeking Refuge program (JIMENA) |
2012 | Oshman Family JCC, Palo Alto: class on Karaite Judaism, cosponsored by JIMENA; interviewed by J. The Jewish News of Northern California on Karaite Passover traditions |
About 2005 | San Jose Mercury News: Passover feature interview with Joe Pessah on their second exodus from Egypt; reported she had told her story at least a dozen times through JIMENA |
2004 | J. The Jewish News of Northern California: profile interview as a silk artist ahead of Israel in the Ballpark, SBC Park, San Francisco |
These are a selection of Remy’s talks. Remy has given many more, at synagogues, Jewish community centers, schools, and Jewish press in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Publications and Media
Read, watch, and listen
Profile
Joe & Remy Pessah
Their story of love, imprisonment, and exile, based on testimony provided by JIMENA, in Niv Magazine, 2022. Read in Niv Magazine
Article
Passover brings memory of escaping from Egypt
San Jose Mercury News feature on Remy and Joe Pessah, republished by the Historical Society of Jews from Egypt (mid 2000s). Read the article
Affiliations
Organizations
- JIMENA Speakers Bureau
- JIMENA Oral History and Digital Experience Project
Book Remy
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To invite Remy Pessah to your school, university, congregation, or organization, use the Book Speaker button above or email info@jimena.org.