H EADLINES
Vaccine Continued from Page 1
however, it’s a diff erent story.

Since the sick and elderly
face greater risk of fatality from
COVID-19 than the young and
healthy, it is not ethical for
the latter to cut in front of the
former to obtain a vaccine.

“Essentially, it’s incorrect
and unethical because you’re
taking away from someone else
something that has a much
better chance of helping them
than helping you,” he said.

Line cutters are also holding
back society as a whole if they
get their shot too early, he said.

“Society did not shut down
because young, healthy people
were getting sick, getting a few
symptoms and getting better,”
Brennan said. “Society shut
down because of the people that
were getting it, getting hospital-
ized and so many didn’t make it.”
Rabbi Gregory Marx,
senior rabbi at Congregation
Beth Or in Maple Glen, said
Leviticus 19 makes it clear that
line-jumping before all seniors
are able to get vaccinated
contradicts the Jewish obliga-
tion to help the elderly.

‘Leviticus 19 says, ‘You shall
rise before the aged and honor
the old because I am the Lord
your God,’” Marx said. “In
other words, you show defer-
ence to those who need respect
who normally don’t get it.”
He added that Jewish texts
advocate to protect the vulner-
able, such as the widow, the
orphan and the stranger, which
emphasizes the importance of
ensuring marginalized groups
have access to the vaccine fi rst.

“All of Judaism I see as
trying to refi ne human nature,
so we don’t act like animals,
that it’s not the survival of the
fi ttest, it’s not the survival of
the strongest, it’s the emergence
of a sense of righteousness, a
sense of equity and fairness,
because we are all created in
the image of God,” he said.

A Moderna COVID-19 vaccine syringe
Photo by Anthony Quintano licensed under Creative Commons license CC-BY-2.0
Rabbi Mira Wasserman,
director of the Center for Jewish
Ethics at Reconstructing Judaism
and assistant professor of rabbinic
Jumping the line is a way of saying, ‘My life is worth more than the
literature at Reconstructionist
other person.’”
Rabbinical College,
said line-jumping contradicts the core RABBI MIRA WASSERMAN
Jewish value of the equality of all
human life.

“Jumping the line is a way
Rabbi Seth Haaz, senior Sanhedrin 4:5 and Berakhot
“We know that the pandemic
of saying, ‘My life is worth rabbi at Har Zion Temple in 17a, make it clear that getting has aff ected diff erent groups
more than the other person,’” Penn Valley, also said Talmudic a vaccine before someone who diff erently. Alongside the elderly,
she said.

texts about equality, like is more at-risk does not align other groups that have borne a
with Jewish ethics, particularly really heavy burden in terms of
in the face of limited supply.

the cost of the illness are of course
However, things get more people of color and working poor
complicated when vaccines are people. And so they’re another
set to expire and distributors group that the plan for vaccine
can’t fi nd eligible takers due to distribution is meant to protect,”
ELDER LAW
the time crunch.

Wasserman said.

AND “In those cases, when
Tornberg said the value
ESTATE PLANNING vaccines are going to be wasted, of tzedakah means Jews are
they shouldn’t be wasted. Th ey obligated to acknowledge that
Wills Trusts
should go to helping people,” not everyone has equal access
he said. In this specifi c situa- to health care and work to
Powers of Attorney
tion, it would be acceptable make it more accessible.

Living Wills
to get a vaccine before being
“It means righteousness,
Probate Estates
declared eligible.

and it’s about equity, not to
Protect assets from
Wasserman and Tornberg be nice, but because a society
nursing home
added that, in most cases, should be built around the idea
line-cutting contradicts the that everyone can get what
LARRY SCOTT AUERBACH, ESQ.

Jewish value of justice. When they need,” she said. “We’re not
CERTIFIED ELDER LAW ATTORNEY
CPA-PFS, J.D., LL.M.,MBA
people who are able to work living in that society, so as Jews
1000 Easton Road
from home get the vaccine our job is to try to push our
Abington, PA 19001
before essential workers who face societies further and further
exposure to the illness as part of towards that justice.” ●
For consultation call
215-517-5566 or
their jobs, they are obstructing
1-877-987-8788 Toll Free
the Torah’s commandment to spanzer@jewishexponent.com;
Website: www.Lsauerbach.com
love your fellow as yourself.

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16 MARCH 25, 2021
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SCREENING SCREENING
Egypt Continued from Page 1
theoretical; it’s family history,
something that happened to
them or their parents in living
memory. Locals like Albert and Toni
Algazi, Jocelyne Balcher, Rabbi
Albert Gabbai of Congregation
Mikveh Israel and Joyce de
Botton each left Egypt between
1956-1970 under intense
pressure from the government,
or worse. They were forced
out, or they left in the cover
of night, with only what they
could carry. They were driven
from Cairo and Alexandria
and ended up in Philadelphia,
where the yearly command-
ment holds special meaning.

“When we do the Haggadah
every year, and we sit down
and we read, it does bring some
memories from Egypt,” Albert
Algazi said.

In 1948, there were about
75,000 Jews in Egypt. After the
establishment of the state of
Israel, the Egyptian govern-
ment began to pressure the
Jewish community, detaining,
expelling or expropriating the
property of thousands. By the
time the Six-Day War began in
1967, many Egyptian Jews had
already fanned out across the
world. Most recent estimates
put the Jewish population of
Egypt today at about 10.

Albert Algazi, 72, and
his sister, Jocelyne Balcher,
61, lived in Cairo with their
mother, Toni Algazi, 95. Today,
Albert Algazi splits time
between Yardley and Florida,
Balcher calls Langhorne home
and Toni Algazi lives at a senior
living community in Voorhees,
New Jersey.

Toni Algazi was the
daughter of a Syrian Jewish
father, a tailor, and an Italian
Jewish mother, who stayed
home with the family. They
spoke Arabic and French in the
house, and attended the Sha’ar
Hashamayim Synagogue.

“In Cairo, it was beautiful,”
Toni Algazi said. “I can’t deny
that it was beautiful. Little by
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This message is sponsored by a friend of
From left: Jacqueline Aguib, Toni Algazi, Jocelyne Balcher, Albert Algazi,
Ezi Algazi and Charles Algazi, in Cairo
Courtesy of Albert Algazi
Rabbi Albert Gabbai (seated) during his bar mitzvah at Sha’ar
Hashamayim Synagogue in Cairo
Courtesy of Rabbi Albert Gabbai
little, it changed while we were
there. We did not realize and
then it was dangerous.”
Albert Algazi was just shy of
18 when his mother and father
woke him early on Feb. 2, 1966,
and told him to hurry to the
limousine waiting outside. In
a quiet moment, he looked out
from the balcony and realized
he was looking out at Cairo for
the last time.

The limo took the family to
Port Said, packed with all they
could fit, including a Torah and
the pittance of their savings
that they were permitted to
take. They boarded a ship for
Marseille, France, where Toni
Algazi had family. Stateless and
without passports, the family
stayed in France until August,
when they left for Trenton,
New Jersey, where Toni Algazi’s
husband, Charles, had a brother.

Balcher, who was only 5
when the family fled, has been
back to Egypt, but Albert Algazi
and Toni Algazi never returned.

On March 24, the latter two
spoke about their experiences
on a Zoom panel for American
Friends of Kaplan Medical
Center, in an event titled “Zecher
L’Tziat Mitzrayim: Personal
Experiences of Being in Egypt.”
Joining them on that panel
was Gabbai, a native of Cairo
who remembers a flourishing,
cosmopolitan Jewish commu-
nity, rife with civic associations
and economic opportunity. His
father was born in Baghdad,
and his mother in Italy, making
Gabbai a first-generation
Egyptian. They spoke French,
Italian and English at home,
and enough Arabic to navigate
the grocery store.

But it wasn’t to last.

“There was no future for the
Jews in Egypt,” Gabbai said.

He was in high school when
the Six-Day War began; this
was when Gabbai and his three
brothers were taken to prison
camps. They would remain
there without trial, charges or
legal representation until 1970.

After international pressure,
Egypt released Gabbai and his
brothers, who were flown to
Paris. Gabbai stayed there for
about a year before he came to
New York, where he’d remain
until moving to Philadelphia
in 1988.

His life in Egypt and his
subsequent detention come to
mind each year at Pesach, and
he’s blunt on the subject.

“I don’t have to pretend,”
Gabbai said. “I lived it, OK?”
He’s never been back to Egypt,
and doesn’t plan to return.

For de Botton, born to a
well-off family in Alexandria,
the pandemic was a time
to reflect on her journey to
America. Her family’s experi-
ence of Egypt was far from
bondage, an experience she
recounts in a self-published
book that she created for
her family over the last year,
“Nana’s Story: From Egypt to
America.” De Botton describes
a life in Alexandria filled with
parties, loves won and lost and
meringue at the Sporting Club.

JEWISH EXPONENT
After the Suez Crisis in 1956,
her husband, Claude de Botton,
decided that he wanted to leave
Egypt, to return to his studies at
the University of Pennsylvania.

She mourns the life she’d left
behind, and still feels angry about
what she lost.

The early days in the United
States were difficult, but the
family eventually found success
Nat’l Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases
Association of Delaware Valley
on the Main Line, and de Botton
is proud of their lives here and
elsewhere; through her husband,
she is related to the famed Swiss
writer, Alain de Botton.

“I have lived the American
Dream!!” she wrote. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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17