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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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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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MARCH 25, 2021
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