Personal Stories

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.

MY DAD, MOUSSA MAURICE ELI WAHBA WAS A VERY PROUD EGYPTIAN JEW

It was in early June, I was in my last year of college; actually last month of it. All I needed to graduate was the senior project and completing the oral defense. My sister was already married and in the US; my brother had already left for the US as well.

Joe was crying. His ‘Baby Love,’ Remy, had other suitors and he couldn’t bear it. His mother came to him: “If she really loves you she will wait for you” she said.

I was born in Alexandria, Egypt. During the Suez Crisis at the age of six I left with my family for Israel.Six years later we migrated to Australia. Life in Sydney was good.

My name is Henry Mourad and I am an Egyptian Jew. I was born in 1945 in a middle class neighborhood in Cairo. My family was driven out of Egypt, along with its 80,000 Jews. Here is my story.