Personal Stories

My story, such as it is, has neither daring adventures nor narrow escapes. It is just the story of one who was part of the end of a phase of Jewish history that was about 3500 years old. The First Exodus was voluntary – Jews seeking a better life free from oppression.

Although the truck they were crammed into was covered in dark fabric, the wind would occasionally kick up the flaps over the window, revealing the dusty highway. It was June and it was hot. Marc Khedr had already spent his first night in an Egyptian prison.

Claire Berke fled Cairo, Egypt in 1956 before the Suez Canal War. Growing up in Cairo, Egypt she was taught that being Jewish made you a second-class citizen.

I am a third generation Egyptian whose family originally came from Iraq. Life in Egypt was wonderful until the 1948 war with Israel.

My name is Joseph Wahed. I am an Egyptian Jew and my father and his father were Egyptian Jews.