Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Only 5 Jews Are Left In Cairo Following The Death Of Jewish Matriarch

(JTA) — Marcelle Haroun, mother of the current president of Cairo’s Jewish community, has died at the age of 93.

Her death, announced on Saturday, leaves five Jews known to be living in Cairo, Watani International reported. The five remaining are her daughter, Magda, and four granddaughters. The AFP news service reported in March 2017 that there were also 12 Jews living in the coastal city of Alexandria.

Haroun was married to lawyer and politician Shehata Haroun, known as a Jewish anti-Zionist who was a member of the Communist Party of Egypt, according to the report. Her daughter told Tablet in 2013 that Marcelle was her father’s “comrade.”

Egypt was home to some 80,000 Jews when Israel was founded in 1948. Thousands began leaving in the ensuring years, and many more in two waves, in 1956 and 1967. The Harouns remained, considering themselves Egyptian first, according to Watani.

Haroun was predeceased by two daughters.

“The Jewish Community in Cairo (JCC) has regretfully lost Marcelle Haroun, one of its pillars who will be sorely missed,” read the statement announcing her death.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.