Friday, August 3, 1919 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS iigypt . . Museums, Mummies, Mosques and Moses By LEONARD N. SIMONS (Copyright 1979, JTA, Inc.) Immediately, upon the exciting news that, at long last, .gypt and Israel had signed a peace treaty, a group of us ram Wayne State University who were to attend the ninth .nnual Jerusalem International Book Fair arranged a topover in Egypt. We spent about a week sight-seeing in Cairo and in 41 ' uthern Egypt. We took a ship up the Nile — to go south! As a lover of history and especially Jewish history, I mild now fulfill my long dreamed about visit to Pharaoh- and. Egypt is the birthplace — the matrix — of our Bible .iistory. Our Jewish patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, - Joseph, Moses, all these and more, lived in this land. The Egyptians call Abraham the first prophet of God. After him, they substitute Ishmael for Isaac. They consider sacred and revere such places as the _ Chapel of The Burning Bush, the site where God first revealed Himself to Moses; the Springs of Moses, where Moses drew water when he struck the rock with his rod; Mount Moses (or Mt. Sinai or Mt. Horeb), where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Some say the Egyptian name, Moses, is derived from the last half of the name "Thutmosis." There were four kings with this name in their famous XVIII Dynasty (1575-1308 BCE). Mises was born about this time. This also was when King -Akhenaton introduced monotheism to Egypt. The Exodus, under Moses' leadership, took place in this time period. The importance of the Exodus_ in Jewish theology is well known and Egyptian sources have numer- ous details of the Bible story. But, no direct Egyptian refer- ences to the Exodus have been found. In the great Egyptian Museum of Antiquities there are countless statues, monuments, fragments of ancient relics and artifacts, mummies, jewelry, etc. About one-fourth of the exhibits are devoted to King Tut. There is one stela, an upright sculptured slab of stone, called the Victory Stela of King Merneptah II (corisidered the pharaoh of the Exodus). It has the only known mention of Israel on any Egyptian monument. Carved into the stone is the wording that he had wiped out the Hebrews. "Israel is laid waste . . . corn- pletely destroyed. Their nation exists no more, etc." That was about 3,000 years ago. How wrong King Merneptah was! Before World War II, as‘ many as 100,000 Jews lived in Egypt in peace, as citizens. There are not 150 left someone recently wrote. I was told by an Egyptian-Jewish merchant that he believed the number to be about 1,500. In old Cairo, the walled city of antiquity, we visited the oldest synagogue in Egypt, formerly called the Synagogue of the Prophet Jeremiah. It is now the Ben Ezra Synagogue, named after Rabbi Abraham Ben-Ezra who rebuilt it around the year 1,000. The shammas said the congregation has 42 families as members. The synagogue interior was attractive but was so covered with dust, sand, and dirt it looked pathetic. It was hard for me to believe any Jews would permit their sanctuary for worship to God to be so unclean. Some -soap, water and dust cloths would do wonders. On the other hand, with all their troubles of the past 30 years, these Egyptian Jews probably had all they could do to stay alive while worrying about the safety of their families. The Ben Ezra Synagogue is where the famous Geniza (safekeeping) was discovered. It was rediscovered in 1896 by Rabbi Solomon Schechter. A veritable treasure-trove of over 200,000 pages from sacred Jewish books, scrolls, liter- ary works, and historical documents was found in the attic. The oldest document is dated in the year 750. I checked my Encyclopedia Judaica: "This synagogue was originally built in 882 on the ruins of a Coptic church which was sold to the Jews." Old Cairo was formerly called Fostat. That was where the great sage, Maimonides and his family, lived. We were told: The Ben. Ezra Synagogue was built on the very site where Moses was found in the Nile River bulrushes. Our guide took us down some steps on the out- side of the building where we saw an old wall. This was the remains of the earlier house of prayer. Alongside, to your right, was a small branch of the Nile. In that water, at that spot, the founder of the Mosaic religion was found. The Egyptian Jews believe that is so. And it could be. Why not? We were also told that the main synagogue of Cairo is open but not functioning and that some of the other old synagogues have become mosques. The spectacular sight of the Giza (land of Goshen) LEONARD N. SIMONS Pyramids and Sphinx on a moonlit night at a "sou et lumiere" performance is truly awe-inspiring. The Cheops pyramid is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is about as tall as a 48-story skyscraper. Each stone is as high as a man. They say it took three million such stones weighing five million tons, and 100,000 men working 20 years to build it 5,000 years ago. When Menahem Begin was there for the peace treaty talks, he said to Mr. Sadat that some of our ancestors helped build the pyramids. With all due respect to Mr. Begin, I doubt that there were any Jews in Egypt at that time. Jewish history is definitely intertwined with Egyptian his- tory going back a long, long time, but not 5,000 years ago. Their current guide books have practically no Ecology Has Roots in Pages of the Bible From Israel Digest JERUSALEM -- The roots of ecology go back to the Bible when — with the emergence of a belief in one God — there also emerged an awareness of the inter- relationship of organisms and their environment as forming a unity, created and set in motion by one single power. Midrash The (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13) tells how God showed Adam the beauty of the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See how lovely and how worthy of praise are My works. They have all been created for your sake. Take care not to spoil or destroy My world." We can only inter- pret this to mean that Jewish teachings prohibit man's exercising the kind of uncontrolled exploitation of nature that, if persisted in, will eventually destroy the world and man himself. There were many rules laid down to protect the environment, even in rabbinic times, for in- stance those dealing with waste disposal. We learn that saintly men would bury broken glassware deep in their own fields (Bava Kama 30a). A dovecot was not to be kept within 50 cubits of a town. Carcasses, graves and tanneries were to be kept at least 50 cubits from a city, with the tannery set up in such a way that the winds would not waft unpleasant odors to the city. mention of Egyptian Jews. I think the publishers de- liberately omitted all references to Jews on in- structions from their government — except as Jews are identified with ancient Egyptian history. The 400-page book I bought, under the caption Popula- tion, said, "Lastly, Jews, who at all times formed an important minority in Egypt, have, for the most part, left the country and their community is on the way to extinction." To which I add, "Perhaps this will be so in Egypt. But, if it is — it will be their loss. From what I saw of Egypt's economy, etc., it desperately needs Jewish ingenuity, intelligence and vital progressive- ness as well'as Jewish ethical and moral values." Egypt (Arabic name, MASR) has been called a giga -. c. open air museum — the land of museums, mummies mosques. It has the longest river in the world, the Nile, except for its palm-lined shores that form a band of fertility, the color of Egypt is sandy brown with very, very little green. Camels, water buffalo and donkeys help work these narrow strips of green fields. The weather is extremely hot and dry — only about five days of rain all year. Modern Cairo is jam-packed with about nine million people. Some say it is on its way to becoming the "Calcutta of Africa." The poverty of the city remains insoluble .. . unemployment and inflation are at terrifying levels .. . public utilities are temperamental servants . . . the cars you see are old and decrepit . . . the noisy, snarled traffic is unbelievable, as it tries to get through the narrow streets . . . but the population remains cheerful. There are some excellent hotels. The food is quite good. Prices are reasonable, one of the few places in the world where they are still so. The Egyptians were all very friendly even after they found out we were Jewish. They trier hard to make us welcome. We experienced no rancor. They seemed very anxious for peace. The veiled woman has almost vanished from the streets. Generally speaking the country and the people look impoverished. Children are constantly harassing you on the streets, begging for "Bak- sheesh" — money. There are young and old peddlers everywhere, plaguing the tourists with what I call "junk jewelry." In Cairo and throughout Egypt, near the tombs and museums, they hawk their wares, calling out "One dollar for the whole schmeer — five pieces." They also sell postcards, film, slides, etc. To get along you need to know two words — "showkrun" — thanks, and "lah-ah" — no: The most impressive feature of Egypt is its fantastic 5,000-year-old human history of civilization and art — a great deal of which remains. It is thrilling to know that it can be seen and appreciated in the 20th Century. The mighty tombs of the Pharaohs and their queens, the -mas- sive temples which they built as tributes to their gods, the reliefs, the colorful, detailed paintings and hieroglyphs that line many walls and ceilings of the tombs have been preserved for about 5,000 years. It all sounds impossible and improbable . . . but, thank goodness, all still exists. Egypt is for the serious tourist rather than frivolity. It is a strenuous trip but definitely and truly memorable, enchanting and exciting. * * * The Mishna (Bava Kama 7:7) also ruled that goats or sheep should be raised in the uncultivated areas of the Land of Israel because of the damage they might cause to young plants. Deuteronomy 20:19 pro- hibits destroying fruit- bearing trees and, in fact, destroying anything of value — known in rabbinic traditions as "bal tashhit" (do not destroy)! The Bible teaches us that man can remain a harmoni- ous part of his environment only so long as the culture he develops_ is consistent with nature. Psalm 104 is a paeon of praise: You make springs gush forth in the valleys .. . They give drink to every beast of the field .. . The trees of the Lord are wa- tered abundantly, The cedars of Lebanon which He planted In them the birds build their nests .. . The high mountains are for This new sign, in Hebrew, Arabic and English, the wild goats. The rocks are a refuge for the has been posted at the Israel Foreign Ministry in Jer conies THE CONSULAR DIVISION VISA SECTION APPLICATION FOR ENTRY VISAS To EGYPT 1