Certainly, Amin Maalouf, the current permanent president of the Académie Française, has aptly expressed the diversity of the Orient and the erosion that has afflicted it over the past decades.
Before being a French citizen, holding this high academic position and occupying an important seat on the banks of the Seine, Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese Arab and Maronite Christian. He worked as an economic editor for the Beirut newspaper An-Nahar and loves French and Lebanese wines.
I had the good fortune to read Amin Maalouf’s works several times, and through the author, who also played the role of witness, I learned how the waves of tyranny against minorities in our country have led to their being plunged into a state resembling the desertification of green lands neglected by farmers and overgrown by the yellow sands that surround us on all sides, wishing to bury us under them and bury with us our heritage, culture and tolerance. These things are an inheritance that our ancestors collected, preserved, and then brought us their sweat. But after they came into our hands, we were envied by those inside and outside.
Anyway, before midnight one day last month (July), I received a call from a bohemian artist, Ahmed Hashem, who is a dear brother, friend and colleague, We worked together in the troubled profession of journalism for about 10 years, and he called to invite me to attend a celebration honoring him at the Egyptian-American Film and Arts Festival, headed by writer Safwat Youssef, at the Creativity Center at the Cairo Opera House, for his short film: Tales of the Jews of Egypt.
The film, “Tales of the Jews of Egypt”, is a collection of testimonies and information about the Jewish community in Egypt, whose presence was confined to the capital after the July 1952 Revolution, coinciding with the outbreak of the Arab-Zionist conflict over the Holy Land, Palestine.
Although it is relatively short, the human testimonies, the film scenes about the stone, and the simplicity of the editing and directing make it a medium and quick work between historical testimony and documentary work.
Among the testimonies featured in the film are Magda Haroun, head of the Jewish community in Egypt, and several residents of Cairo’s Jewish Quarter. The film also includes footage of Jewish synagogues throughout the capital.
The Bohemian Ahmed Hashem, a creative and intelligent editor and director, but he is unambitious and undisciplined. If he were to get rid of these traits, perhaps he would have a different destiny. However, he will remain kind-hearted like a child, polite like a professional customer service employee, and the word “Your Excellency” always precedes every sentence he utters, regardless of whether the person he is speaking to is older or younger in age or position.
Because the film’s director, my bohemian friend Ahmed Hashem, is always kind, he dedicated the tribute to the spirit of Albert Arieh, one of the testimonies featured in the film, an Egyptian Jewish leftist activist who passed away in April 2021. He also dedicated the tribute to the spirit of MR Sayed, a resident of the Jewish Quarter and the owner of another important testimony he delivered on camera with the tact and philosophy of a native Egyptian.
Congratulations to my brother Ahmed Hashem. And may you always succeed.
and Thank you to those who recognized the importance of diversity and worked to document it. And thank you to those who recognized the importance of documenting diversity and worked to honor it.
