{"id":89117,"date":"2021-09-14T17:05:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T15:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=89117"},"modified":"2021-09-05T09:16:38","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T07:16:38","slug":"14-05-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=89117","title":{"rendered":"Cairo\u2019s ancient Bassatine Jewish cemetery completes first-of-its-kind restoration project"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Cairo\u2019s ancient Bassatine Jewish cemetery completes first-of-its-kind restoration project<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

A correspondent in Egypt<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The restoration project of Cairo\u2019s Bassatine Jewish Cemetery, believed to be the second-oldest in the world, mainly aims at attracting tourism while at the same time shedding light on Egypt\u2019s dwindling Jewish community.<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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\nA general view of the Jewish cemetery in Cairo, Egypt, April 18, 2013. – KHALED DESOUKI\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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The American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE<\/a><\/strong><\/span>) and the\u00a0Drop of Milk<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>association\u00a0have recently completed a small but significant conservation project in the ancient Bassatine Cemetery of Cairo, believed to be the second-oldest Jewish cemetery in the world. The work,\u00a0funded by<\/a>\u00a0the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP<\/a>), also includes the documentation and\u00a0mapping<\/a>\u00a0of what remains of the site.<\/span><\/p>\n

The project aspires to be the first remarkable step to ensure the long-term sustainability of the site, and is part of the\u00a0ongoing efforts<\/a>\u00a0of Egypt\u2019s tiny Jewish community to preserve and rethink its heritage and highlight the country\u2019s historical and cultural diversity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I [first] visited the cemetery [with a member of Drop of Milk], I was astonished by the diversity of tombs of all different periods of Egypt\u2019s history, and it is unfortunate that very little from the cemetery remains,\u201d Louise Bertini, ARCE\u2019s executive director, told Al-Monitor. \u201cSo\u00a0we thought about what we could do to help document and conserve what is left, and that is when we applied for a US Ambassadors grant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Only surpassed by the cemetery at the Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem, the Bassatine Cemetery dates back to the 9th century and lies in the southeast of Cairo. The site was initially\u00a0built\u00a0on a plot of land<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0granted by Ahmed ibn Tulun, founder of the Tulunid dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria at the time, and it was divided into two areas reserved for the country\u2019s Rabbinate and Karaite Jewish communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the abrupt decline of Egypt\u2019s Jewish community in the mid-20th century, the cemetery of Bassatine entered a process of degradation and suffered substantial damage. This was mainly the result of the negligence of the authorities, the settlement of squatters, the theft of most of the graves\u2019 marble slabs, waste dumping and the construction of a ring road in the south of Cairo in 1988 that split the cemetery in two. From the 140 feddan (145 acres) that the cemetery once was, only around 37 feddan (38 acres) remain today.<\/span><\/p>\n

The disaster for the cemetery was first averted in the late\u00a01970s, when Carmen Weinstein, leader of Cairo\u2019s Jewish community from 2004 to 2013, hired a guard to\u00a0protect the site<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, according to the International Jewish Cemetery Project. In 1991, a wall surrounding the remains of Bassatine was finally erected thanks to\u00a0funds<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>from the World Sephardi Federation and the Hassoun Group. Yet\u00a0the lack of a comprehensive plan for the place left the site vulnerable, and following the revolution on Jan.\u00a025,\u00a02011,\u00a0squatters started to demolish parts of the wall in order to take land and build on top of it again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe efforts to keep and restore the site only started with Drop of Milk in 2017,\u201d Samy Ibrahim, a member of the association involved in the project in Bassatine, told Al-Monitor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the remains of the cemetery consist of two parts, Bertini explained. The first is a large single cemetery with up to seven layers of burials composed mostly of simple tombs dating from the last century in an area of approximately 5\u00a0hectares (12 acres) to the north of the Ring Road. The second, to the south, is a cluster of smaller, walled enclosures containing the graves of many elite Jewish families of the 19th and 20th centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this context, the US Embassy in Cairo announced in January that AFCP, which had previously funded other projects to preserve Egypt\u2019s archaeological and cultural heritage, granted its latest fund to the\u00a0conservation of Bassatine<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. The Egyptian government has also recently started to take action to\u00a0document and protect<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0the country\u2019s Jewish heritage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bassatine Cemetery is increasing the world\u2019s understanding of Egypt\u2019s Jewish cultural heritage,\u201d said Jonathan R. Cohen, US ambassador to Egypt, at a\u00a0public lecture<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on the preservation of Jewish-Egyptian Heritage organized by ARCE on Sep. 13, to present the results of the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

The project, which started in\u00a0January, was divided in three parts, Bertini said. The first two, set to be finished by November, include the documentation of what remains from the cemetery and the development of a site management plan, the first of its kind.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third one, completed in July, included a partial conservation of the Karaite cemetery. This covered the graveyards of the Menasha and Leishaa, two prominent families of the Jewish community that owned two small and walled plots of around 460 square meters (4,950 square feet), each one containing one room for family gatherings to commemorate the death and an additional mausoleum in the case of the Menasha family.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to start with the Karaite cemetery because [it] is the most accessible part of the cemetery and also because the Karaite had a very interesting story to tell,\u201d Bertini\u00a0said. \u201cIn a way they were very Egyptian in their beliefs and practices, and their synagogues are\u00a0very similar to mosques. And in this cemetery\u00a0in particular many\u00a0of the gravestones are written in both Hebrew and Arabic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other parts of the cemetery that we would love to conserve,\u201d she\u00a0added, \u201cbut we are hoping to get more funds to continue the process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yoram Meital, professor of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University, said during the public lecture,\u00a0\u201cWhile no Karaite Jew is left in Egypt and only a few Karaite sites remain\u00a0in Cairo, studying their rich architecture can shed light on [the community].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cThe interior and exterior designs of Karaite synagogues and cemeteries, and the items and symbols that were integrated into them, contain rich information about the cultural affiliation of these native Egyptian Jews, their rituals and their habits.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ARCE is currently preparing bilingual illustrated visitors information panels that will be installed in the gathering room of the Menasha graveyard with information on the Karaite.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ibrahim noted\u00a0that the conservation work is an important first step, but also said that \u201cpeople think we have now finished, when this [project] only covered a small portion of Bassatine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Drop of Milk plans to ensure the sustainability of the site by developing the cemetery in order to attract tourists to the site and to engage the local community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn 10 to 15 years perhaps not a single Jew will remain [in Egypt] and ARCE is looking into the place from a restoration point of view. But this is not enough,\u201d Ibrahim concluded. \u201cIf we want to secure this place in the future, we need to interact with the community, because otherwise they will wait for the first chance to jump in again. We need to integrate them and bring services to them, so that they understand that this is a site that brings revenues to the place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cairo\u2019s ancient Bassatine Jewish cemetery completes first-of-its-kind restoration project A correspondent in Egypt The restoration project of Cairo\u2019s Bassatine Jewish Cemetery, believed to be the second-oldest in the world, mainly aims at attracting tourism while at the same time shedding light on Egypt\u2019s dwindling Jewish community. . A general view of the Jewish cemetery in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89117"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89124,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89117\/revisions\/89124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}