The Exodus from Egypt

Between 1920 and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, a circle of Jewish intellectuals, writing in literary Arabic, operated in Egypt. This circle was part of a wider intellectual group, spread across the Arab Middle East, influenced by the Nahda movement and Arabic nationalist thought in the post- WWI era. This circle of Egyptian intellectuals formed a “Jewish Nahda”, an expression of Jewish culture in literary Arabic, using the tools and genres of their contemporary Arab intellectuals. The main project of the group was the promotion of local Egyptian nationalism, combining this with their Zionist affiliations and Jewish religious identity. As a case study, the article discusses the ways in which this group described the story of Passover, i.e., the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, Moses, and the Exodus. According to Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Passover has played an exceptionally important role in Jewish memory. This memory is comprised of symbols of the eternal salvation of the Jewish people, and marked Egypt as the ultimate exilic space. These Jewish intellectuals tried to turn Passover into a story of national and cultural attachment between Israel and Egypt, while also emphasizing religious and Zionist affiliations. The aim of this article is to examine the various tools that they used in order to express this agenda.