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Maurice Cattaui and Edward Matasek, Bab el-Louk at Cairo, Egypt

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Maurice Cattaui and Edward Matasek: Maurice Cattaui and Edward Matasek were the architects whose firm designed the souk at Bab el-Louk [1]. While Maurice Cattaui was the nephew of Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pasha and therefore part of a long line of Egyptian Jews, Edward Matasek was an Austrian architect who had settled in Egypt. Matasek trained under many Austrian architects, and was in Chicago for the World Fair. After viewing the Egyptian exhibit at the World Fair, Matasek moved to Egypt and eventually joined Maurice Cattaui in opening an architectural firm [2]. In 1907, Cattaui suggested the construction of a Cairo Stock Exchange building, and he and Matasek began working together on the site, which was decorated with Matasek's trademark Hermes masonic busts and ornate stucco [3]. Together, Cattaui and Matasek also redesigned Moise de Cattaui Pasha palace No. 23 on Kasr al-Nil Street in 1907 (among others of the Cattaui family's real estate holdings) and, most famously, built Cairo's Adley Street Synagogue [4].

Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pasha: Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pasha (also, Joseph Aslan Cattaoui, Yusuf Qattawi, or Youssef Qattawi) came from a long-line of socially-active Jews who settled in Cairo during the Umayyad period of the eighteenth century and lived there until 1957 [5]. Joseph’s great-grandfather, Elijah, moved the Cattaui family to Cairo from the northern town of Catta. Of his many children, Elijah’s son Jacob was the most socially active—designing Cairo’s Jewish neighborhood, becoming the first Jew to be honored with the title “Bey”, and briefly leading Cairo’s Jewish community during his old age. Jacob’s son Moses eventually succeeded him as president of the Jewish community, and served briefly in the Egyptian parliament. In 1861, Joseph Aslan Cattaui joined the Cattaui dynasty [6].

Throughout his prominent career, Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pasha engaged in activities as an author, entrepreneur, businessman, financier, agricultural industrialist, hydrologist, and communal leader who hoped to lead Egypt into a future of independence. Joseph studied engineering at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris, and returned to Egypt in 1882 to begin working at the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works. By 1912, Joseph had been honored with the title “Pasha” (a title bestowed by the Ottoman Sultan and equivalent to the English “Lord”), and in 1916 he was elected to the Legislative Committee and worked for the Committee of Trade and Industry. Joseph moved to Moravia for a number of years to study sugar refining, becoming Director of the Egyptian Sugar Company and President of the Kom Ombo Company, and employing his engineering skills at Kom Ombo to redesign Aswan’s sugar industry [7].
In 1917 when Sultan Hussein Kamil died, Joseph’s good friend Ahmed Fouad came into power in Egypt. Under Fouad’s regime, Joseph’s wife, Alice Suares, was named first lady of honor. Joseph continued to support Egypt’s independence between 1919 and 1922, and was sympathetic to the Wafd party, which opposed British policy and pushed for Egyptian independence. As such, Joseph joined in the 1920 and 1921 negotiations hosted in London between the Wafd and Winston Churchill. After Egypt unilaterally declared its independence in 1922, Fouad became King of Egypt, and appointed Joseph to the Constitutional Committee which drafted the Egyptian Constitution. During the writing of the Constitution, Joseph revealed his feminist sympathies and argued for universal suffrage [8].

Joseph similarly pushed for Egyptian independence by mentoring Tala’at Harb, an economist who went on to found the Bank of Egypt. Tala’at Harb, Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pash, and Joseph Circurel (a Jewish-Egyptian landowner and businessman) founded and supported the bank, which was to be established without foreign influence [9]. Eventually, Joseph was made Vice President of the bank [10].

Throughout his lifetime, Joseph supported diversity and solidarity. In 1920, he wrote an open letter to his children, entitled Pour Mes Enfants, which described these values of his. Interestingly, Joseph was not a Zionist, although he did help Egypt’s chief rabbi Haim Nahum Effendi to lead the Jewish community during the concurrent rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism [11].

Towards the end of his career, Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pasha became Egpyt’s Minister of Finance (1924), Minister of Communications (1925), a member of the Egyptian Senate (1927 onward), and chair of the Finance Committee (1931-1935). Although Joseph passed away in 1942, his legacy was continued by his two sons: Aslan and René. Aslan took over Joseph’s seat in the Senate and René became president of the Cairo Jewish Community as well as the only Jewish member of the Egyptian Chamber of Deputies. Both of the Cattaui brothers eventually left Egypt in 1957 [12].

Throughout the long lineage of the Cattaui’s, the family owned many properties and much real estate across Egypt. This land included Joseph’s villa and the land upon which Bab el-Louk was constructed--both of which were built by the architects Matasek and Cattaui [13].

Bab el-Louk: Located between Tahrir Square and Abdine Palace, Bab el-Louk was a symbol of modernity and hygiene during its construction in 1912. The souk was constructed as a symbol of Cairo’s development, and marked a transition away from traditional open-air markets and bazaars and towards the new marketplace. Historically, markets had been sites of dangerous epidemics, so hygiene was a central concern during the construction of Bab el-Louk. In fact, before Bab el-Louk’s construction, certain Egyptian entrepreneurs (including Joseph Cattaui) and two French banks founded the Societe des Halles Centrales d'Egypte (covered market company) to support hygienic marketplaces. The Societe des Halles Centrales d’Egypte began to plan the construction of the Bab el-Louk souk—emphasizing the need for cold storage and sanitation—and selected the new Bab el-Louk neighborhood which was conveniently located near the Cattaui’s transit system station and a tramway junction. The firm of Edward Matasek & Maurice Cattaui was eventually chosen to construct Bab el-Louk, with Joseph Aslan Cattaui Pasha acting as company chairman to guide the construction of the souk. The finished Bab el-Louk souk measured 6,000 square meters, and was filled with grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies, a telephone office, and a bank—among other shops. Additionally, Bab el-Louk was renowned for its loading and docking facilities, refrigeration areas, and other sanitary and hygienic amenities. Today, however, the Bab el-Louk souk is described as an infectious building filled with rats and cockroaches [14]. Although the souk has fallen into disrepair, it stands as a testament to Cairo’s history and the influence of Jewish architects.

Cairo: The capital city of Egypt, Cairo became the center of Jewish life in Egypt following the Crusades of 1168. Cairo's Jewish community lived primarily in the new city, in the Ḥārat al-Yahūd (Jewish quarter). Throughout the medieval period, Jews maintained their cultural traditions and relative political autonomy, and ultimately advanced economically into positions as craftsmen, traders, moneychangers, and physicians. However, the Mamaluk era from 1250 to 1517 marked a shift towards increasingly discriminatory and harsh laws against Jews and other religious minorities. This anti-Jewish discrimination continued through the Ottoman era and into the late eighteenth century, with life in the Jewish community becoming increasingly regulated. In the nineteenth century, Muḥammad ʿAlī and a series of other leaders governed Cairo as viceroys for the Ottoman sultan, improving security and economic development in Cairo. Despite a number of antisemitic publications and accusations published between 1844 and 1901, the Jewish community felt safer under the rule of Muḥammad ʿAlī than during other periods of history. Additionally, Cairo's Jewish population began to boom from about 3,000 in the early 1800s to over 29,000 in 1917. Following Egypt's independence from Britain in 1922, the Jewish population in Cairo continued to boom, reaching 41,860 in 1947. However, antisemitism became increasingly common through the 1930s and 1940s as Nazi propaganda spread, the Young Egypt and Muslim Brotherhood movements gained membership, and the newly established State of Israel defeated the Egyptian army. As such, Jews were often physically harmed or had their homes or businesses attacked, and by 1951 a large percentage of Cairo's Jewish population had left Egypt. Following the Sinai War of 1956 and the 1967 war, the majority of Cairo's remaining Jewish community had fled the country for Israel, France, and Italy. Today, only a few dozen, primarily elderly, Jews remain in Cairo [15].

Cairo, Egypt

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