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Tora Prison at Cairo, Egypt

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Jewish Life under Gamal Nasser

After Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power in 1954, laws quickly began to be put in place, restricting the freedoms of Egypt’s Jews [8]. These laws included ones that took employment and companies from Jews, and had their family businesses seized by the government, as well as laws that suddenly denaturalized a large percentage of the Egyptian Jewish population, leaving them stateless [8].
By 1957, nearly half of the 45,000 Jews living in Egypt had fled, many pressured by the government [8]. However, after 1957, conditions seemed to be getting better, and many stayed in their home country, hopeful that things would begin to return to normal [8].
Any hope of a return to normalcy was destroyed when in June of 1967, in response to Egypt’s movement of troops to its borders, as well as other actions, Israeli forces attacked Egypt, capturing the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula within a few days [9].
The backlash against the remaining 2500 Egyptian Jews was swift and extreme. Within a few days of Israel’s initial attack, at least 425 Jewish men, including prominent community members, had been arrested by the Egyptian police and were accused of being Israeli spies [8]. Except 75 men of foreign nationalities who were immediately deported, they were initially imprisoned in Abu Zaabal prison, 40 kilometers outside of Cairo [8]. Once there, most of the remaining men holding foreign citizenship were deported within the first 8 months, and many others were given either French or Spanish citizenship by the respective embassies, depending on their heritage, and were then also deported [4]. By the time the men were transferred to Tora (also Tourah) prison in early 1968, the majority of the prisoners were stateless or those still holding their Egyptian citizenship.

Tora Prison

By the time the men had been transferred to Tora prison, many had already endured eight months of false imprisonment, and had undergone many horrors inside of Abu Zaabal prison, including abuse from guards, a lack of basic necessities, and constant dehumanization [4, 1, 2]. The transferred men included a large number of Karaite Jews, as unlike the Sephardim that made up the majority of Egyptian Jews, they had no claim to foreign citizenship [4] and many, as owners of businesses, were forbidden to leave [5]. 

According to many prisoners, Tora prison was a more lenient environment than that of Abu Zaabal [2]. The men there were permitted to spend time outside and play basketball, run, and eventually play tennis [2]. It was on these sports fields that Jews and arrested members of the Muslim Brotherhood met, and according to multiple prisoner accounts, got along relatively well. As Marc Khedr, a Karaite Jew imprisoned at Tora, remembered, the Jews and Muslim Brotherhood were united in their hatred of Nasser -- their conflicting views on other topics were far less important [2].
At Tora, men were permitted visits from family up to two times a month [4], and family members were allowed to bring food for their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers, which for some was the first real food they had eaten in over 8 months [2].
Despite the more lenient environment of Tora, prisoners were still at the complete mercy of the guards, who exercised their power in dangerously random ways -- depending on the mood of the guard, a prisoner could have his homecooked meal from his mother or wife thrown into a bucket of water, or he could be beaten or assaulted by guards, or forced to beat or assault another prisoner for the benefit of the guards [2, 1]. As the years wore on, men learned how and when to bribe those in charge to allow things like stoves into their cells [2], but bribery wasn’t always a foolproof method for continued physical safety.

Release from Tora Prison

Based on the testimony of an anonymous released prisoner [8], the Egyptian government brought groups of prisoners before a special court, where they would be considered for release during 1968 and 1969. Many of the prisoners were released and presumably heavily pressured to leave in these years [8], however, by 1970 these proceedings suddenly ended, and many of the remaining prisoners were suddenly informed of their departure, given French laissez-passer documents (travel documents that allowed one-way travel out of a country, usually for humanitarian purposes), and quickly deported [8].
During this time, many of the women left behind in Alexandria and Cairo were scrambling to procure travel documents for themselves and their families while trying to secure the release of their male relatives from prison [5]. Many fled the country, all while still desperately trying to appeal to various foreign governments to step in and help those imprisoned [5]. For women and families who remained in the country, as soon as their husbands were released and deported, they too would be forced to leave the country [8].
By late 1970, the last of the imprisoned men at Tora had been released and expelled [8], and the Jewish community of Egypt had dwindled to only 400 people [8]. Thanks to the oppressive, violent, and nationalistic rule of Gamal Nasser, in a period of roughly 15 years, over 99% of Egypt’s Jewish community were made to flee the country, ending the nearly 2000 years of Jewish life in Egypt.

Cairo, Egypt

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