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Smouha Sporting Club at Alexandria, Egypt
The Smouha Sports Club at Alexandria is a football (soccer) club founded, developed, and designed by Joseph Smouha in 1949 and is still open today. Throughout the modern era, Alexandria's Jewish community has been active in the city's societies and clubs--including sporting clubs such as Smouha. When Joseph Smouha settled in Alexandria in 1923, he became interested in developing a wealthy suburb and turned to the 700 acres of water and marshland used as a garbage dump in Alexandria. Smouha eventually transformed this land into the wealthy neighborhood of Smouha City—so nicknamed by suggestion of former Egyptian King Faud. Among schools, hospitals, and wealthy neighborhoods with certain royal residents, the Smouha Sporting Club also inhabited Smouha City [1]. The Smouha Sporting Club itself began with the spread of golf across Egypt. As golf became an increasingly played sport through the 1930s, Joseph Smouha planned the construction of an 18-hole golf course in Smouha City at the site of today’s Smouha Sporting Club. The golf course was situated within the infield of a racetrack which Smouha had previously constructed. Interestingly, this golf course is renowned for having what is regarded as the best golf grass in the Arab world, as a result of its location above the swampland. The Smouha Sporting Club grew to include tennis courts along with the golf course and race track, and was formally established in 1949 [2]. Joseph Smouha was the first chief executive of the sporting club, and today the club remains open under the leadership of Engineer Mohammed Faraq Amer [3]. Although the Nasser regime confiscated Smouha City from the Smouha family in 1956, Joseph Smouha had donated much of the property to public institutions and the sporting club remained open [4]. Currently, Smouha Sporting Club provides sportive, social, and cultural services to over 120,000 people—marking it as one of the largest sporting clubs in all of Egypt. The club is particularly famous for its football (soccer) teams, but supports numerous individual and sports teams [5].
Description
Alexandria's Jewish Community: Alexandria's Jewish community dates back as early as the third century, and was reported to number in the tens and hundreds of thousands. Although Alexandria had a Jewish quarter located in the ancient Delta quarter, many of Alexandria's Jews lived throughout the city. Throughout its history, Alexandria's Jewish community was deeply tied to Palestine, and drew many of its customs from that community. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Jewish community in Alexandria numbered in the hundreds, but by the end of the century the population had increased to 10,000, and during the interwar years it climbed to 30,000. Although World War I stimulated the Egyptian economy and Jewish-Muslim relations remained good through the interwar years, the nationalization of the Egyptian economy and the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine eventually caused over a quarter of the Jews in Egypt to flee the country following the 1948 war. The majority of the remaining Jewish community fled after the Suez War, and by the 1980s fewer than 400 Jews remained in all of Egypt [6].
Sources
[1] Itamar Levin, Locked Doors: The Seizure of Jewish Property in Arab Countries (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001), p. 121-123 accessed July 14, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=pxgonnuybEgC&pg.
[2] Dick Severino, “Golf in the Arab World,” Aramco Services Company, 2004-2014, accessed Juy 15, 2014, https://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197207/golf.in.the.arab.world-the.courses.htm.
[3] “Smouha Sporting Club,” Egyptopia.com, N.d., accessed July 15, 2014, http://egyptopia.com/Smouha+Sporting+Club_30_100_33_11767_4439_en.html.
[4] Levin, Locked Doors, p. 121-122.
[5] "Smouha Sporting Club," http://egyptopia.com/Smouha+Sporting+Club_30_100_33_11767_4439_en.html.
[6] Miriam Frenkel; Norman A. Stillman; Tomer Levi, "Alexandria," Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman, Brill Online, 2014, Reference, Wellesley College, 26 June 2014 <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/alexandria-SIM_000101>.
Photos
"Alexandria Stadium." Soccerway. 2007. http://cache.images.globalsportsmedia.com/soccer/venues/600x450/1452.jpg.
Michel, Medhat. "Smouha." Medhat Moheb Chess News and Information. 2014. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pt9BZa_iDBk/TkXBNSoZyYI/AAAAAAAAB6M/g3f-jEBFx-I/s1600/smouha-5.jpg.
