Books Set in Africa: Cairo, Egypt

Sipping from the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt, by Jean Naggar (2008)

 

Sipping from the Nile is a memoir of a young women who grew up in a wealthy and privileged Jewish family in Egypt.  The author was born in December 1937, on the cusp of World War II.  She grew up in a pampered and sheltered environment, so the horrors of the War largely escaped her.

 

Although her family had Italian passports, they had roots in Egypt going back centuries.  Over the years, the family had amassed an enormous fortune through banking and lived in a large mansion with many servants.  They were integral members of high Egyptian society and rubbed shoulders with high level diplomats and kings.

 

As a young girl growing up, she and her family traveled extensively throughout Europe and she (as well as other members of the family) was fluent in many languages, including English, Italian, French and Arabic.  When she entered high school, she was sent to a boarding school in England.  It was her first time being separated from her family and, although it gave her some freedom, she was also very along among her British classmates.

 

It wasn’t until the Suez crisis in 1956 that the author began to realized that being Jewish in Egypt had consequences.  Although she describes the losses of their home and property, as she recounts the family’s life in exile, they seemed not to have suffered too badly financially.  She is still able to maintain a high-society lifestyle.

 

I found the first part of the memoir more interesting that the latter part.  I tired of reading of all the “fabulous” connections her family made: winning Olympic medals, meeting all the rich and famous, all the designer clothing her mother had commissioned, etc.

 

Interestingly, it wasn’t until after she moved to the United States that she began to realized that her Jewishness was and identifying factor.  While growing up in Egypt, although her family was Jewish and observed all the rituals and holidays, being Jewish was just a fact of life (until after WWII and the country itself had a massive political turnabout).

 

Scattered throughout the book are numerous family photos and scene of Egypt.  They added to the book, and I enjoyed perusing them.

 

Read: October 4, 2021

 

3.5 Stars

 

 

Books Set in Europe: France, Austria, and England

The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal (2010)

The Hare with Amber Eyes is a memoir of the author’s paternal ancestors, who were once of the wealthy European Jewish Ephrussi’s of the banking dynasty.  The memoir starts with a telling of the author’s great-uncle Charles Ephrussi, an art collector in Paris.  In the 1870’s, Charles acquired over 260 Japanese netsuke, the small wood and ivory carvings of plants and animals.  One of the netsuke was a hare with amber eyes, hence the title of the book.

Charles gave the netsuke to his Viennese cousin, Viktor Ephrussi, as a wedding present.  Viktor was the author’s great-grandfather, which is how the items came into the possession of the author’s family.

Because the Ephrussi’s were Jewish, albeit secular, during the Nazi regime and World War II, they lost everything, including the extensive art collection.  Amazingly, the netsuke survived and remained in the family.  (We learn the story of their survival in the book.)  The author inherited the netsuke collection, which led him to explore his family’s history.

His grandmother, Elizabeth Ephurssi, converted to Anglican Church when she married the Dutch Hendrik de Waal.  The author father, Elizabeth’s son, became an Anglican priest, thus the memoir is in part a search into the author’s Jewish past.  I found it a rather uncomfortable search.

I read this book because it was a selection of one of my book discussion groups.

Read:  November 4, 2018

2 Stars