Viviane Bowell

I was born and brought up in Cairo, Egypt in a Jewish Sephardic community.We were forced to leave in 1956 as a direct result of the Suez crisis and arrived in England as refugees on a cold and grey December morning. In its apogee, the Jewish community in Egypt numbered around 80,O00 people and sadly, there are only a handful of elderly ladies left in Cairo now. Similarly, 900,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands, a fact which has not been well documented. I fear that, after my generation, any knowledge of the community I grew up in will disappear and sink into oblivion.

For this reason, I have written a book about my childhood in Cairo and the community which was a huge part of my formative years. In the book, I describe the customs, traditions and superstitions of our society. I remember the busy streets of Cairo, the street vendors selling about everything and the local life around us. I also talk about my memories of coming to England as a refugees. It was hard to adapt to a new culture, language and unfamiliar food, but we did this with resilience and determination.I conclude that the trauma of being suddenly uprooted never leaves you,neither does the loss of identity.