History of the Jews in Egypt

The history of the Jews in Egypt goes back to ancient times. Egyptian Jews or Jewish Egyptians refer to the Jewish community in Egypt who mainly consisted of Egyptian Arabic-speaking Rabbanites and Karaites. Though Egypt had its own community of Egyptian Jews, after the Jewish expulsion from Spain more Sephardi and Karaite Jews began to migrate to Egypt, and then their numbers increased significantly with the growth of trading prospects after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. As a result, Jews from many territories of the Ottoman Empire as well as Italy and Greece started to settle in the main cities of Egypt, where they thrived (see Mutammasirun). The Ashkenazi community, mainly confined to Cairo's Darb al-Barabira quarter, began to arrive in the aftermath of the waves of pogroms that hit Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.

The Jewish population peaked in Egypt at somewhere between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1948. In the aftermath of the 1948 Palestine War, the 1954 Lavon Affair, and the 1956 Suez War, Jews and European groups like the French and British emigrated; much of their property was also confiscated (see 20th century departures of foreign nationals from Egypt).

As of 2016, the president of Cairo's Jewish community said that there were six Jews in Cairo, all women over age 65, and twelve Jews in Alexandria. As of 2019, there were at least five known Jews in Cairo and as of 2017, twelve were still reported in Alexandria. In December 2022, it was reported that only three Egyptian Jews were living in Cairo.