Balfour Day Riots

On November second, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, demonstrations are organized in the major cities of Egypt. In Alexandria, where the community then numbers several tens of thousands of members and where Jews have long held a place in commerce and the liberal professions, the procession diverts toward the Jewish quarters.

The Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue, the community's hospital and orphanage are invaded and ransacked; shops are looted in the city center. The same scenes occur the same day in Cairo. British and Egyptian authorities restore order, but no significant prosecutions follow.

These days mark the moment when the question of Palestine becomes, in Egypt, a cause of domestic violence against a population that had lived there since Antiquity. They open the period that will lead, within roughly fifteen years, to the near-complete disappearance of the community.