Jacob Rosen, Israel’s former ambassador to Jordan, has published the most exhaustive English-language list of lost Jewish surnames from Alexandria, Egypt.
“Alexandria is quite well documented” because of sourcing developed by former members of the community, as well as documentary records, he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post about his new study.
Rosen first published the list of surnames on the website Avotaynu Online, which conducts “research into the origins and migrations of the Jewish people.”
The former ambassador, who is fluent in Arabic, wrote: “The community in Alexandria grew from only a few thousand souls at the end of the 19th century to a vibrant community of approximately 40,000 members by the time it peaked in 1948.”
Some of the more famous Jews born in Alexandria include Haim Saban, the Israeli-American businessman; André Aciman, the literary professor and novelist; and Egyptian-French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki (born Giuseppe Mustacchi), he said.
A key source of information was the “ledger of circumcisions,” which contained more than 3,000 names, Rosen said.
The register of the mohel, Maatuk Dabby, “details the name of the father, the maiden name of the mother and the name of her father,” he wrote in his article. “Although he was not the only mohel in the city, he left a mine of vital data.”
“Social media brings them [surnames] to the fore,” Rosen said.
“There are several active Facebook groups of Egyptian Jews all over the world where the language of communication is English, Hebrew, French, Portuguese (the diaspora in Sao Paolo, Brazil) and Arabic,” he wrote.
Rosen cited additional sources, including three Egyptian business and profession directories from 1913, 1925 and 1941. The four Egyptian Jewish weeklies, which were published in French (La Tribune Juive, La Voix Juive and L’Aurore), served his genealogical work.
Rosen’s “sources yielded so far 1,618 surnames,” he wrote. “This is by no means a complete list, and more will be added or deleted after remarks, corrections and additions will be received from the public at large.”
“Many of the surnames have more than one spelling, so searching for a certain surname may require closer scrutiny,” he added.
Rosen’s index contains a rich variety of surnames, including: Abadi, Abbo, Abner, Abou Chouch, Abramovitch, Ben-Dahan, Benbassat, Elalouf, Eisenberg, Gallico, Habbaz, Habib, Khayat, Kahn, Leghrabli, Lessing, Malki, Nacamuli, Nadler, Ottolenghi, Papolla, Rahmani, Rabin, Saada, Sabbah, Tawil, Tazartes, Vitali, Wahabe, Wannounou, Yaccar, Yanni, Zaccar and Zimmerman.