Layla Murad and Egyptian Jewry in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries:
The Egyptian Jewish community was said to peak at around 80,000 in the mid-1940s. Some members of the community were writers, directors, and political activists, and they were highly influential in the budding Egyptian film industry. They made up a diverse and vibrant community which had an iconic presence in the now distant cosmopolitan era of early twentieth century Egypt. Gudrun Kramer divides the Jewish community into three subdivisions, beginning from the middle of the nineteenth century into the first quarter of the twentieth. She states that in addition to the 7,000 indigenous Egyptian Jews who had lived there for centuries, there was a rise of immigration of many Sephardi Jews in the mid-nineteenth century. These immigrants predominantly came from southeastern Europe and provinces of the Ottoman Empire such as Syria, Greece, Italy and the Balkans, along with other Sephardi and “Oriental” Jews from North Africa and Yemen. Lastly, there was a small group of Ashkenazi Jews who also immigrated to Egypt after being expelled from Jaffa by the local Ottoman commander.
In parallel to this mass influx of international Jewry was the sociocultural differentiation that it caused from the time of the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 up until the 1930s and 1940s. This process was closely linked to economic and cultural development within the country that furthermore improved the social status of the Jews, meanwhile it did not facilitate a unified, socially and culturally hegemonic community. Perhaps the most interesting divide was the vast employment of different languages for different situations, ethnic groups and classes. Kramer suggests that indigenous Jews spoke Egyptian Arabic, not a Judeo-Arabic hybrid dialect, and some were also literate in Modern Standard Arabic as used in the press and literature. The various non-Egyptian, Arab Jewish immigrants in Egypt also continued to speak their respective Arabic dialects. The remaining Sephardi immigrants spoke Ladino, but also knew French, Italian, Turkish or Arabic. This led to a bout of linguistic chaos; the Greek Jews spoke Greek, the Italian Jews spoke Italian, while the Turkish Jews spoke Ladino, and the Ashkenazim spoke either Yiddish, Polish or Russian. Upper and middle class Jews often adopted one of the leading European languages. Initially this was Italian, particularly in Alexandria, until French took its place around 1905 as the lingua franca of the local foreign minorities and Turkish-Egyptian elite. English was also used in business and official contacts. Kramer claims that colloquial Egyptian Arabic was just enough to deal with local or domestic “employees” and was never able to replace one of the European languages as a mother tongue. Knowledge of Hebrew was equally low.
In her closing argument, Kramer asks whether there was still a chance to integrate the Jews in Egyptian society in the 1940s as it became increasingly defined in terms of religion and ethnicity. She argues, “Even if the Jews had all become Egyptian patriots, learned Arabic and applied for Egyptian nationality, it would still not have changed the basic fact that they overwhelmingly were not of Egyptian origin, not “real Egyptians” and not Muslim.” I wish to question this statement with two names: Um Kulthum and Layla Murad. If Egyptian Jews had not been integrated into society on a large scale, they would not have been able to interject on the entertainment industry such as they had, particularly in film and theatre, and reach stardom like Layla Murad, as a preeminent singer and actress, second only to Um Kulthum in the 1940s. Furthermore, the immense popularity of Um Kulthum, a non-Jew who was brought to Israel by Egyptian Jews, and did not diminish after the mass migration. I would like to now take a closer look at these stars.
Layla Murad, “The Guitar of Arabic Song”, as she became known in the Egyptian press of the day, was born Lillian Zaki Mordechai in cosmopolitan Alexandria in 1918. Her father Ibrahim Zaki was a famous and well respected musician, composer and religious cantor. She was trained by her father and Dawood Hosni (1870-1937), another towering figure in Egyptian music, also a Jew, who was responsible for composing the first operetta in Arabic, “Samson and Delilah.” He was associated with the first generation of Egyptian nationalist composers like Sayyid Darwish. It has been said that Layla was discovered in 1938 by Mohammed Abdel Wahab, the leading male vocalist and composer of the interior period, who chose her to play opposite him in the film, Yahya al-Hub. Under Togo Mizrahi, another prominent Jewish director, her acting skills developed, where she was cast in five musical romance films directed and produced by him between 1939-1944 that featured her name. In 1945, she married actor-director-producer Anwar Wagdi, and a year later converted to Islam. This was said to be out of love for her husband or out of concern for the children they might conceive. In 1949, Murad’s arguably most famous film was released, Ghazal al-Banat.
Walter Armbrust’s article “The Golden Age Before the Golden Age” examines this relatively simple film’s cultural importance. He states that “religious affiliation was not a prominent part of their (the actors) public images”; it is likely that the audience knew they were watching a film starring a Muslim (Anwar Wagdi) and Christian (Nagib Rihani) and a Jew (Layla), despite her conversion to Islam in the mid-1940s. Armbrust claims that Ghazal al-Banat “was history” and suggests it was an “excellent example of the power of commercial cinema to construct a national community,” regardless of religious affiliation, or even ethnic background. Furthermore, he concludes that “this was Egyptian nationalism in the making. It was a completely synthetic system of communication that was instrumental in defining what Egypt was”. Layla Murad was part of this national narrative, despite Kramer’s argument against it.
While for several years her romance with Anwar made them the darling couple of the Egyptian entertainment industry, it did not last and the couple got divorced in 1951. She appeared in twenty-seven films and sang over 1,000 songs, many of which became classics. She decided to retire at the age of 38, after her last song was banned and her last film failed. She passed away in a Cairo hospital in 1995. Her legacy lives on today with her face plastered all over nostalgic cafes and memorabilia of this long passed Golden Era of Egyptian cultural history. Remakes of her most classic songs continue, such as "Ana Albi Dalili" (My Heart Is My Guide), which inspired the name of a soap opera about her life in 2009. It debuted on Jordanian TV and on Egypt's privately owned Dream channel every night during Ramadan that year and attracted a great amount of attention. Despite Murad’s disappearance from the stage in the early 1950s and her alleged Zionist connections, her memory is still alive and well and exists despite political conflicts. Today dozens of website are dedicated to her, her films are constantly aired on Egyptian TV and her songs are still listened to and revived.
Arguably one of Murad’s best-known songs, "Ana Albi Dalili”, has been sung by many contemporary stars such as the Egyptian Carmen Soliman, the first winner of Arab Idol, Syrian Superstar Asalah Nasri on her own TV show Soula, and in 1974 a very young Majida Roumy, the Lebanese legend, as a trophy winner on Studio al Fan, a precursor to the modern day Arab Idol. The original was sung in a film by the same name in 1947, directed by and starting alongside her then-husband Anwar Wagdi. These clips are important because they bring attention to the widespread knowledge and admiration for Layla Murad, all over the Arab world and in different generations and contexts. This song and singer are therefore synonymous with each other, such as Um Kulthum and “Inta Omri” or Fairouz and “Nassam Alayna al-Hawa”. Layla Murad’s status as a cultural icon, personality and moment in contemporary Arab history is unimpeachable, regardless of her Jewish heritage, because she was an assimilated Egyptian and a cultural treasure.
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