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Anna and Dr Helmy: How an Arab Doctor Saved a Jewish Girl in Hitler’s Berlin

How an Arab Doctor Saved a Jewish Girl in Hitler's BerlinAnna and Dr Helmy: How an Arab Doctor Saved a Jewish Girl in Hitler’s Berlin / by Ronen Steinke.

The remarkable story of Mohammed Helmy, the Egyptian doctor who risked his life to save Jewish Berliners from the Nazis. One of the people he saved was a Jewish girl called Anna. This book tells their story.
The Israeli holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem has to date honoured more than 25,000 of the courageous non-Jewish men and women who saved Jewish people during the Second World War. But it is a striking fact that under the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ listed at Yad Vashem there is only one Arab
person: Mohammed Helmy.  Helmy was an Egyptian doctor living in Berlin. He spent the entire war there, all the time walking the fine line between accommodation to the Nazi regime and subversion of it. He was also a master of deception, outfoxing the Nazis and risking his own life to save his Jewish colleagues and other
Jewish Berliners from Nazi persecution. One of the people he saved was a Jewish girl called Anna. This book tells their story.
Also revealed here is a wider understanding of the Arab community in Berlin at the time, many of whom had warm relations with the Jewish community, and some of whom – like Mohammed Helmy – risked their lives to help their Jewish friends when the Nazis rose to power. Mohammed Helmy was the most remarkable individual amongst this brave group, but he was by no means the only one.

Culture, eBooks, Egypt, Faculty & Researchers, Uncategorized

Street Sounds: Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt / by Ziad Fahmy

Street Sounds: Listening to Everyday Life in Modern Egypt / Ziad Fahmy [Ziad A. Fahmy . Faculty : CAS – Near Eastern Studies CORNELL * Winner of the 2021 Best Book in Non-North American Urban History Award, sponsored by the Urban History Association.]

As the twentieth century roared on, transformative technologies—from trains, trams, and automobiles to radios and loudspeakers—fundamentally changed the sounds of the Egyptian streets. The cacophony of everyday life grew louder, and the Egyptian press featured editorials calling for the regulation of not only mechanized and amplified sounds, but also the voices of street vendors, the music of wedding processions, and even the traditional funerary wails. Ziad Fahmy offers the first historical examination of the changing soundscapes of urban Egypt, highlighting the mundane sounds of street life, while “listening” to the voices of ordinary people as they struggle with state authorities for ownership of the streets.

Interweaving infrastructural, cultural, and social history, Fahmy analyzes the sounds of modernity, using sounded sources as an analytical tool for examining the past. Street Sounds also reveals a political dimension of noise by demonstrating how the growing middle classes used sound to distinguish themselves from the Egyptian masses. This book contextualizes sound, layering historical analysis with a sensory dimension, bringing us closer to the Egyptian streets as lived and embodied by everyday people.

About the author

Ziad Fahmy is Associate Professor of Modern Middle East History at Cornell University. He is the author of Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern National through Popular Culture (Stanford, 2011).

Databases & Database Trials, eBooks, Languages & Language Tools, Literature, Recent Noteworthy Acquisitions, Reference, Uncategorized

Recent Noteworthy Acquisition

sezginSezgin Online : A bio-bibliography for the Arabic literary tradition – Sezgin Online consists of volumes 1-9 of Fuat Sezgin’s renowned Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (GAS), the largest and most modern bio-bibliography for the Arabic literary tradition in general and the history of science and technology in the Islamic world in particular.

Sezgin Online offers bio-bibliographical information about renowned figures (writers, poets, philosophers, physicians, scientists, linguists etc.) from the Islamic world. Complementing Brockelmann Online and Brockelmann in English, it is an indispensable research tool for Middle East and Islamic studies.  Features and Benefits
• Standard reference in the field.
• Largest and most modern bio-bibliography for the Arabic literary tradition and the history of science and technology in the Islamic world.
• The first and only online version of this standard reference.
• Includes content from 9 of the original volumes (4,959 pages total in print).
• Full-text searchable. Continue reading Recent Noteworthy Acquisition →

Arab Spring, Freedom of the Press. Arab Countries, Revolution in the Arab world, Revolution in the Middle East, Salafis, Salafists, Tunisia, Tunisian revolution, Uncategorized

Carthage Burning: Salafists Attack Contemporary Art Exhibition معرض للفنون التشكيلية & مستقبل حرية التعبير في تونس

الغضب السلفي

 

 

 

Art show Spurs Salafist Rage in Tunisia

 

 

Angered by an art exhibition they say insults Islam, thousands of ultraconservative rampaged through parts of Tunis and other cities, posing one of the biggest threats yet to Tunisia.

In the northern suburb of La Marsa, attackers tried to enter a gallery where salafists had slashed several paintings. The display at the Palais Abdellia (قصر العبدلية ) infuriated ultraconservative Islamists, sparking riots that began Monday evening (June 11th) and ultimately forced authorities to declare an overnight curfew in several Tunisian cities. Protesters hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at police stations, a courthouse and the offices of secular political parties raising concerns about the prospects for freedom of expression in Tunisia.

The work that appears to have caused the most fury spelled out the name of God using insects, while some paintings caricatured Mecca, portrayed a nude woman and ridiculed salafists.

The ministries of interior, justice, culture, religious affairs, and human rights (who did not see the paintings at the time)  issued a cowardly joint statement denouncing the assaults: “These extremist groups are themselves penetrated by criminals and are funded by those who fear accountability and rule of law, i.e. the remnants of former regime, and their goal here is to confuse authorities and sow panic among citizens and thwart the current transition.” But the ministers also condemned the artists saying that their works violated freedom of opinion and expression, and that the goal was to provoke and incite strife and exploit the sensitive and inflammable situation.

 

 

The Secretary-General of the Fine Arts Union, said that the violence was “part of repeated attempts to impose a social and cultural pattern based on takfir and criminalisation. Art has nothing to do with what is sacred or religion.”

 

 

Artist Ismat Ben Moussa defended his work: “My painting is critical of the salafists and has nothing to do with sanctities or the Prophet.”

 

 

The art gallery has since been closed by the government, and Minister of Culture Mehdi Mabrouk has said that while they support freedom of expression, they are opposed to any insults to religion.

 

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MORE:

• Pro-Democracy Movements in the Middle East, Constituent Assembly - Tunisia, Elections in Tunisia, Flag Tunisia, Freedom of Speech. Arab Countries, Islam, Khaoula Rashidi, Revolution in the Arab world, Salafis, Salafists, Tunisia, Tunisian revolution, Uncategorized, خولة الرشيدي و السلفي

Tunisian Student Stands up to Salafists Over Flag

خولة الرشيدي و السلفي

Tunisian Girl Confronts Salafists’

Flag Desecration

 

Khaoula Rashidi [خولة الرشيدي ] is a University of Manouba (Tunis) student who gained national celebrity after a video circulated of her attempt to stop the Tunisian flag from being taken down when a group of religious activists replaced the campus Tunisian flags with a black banner– a symbol associated with Jihadi Slafism.

A video circulating online shows Rashidi intervening when a Salafist militant removed the Tunisian flag and raised the Jihadists’ black flag at the Manouba University near Tunis.  He pushes Rashidi off a wall as she tries to intervene.

***

On March 12, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki officially honored Khaoula Rashidi, a University of Manouba student, for defending the Tunisian national flag.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki officially honored Khaoula Rashidi at the Presidential Palace in Carthage

“The flag is the symbol of the country … the blood of martyrs … and the Arab-Islamic identity,” stated Marzouki in an emotional speech delivered during the ceremony. Marzouki also condemned the violation of the flag and emphasized its symbolic sanctity. Marzouki urged the perpetrator of the flag desecration to turn himself in to the authorities and apologize before an “independent judiciary.” He explained that no one can impose themselves as, “the spokesperson of the country, or of religion.” The flag incident at Manouba has been met with widespread condemnation by Tunisian political representatives, civil society activists, and citizens. However, no charges have yet been filed against the individual responsible for the incident.

Rachidi Family

*

& Interior Minister

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Salafis do not feel that the flag did not represent them (any country’s flag!); only the salafi flag is considered by them to be the banner of Islam.  Is it possible for something positive to come out of the flag incident? Actually several!  A Tunisian woman stood up for citizenship and national identity, despite the violent assault on her.  It was also a wake-up call. Tunisians (most) felt like citizens united under their red flag. In the end, one of the salafi protesters returned the Tunisian flag high upon its pole, suggesting that differences of opinion exist in all groups.