Book Nook - Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile (Part 2)

This is part 2 of an interview with  Elio Zarmati, author of Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile, a poignant memoir that offers a timely exploration of identity, displacement, and the cyclical nature of history in the region. 

 How did your education shape your worldview?

I was lucky enough to have a father for whom education was a faith on the same level as his religion of birth, Judaism. As an infant, my bedtime stories were not children’s tales but stories and scenes from the plays of the French and British Classics—Molière, Racine, Shakespeare and Marlowe—or stories from the Bible and from Greek and Roman mythology as well as excerpts from the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Divine Comedy. 

These early cultural exposures instilled in me a fierce passion for literature, history and art and opened me up to the diversity of the various cultures of the world. They also guided the paths of my formal education and my career choices in journalism, publishing, and as a director and writer of motion pictures and television films. Ultimately, it influenced my politics and inspired my commitment to peace activism.

Why did you decide to write your memoir, and what do you hope people will take away from your story?

Many things led me to write my memoir, Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile. The main reason is found in the subtitle of the book—I am a Jew born and raised in Egypt, an Arab country, a member of a community that no longer exists, a community that has been ethnically cleansed and only exists in the memory banks of exile. As such, I had to juggle multiple identities, and writing this book was an attempt to reconcile the moral complexities that have haunted me while I lived in Egypt and throughout my life in exile.

Although I was born in Egypt, I was not an Egyptian citizen as the Egyptian state did not consider Jews to be worthy of citizenship with a few exceptions. To further complicated the matter, I had inherited the Italian citizenship of an Italian ancestor, but I only spoke a modicum of Italian. My native language was French, but I lived in an Arab country which was also a British protectorate, so I also spoke English and Arabic. And I’d learned Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language of the older Jews, by osmosis as my grandmother spoke it with her contemporaries. 

Exile did not simplify my identity crisis. I was a child of divorce raised by my father and my weekend mother. After the war, my father and I emigrated to France while my mother and hew new family found shelter in the United States. 

The abundance of cultural influences made me a cultural hybrid—a lot of French culture along with the linguistic and cultural influences of Egypt, Britain, America, Italy, and Spain via my Ladino-Spanish culture—who was I? A manchild from everywhere and one from nowhere? 

I sometimes wonder what my life might have been if the Suez Crisis hadn’t taken me out of my country of birth and into entirely different and exciting worlds. One of the characteristics of exile is one’s inability to decipher the mysteries of a long-lost past.

Writing the book was as much a search for identity as a need to share the story of a survivor of a community that has vanished in the ash heap of history.

What is your vision for a just future in the Middle East?

My vision of a just future in the Middle East is one that existed before the creation of the state of Israel that was followed by the war of 1948 which Israelis calls the “War of Independence” and the Palestinian Arabs “El Nakba” or the Catastrophe—the vision of a two-state solution which was passed by the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947.

Of course, the situation on the terrain has changed over the decade since the creation of the state of Israel. Several wars, occupations and massacres on both sides have happened to reinforce the hatred that exists between Israelis and Arabs. Yet a reconciliation is the only avenue for the survival of the warring cousins. 

For that to happen, new borders must be negotiated, occupied territories must be returned, and powerful security measures must be established to avoid attacks by either side. A peaceful coexistence between an Arab state and a Jewish state can only be achieved by United Nations military controls, and the rebuilding of Gaza can only happen with the combined financial help of the United States, Europe, and the Gulf Arab states.

Peace in Israel/Palestine is far-fetched but not impossible. While the massacres by Hamas in October 2023 and the horrendous repression by the Israeli forces on innocent civilians have exacerbated the hatred between the two people, they have also made people on both sides realize that they have been fighting wars that neither side can win.

Elio Zarmati Bio: 

Elio Zarmati is a writer, journalist, filmmaker, and entrepreneur whose life spans continents and disciplines. Born in Egypt and educated in France and England, Elio witnessed firsthand the political upheaval and cultural richness of mid-20th century Cairo. His career includes serving as a publisher, screenwriter, and television director, as well as building Gelula & Co. into a global leader in subtitling and dubbing services. Currently based in Los Angeles and Ojai, California. 

His memoir, Goodbye, Tahrir Square, reflects on his experiences as a European Jew in Egypt during times of war and revolution, exploring themes of identity, displacement, and resilience. We look forward to supporting you and your show in connecting with Elio in any way we can.