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Egypt's few remaining Jews celebrate Hanukkah

Hanukkah was celebrated amid tight security in Cairo's Meyr Biton Synagogue. Yet Magda Haroun, head of Egypt's tiny Jewish community, looks forward to the day when all of Egypt's synagogues will be open for prayer and celebrations.
Magda Shehata Haroun talks during an interview with AFP at the Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue.

CAIRO — Security was tight in and around the Meyr Biton Synagogue in Cairo's leafy neighborhood of Maadi, as around two dozen guests including diplomats and Jewish expats gathered Monday evening to join a handful of Egypt's last Jews in celebrating Hanukkah.  

"Today, only three Egyptian Jews, all of them elderly women, remain of Egypt's once sizable Jewish community," Magda Haroun, who was elected head of Egypt’s Jewish community in 2013, told Al-Monitor.

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