The Egyptian city of Alexandria was until the 20th century home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Diaspora—and for a long time one of the most important. Jews first settled there not long after it was founded by the Greeks under Alexander the Great in 332 BCE; by the beginning of the Common Era Jews comprised over a third of its population, making it likely the largest concentration of Jews anywhere. During the early medieval period Alexandrian Jewry experienced another efflorescence. Jacob Rosen, who once served as Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, has compiled a comprehensive list of Jewish surnames from the city. Benjamin Weinthal writes:

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 professor of literature and novelist; and the Egyptian-French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki (born Giuseppe Mustacchi).

A key source of information was the “ledger of circumcisions,” which contained more than 3,000 names. [It was kept by] the mohel, Maatuk Dabby [and] “details the name of the father, the maiden name of the mother, and the name of her father,” [wrote Rosen]. “Although he was not the only mohel in the city, he left a mine of vital data.”

Rosen’s list of over 1,000 surnames testifies to the diversity of Alexandrian Jewry, and includes typical North African and Levantine names like Abadi, Ben-Dahan, and Habib; those of probable European Sephardi origin like Gallico; Italian names like Ottolenghi; and Ashkenazi names like Abramovitch, Eisenberg, and Zimmerman.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.