TheBalfour Day riots took place in Egypt on 2 and 3 November 1945. The riots began asanti-Jewish demonstrations on the 28th anniversary of theBalfour Declaration and were organised by the right-wingYoung Egypt Party andHassan al-Banna'sMuslim Brotherhood.

Before the1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, Egyptian Jews were considered more or less citizens of Egypt.^[3][4] However, starting around the 1930s, conservative movements started to associate Egyptian Jews with Zionism. TheSociety of Muslim Brothers andYoung Egypt called for a boycott of Egyptian Jewish merchants. Young Egypt did not consider Jews "real Egyptians" and urged its followers to "buy Egyptian"; some of its supporters were arrested for spreading anti-Jewish propaganda and attempting to bomb Jewish neighborhoods.^[5]

Egyptian authorities tried to prevent the demonstrations on 2 November, and provided police to protect Jewish places in Cairo and Alexandria. Yet this proved to be insufficient; 20 thousand people incited by theWafd Party, Muslim Brothers, theYoung Men's Muslim Association and Young Egypt, marched fromAl Azhar to the king's residence inAbdeen Palace. When they arrived at Abdeen, they were joined by rioters who spent the previous few hours looting Jewish and European shops; non-Jewish shops were closed in advance.^[6]

While the leader of the Muslim BrothersHasan Al-Banna tried to disperse the crowd, the rioters marched into the commercial district and looted shops and homes in the Jewish quarter. and burned down. AnAshkenazi synagogue was burned down; theGreek Orthodox patriarchate,Catholic churches and aCoptic school were also damaged in the riot. Five Egyptian Jews and one Muslim policeman were killed in Alexandria, hundreds were injured in both Alexandria and Cairo, with smaller demonstrations inMansura,Port Said, andTanta. The police reacted quickly but were unable to prevent much of the violence, since they were ordered to not use their firearms. However further demonstrations planned for the following day were largely suppressed. In total, 400 hundred were injured, one policeman and five Jews were killed and around £1 million of property was damaged.^[6]

Part ofa series on
Jewish exodus from the Muslim world
Background
History of the Jews under Muslim rule Sephardi Mizrahi Yemeni Zionism Arab–Israeli conflict 1948 war Suez Crisis Six-Day War
Antisemitism in the Arab world
Farhud Aleppo Aden Oujda and Jerada Tripolitania Cairo Baghdad Tripoli
Exodus by country
Morocco Cadima Operation Mural Operation Yachin Egoz Yemen Iraq Egypt Lebanon Iran Tunisia Hurum air disaster
Remembrance
Awareness day JIMENA JJAC WOJAC The Forgotten Refugees
Related topics
Expulsions and exoduses of Jews Aliyah Historical Jewish population Islamic–Jewish relations
v t e

Demonstrations that were planned for the next day were suppressed, as Cairene Jews formed self-defense units and built road blocks. Around three hundred looters were taken to court. Following the riots, KingFarouk of Egypt denounced the violence and met with RabbiChaim Nahum, whilst Prime MinisterMahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha also denounced the violence and visited a number of the riot sites, although Nukrashi cast blame onZionists for having "provoked such violent reactions." Chaim Nahum initially resisted calls to denounce Zionism, yet caved on the 9th. The secretary-general of the Arab LeagueAzzam Pasha also denounced the riot, as well of most the Egyptian press.^[7][8] The governor of Cairo offered to pay to restore everything that was destroyed, including the synagogue.^[9]

Gudrun Krämer writes that:

"Yet in spite of the Balfour Day riots of November 1945 and some isolated incidents occurring in their wake, the mass of the Egyptian population did not show signs of anti-Jewish feeling. The anti-Zionist campaign of militant nationalist and Islamic groups with its anti-Jewish overtones did not seem to affect the general public, nor did it lead to any government action directed against Egyptian Jews."^[10]

Numerous acts of violence against EgyptianJews followed in the later years, including the1948 bombings of Jewish areas; while the government failed to protect Jews during the attacks, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned on 9 December, causing an escalation in the violence between the Nukrashi government and Hasan al-Banna's organization. Nukrashi was assassinated by 28 December; Banna was assassinated by February the next year.^[11][12] During the 1950s, theJews of Egypt were subjected to political instability due to ongoing Israeli-Egyptian conflict (particularly theSuez Crisis) and suffered sporadic violence, leading to the exodus of most of the community.

• 1945 anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania
• Antisemitism in the Arab world § Egypt

• Krämer, Gudrun (1989).The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914-1952.University of Washington Press.ISBN 9780295967950.
• Beinin, Joel (1998).The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics. and the Formation of Modern Diaspora.University of California Press.ISBN 9780520211759.
• Schrand, Irmgard (2003).Jews in Egypt: Communists and Citizens. University of Virginia.ISBN 9783825875169.

• 1945 in Egypt
• 1940s murders in Egypt
• 1945 murders
• 1940s in Cairo
• Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Middle East
• Anti-Jewish pogroms in North Africa
• Antisemitism in Egypt
• 1945 riots
• November 1945 in Africa
• Riots and civil disorder in Egypt
• Religiously motivated violence in Egypt
• Jews and Judaism in Alexandria
• Jews and Judaism in Cairo
• 1945 in Judaism
• Massacres in 1945
• Anti-Jewish violence in the aftermath of the Holocaust
• 20th-century mass murder in Egypt
• Mass murder in Cairo
• 20th century in Alexandria
• Massacres in Egypt

• Pages using infobox mapframe with missing coordinates