assisting in the establishment of contacts between Jews throughout the world. He visited Ethiopia and arranged for several Ethiopian Jews to study in Egypt. Until the German occupation of Rhodes, he was a great supporter of the Sephardic yeshiva on the island and sent many young men to study there. The creation of Israel in the late 1940s led to increased economic and political hardship for Egypt's Jewish community. Hundreds were arrested and interned for "Zionist activity". Jewish businesses were confiscated, Jewish bank accounts frozen, and exit visas could be approved only by a special government agency for Jewish affairs. Nahum attempted to ameliorate the effect of these developments for his community with mixed success. "Nahum was a supporter of Ottomanization and thus opposed Zionism, though he was willing to assist some of their goals: allowing Jewish emigration to and settlement in Palestine and purchase by land there by non-citizens". Around 1950, at age 78, Nahum became totally blind, but continued to carry on his duties as best he could. He continued to officiate at the Shaar Ha Shamayim synagogue, and could give long quotations from the Hebrew Bible and rabbinical texts from memory. However, he became greatly depressed by what he realized was the inevitable decline of Egyptian Jewry. Suffering from increasingly severe medical ailments, he finally succumbed in 1960 at the age of 88. He was buried at the Bassatin cemetery outside Cairo. Nahum's funeral was attended by thousands, including many Muslims and Christians. In the decades that followed, much of the cemetery was vandalized and desecrated. Rabbi Nahum's tomb is now inhabited by squatters. Publications La vie Juive en Babylonie entre les 3eme et 8eme siecles (1900) Sept mois en Abyssinie, etude historique sur les Falachas (1909) La Littérature Karaite en Turquie (1912) Traduction Francaise Commentee de 1064 firmans imperiaux ottomans concernant L'Egypte de 1517 (1932) References External links 1872 births 1960 deaths University of Paris alumni Chief rabbis of the Ottoman Empire Chief rabbis of Egypt Smyrniote Jews 20th-century rabbis from the Ottoman Empire Egyptian blind people Sephardi rabbis People from Manisa Arabic–French translators