Rabbi Haim Nahum, Chief Rabbi of the Egyptian Jewish community since 1925, died in Cairo yesterday at the age of 88, the Cairo radio reported. Rabbi Nahum, who was held in high esteem by many of the Moslem rulers of Egypt and Turkey, was an expert on Jewish and Islamic history and Semitic languages. He had been blind for the past 22 years.
Born in Manissa, Turkey, Rabbi Nahum studied at Istanbul and at the University of Paris and the French Rabbinical Seminary in Paris, where he was ordained a rabbi in 1897. For several years he taught Jewish history and law at the rabbinical school in Istanbul. He served as Grand Rabbi of the Ottomon Empire from 1908 until the empire was dissolved after the First World War. He settled in Cairo in 1924 and became Chief Rabbi of Egypt the following year.
Although not a Zionist, he knew most of the leaders of the movement, including the late Theodor Herzl and Dr. Chaim Weizmann. He wrote a number of books, including "Jewish Life in Babylonia Between the Third and Eighth Centuries" and "Karaite Literature in Turkey."
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
