US embassy in Egypt marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Occasion was marked with a ceremony in Cairo on Monday attended by the US ambassador and prominent members of the Egyptian Jewish community

Writer Robert Satloff speaks at a ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Cairo Four Seasons Nile Plaza hotel. It was the first time in living memory that the Holocaust was pubShow more

International Holocaust Remembrance Day has been celebrated in Cairo.

The occasion, which falls on January 27, was marked on Monday by a ceremony held at the Four Seasons hotel in the Egyptian capital’s Garden City district.

It was attended by prominent Jewish figures from around the world.

The event was sponsored by Cairo’s US smbassy and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It was celebrated as an important step forward for religious inclusivity and peace among faiths.

“It is appropriate that 1st #Arab commemoration of #IHRD was in #Egypt, first to make peace w #Israel,” Robert Satloff wrote on Twitter.

One of the event’s main speakers, Mr Satloff is a prominent American writer and journalist.

The celebration also included speeches by the US ambassador to Egypt, Jonathan R Cohen, Ted Stahnke who runs the museum’s international educational outreach programme, and Magda Haroun, the head of the Jewish Community of Egypt.

Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 under president Anwar Sadat.

It was the first Arab country to do so.

While the neighbours’ relationship has been rocky, they now co-operate closely, with joint operations to combat human and drug trafficking.

In May last year, Egypt mediated a ceasefire between Israel and its longtime enemy Hamas, after an 11-day war in which both sides fired missiles at each other.

More than 200 people were killed in Gaza and 13 were killed in Israel.

Last year, the president of Cairo’s Jewish community said there were three Jewish citizens left in Egypt, all of whom are women over the age of 65.

Prior to the 1950s, when Egypt was still a monarchy, Jewish people from all over the world had relocated to Egypt to escape persecution in Europe in the latter half of the 19th century.

But in the 1950s, under the rule of a new military government, Egypt began expelling its Jewish community and sequestering their holdings nationwide.