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Israeli Document: Persian Jewish Man Served as Muezzin in a Chad Mosque

The Grand Mosque in N'Djamena, formerly known as Fort Lamy (Facebook)
The Grand Mosque in N'Djamena, formerly known as Fort Lamy (Facebook)
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Israeli Document: Persian Jewish Man Served as Muezzin in a Chad Mosque

The Grand Mosque in N'Djamena, formerly known as Fort Lamy (Facebook)
The Grand Mosque in N'Djamena, formerly known as Fort Lamy (Facebook)

An Israeli document recently published by the State Archives revealed the story of a Jewish man of Persian descent who had served as a muezzin for several years in N'Djamena in Chad, formerly known as Fort Lamy, before letting on that he was Jewish.

The document includes a letter sent by an Israeli diplomat who served in Africa in 1962, and told the story, kept secret until now, of the only Jew in Chad.

Aryeh Lourie who was the chargé d'affaires at the Israeli embassy, sent the letter on September 30, 1962 to the Middle East Department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of a Jewish man of Persian descent who had served as a muezzin in N'Djamena.

“I found the only Jew in Chad,” the diplomat wrote in his letter.

He said George Hamdani from the Persian city of Hamdan came to Fort Lamy a quarter of a century earlier.

At the time the city was made up entirely of Muslims who had just completed the construction of a large mosque and were searching for a Muslim cleric to call the faithful to prayer and lead the community's service.

Since they had found no one to fill the position, Hamdani offered his services – claiming he too was of the Muslim faith.

His voice reverberated across the town every day at dawn calling the faithful to prayer, and on Friday he led the Muslim service.

He filled this position until 1943 and over the years had amassed great wealth, which included 40 homes, two hotels and a movie theater, among other properties.

“In 1943 he suddenly stopped going to the mosque and somehow communicated to his flock that he was in fact of the Jewish faith,” Lourie wrote in his letter.

“This of course caused much of an uproar in the city but by then, Hamdani was already too rich and well established and protected by people who had ironclad interests on the one hand and by the African propensity not to take anything too much to heart, so the matter was forgotten and many still recognize his contribution to the Muslim cause in Fort Lamy.

The Ambassador said he was hoping to convince Hamdani to contribute to his own people by perhaps financing a building to house the Israeli embassy in Chad, a school for children of Persian descent or at least to donate to the Israel National Fund.

“I know that despite building luxurious homes, Hamdani still lives in a mud hut, as he had done for the past 25 years while the income from his many properties reaches 12 million CFA franc, the equivalent of 150,000 Israeli pounds, per month,” Lourie wrote. The Ambassador copied the Israeli embassy in Tehran and in Paris on his letter.

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Ancient DNA Shows Genetic Link Between Egypt and Mesopotamia

This photo provided by researchers shows rock-cut tombs in Nuwayrat, Egypt where a pottery vessel in which the remains of a man, radiocarbon dated to around 2855–2570 cal BCE, was discovered. (John Garstang, Mahmoud Abd El Gelel/Garstang Museum of Archaeology/University of Liverpool via AP)
This photo provided by researchers shows rock-cut tombs in Nuwayrat, Egypt where a pottery vessel in which the remains of a man, radiocarbon dated to around 2855–2570 cal BCE, was discovered. (John Garstang, Mahmoud Abd El Gelel/Garstang Museum of Archaeology/University of Liverpool via AP)
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Ancient DNA Shows Genetic Link Between Egypt and Mesopotamia

This photo provided by researchers shows rock-cut tombs in Nuwayrat, Egypt where a pottery vessel in which the remains of a man, radiocarbon dated to around 2855–2570 cal BCE, was discovered. (John Garstang, Mahmoud Abd El Gelel/Garstang Museum of Archaeology/University of Liverpool via AP)
This photo provided by researchers shows rock-cut tombs in Nuwayrat, Egypt where a pottery vessel in which the remains of a man, radiocarbon dated to around 2855–2570 cal BCE, was discovered. (John Garstang, Mahmoud Abd El Gelel/Garstang Museum of Archaeology/University of Liverpool via AP)

Ancient DNA has revealed a genetic link between the cultures of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Researchers sequenced whole genomes from the teeth of a remarkably well-preserved skeleton found in a sealed funeral pot in an Egyptian tomb site dating to between 4,495 and 4,880 years ago.

Four-fifths of the genome showed links to North Africa and the region around Egypt. But a fifth of the genome showed links to the area in the Middle East between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, known as the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization flourished.

"The finding is highly significant" because it "is the first direct evidence of what has been hinted at" in prior work," said Daniel Antoine, curator of Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum.

Earlier archeological evidence has shown trade links between Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as similarities in pottery-making techniques and pictorial writing systems. While resemblances in dental structures suggested possible ancestral links, the new study clarifies the genetic ties.

The Nile River is "likely to have acted as an ancient superhighway, facilitating the movement of not only cultures and ideas, but people," said Antoine, who was not involved in the study.

The skeleton was found in an Egyptian tomb complex at the archaeological site of Nuwayrat, inside a chamber carved out from a rocky hillside. An analysis of wear and tear on the skeleton - and the presence of arthritis in specific joints - indicates the man was likely in his 60s and may have worked as a potter, said co-author and bioarchaeologist Joel Irish of Liverpool John Moores University.

The man lived just before or near the start of ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, when Upper and Lower Egypt were unified as one state, leading to a period of relative political stability and cultural innovation, including the construction of the Giza pyramids.

"This is the time that centralized power allowed the formation of ancient Egypt as we know it," said co-author Linus Girdland-Flink, a paleogeneticist at the University of Aberdeen.

At approximately the same time, Sumerian city-states took root in Mesopotamia and cuneiform emerged as a writing system.

Researchers said analysis of other ancient DNA samples is needed to obtain a clearer picture of the extent and timing of movements between the two cultural centers.