Egypt - Residents of el-Behira Governorate in the Nile Delta vowed Thursday to prevent thousands of Jews, who arrive en masse at the tiny village of Demito near Damanhour City, 50 km southeast of Alexandria, every year during the last week of each December to attend the birthday celebrations of Abu Hasira, a Moroccan Jewish holy man, who was buried there some 150 years ago.
"After the January 25 revolution, which toppled over the Hosni Mubarak regime, the Jews will not be allowed to enter Demito any more and endanger the public morals and hurt the feelings of its 5,000 residents," Moustafa Rasslan, a lawyer, said.
He called on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has been ruling the country since February 11, to enforce a 2001 court ruling that compelled the Culture Ministry, responsible for the site where the annual gathering takes place in late December and early January, to cancel the Abu Hasira celebrations all together.
"If the SCAF does not enforce the ruling, Damito residents will not allow the Jews come to their village to attend the week-long Abu Hasira Mulid (festival), where they used to behave in a way that contradicts Islamic traditions and public morals under the very nose of security officials of the ousted regime," he said.
The Egyptians have been questioning the validity of this event arguing that the Jews had never held the Abu Hasira festival in Demito before they left the country after Israel State was founded in 1948.
"Jews didn't hold a festival at this site when they were in Egypt. It's just after the normalisation of ties between Egypt and Israel under the rule of ex-President Mubarak, the residents said.
Despite the court ruling, thousands of Sephardi Jews have been keen to attend the festival during which Egyptian security forces block all roads leading to Damito.
A female residents said that the Jews drink alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam, to be blessed as part of their veneration of the rabbi.
"The Jewish visitors usually get drunk and engage in obscene dancing during the celebrations," the woman, who asked not to be identified, said.
The villagers also complain that the authorities close down their shops and services for the Jewish festival, which reaches its highest point with an auction of the key to Abu Hasira's shrine.
The key is sold for millions of dollars, the woman said, adding that the principal of a nearby primary school has to close down the facility during the festival.
Yacov Abu Hasira, a rabbi from southern Morocco who wrote Talmudic commentary, was the head of the Jewish community in Damanhur before he died in 1881. He has since been revered for miracles attributed to him.
His real name was El-Baz, but he took on the name of Abu Hatzira (Father of the Straw Mat) when, having been denied access to a Palestine-bound ship by its captain, he was said to have reached the Promised Land on a flying carpet.
The villagers dismiss the story as a myth.
