[Foundation-l] FYI: Welcome to this years Wikimania site: Egypt, the land with cultur ministers with special taste in history, culture and all the good things

[Harel Cain]

Let's put things straight. The Arabs in Israel usually read in Arabic.
Whatever translations of Arabic (specifically Egyptian) literature
into Hebrew there are, are mainly for the benefit of the Israeli
Jewish reader. These books are normally translated by Israeli
publishers on their own initiative, out of commercial reasons.

But all this is beyond the point. The quote attributed to the Egyptian
minister is not a one-of-a-kind occurrence. There are some groups in
Egypt vehemently opposed to the peace treaty with Israel (from 1979!).
Surprisingly, some professional organizations such as the writers
guild are among the most radical in this regard.

It is a sad fact of life that Israel has a "cold peace" with Egypt.
Few people travel back and forth. The current formal recommendation of
the Israeli Anti-Terror council is for all Israeli nationals to "avoid
all visits to Egypt, and if they are already there, to leave Egypt
immediately", because of "a very high concrete threat"
(http://www.nsc.gov.il/NSCWeb/Templates/country.aspx?countryId=42, in
Hebrew only).

We (over at Wikimedia Israel) had some optimistic plans to come to
Alexandria in big numbers (after all, it's a neighboring country).
Sadly, I don't see that happening.


Harel


On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru> wrote:
>> Also, he talks about restoring historic synagogues and the Cairo
>> Geniza.  I think they're also something about translating Egyptian
>> books into Hebrew for the benefit of Arabs in Israel, but the
>> translation isn't very good at that point.
>>
>>
>
> I thought Naghib Mahfouz's books have actually been translated into
> Hebrew; if they have not been, they should.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
>
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-- 
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.