Carmen Weinstein, president of the Egyptian Jewish Community Council, passed away Saturday at the age of 82 after suffering numerous health problems, according to Bassatine News, a newsletter for the Egyptian Jewish community.
“The tireless long-term president of the JCC died in her Zamalek home in the very early hours of this morning,” the statement said. “She had been suffering from her knees and poor blood circulation for some time now, which did not deter her from attending to official functions, last of which was Passover on 25 March. “
Weinstein had lived through many troubled decades as an Egyptian Jew.
She was born on 10 October 1931 in Alexandria, then a cosmopolitan Mediterranean city, during a time when the Jewish community enjoyed major economic and cultural influence.
Weinstein lived through the decline of the Jewish community from about 50,000 in the first half of the 20th century to no more than a handful at the present day.
Weinstein saw legal troubles in her finals years, being sentenced to three years in prison in absentia by the Heliopolis Court of Misdemeanors in March 2010 over a land deal. But she won an appeal last February.
During her last 20 years, Weinstein worked hard to preserve the country’s Jewish heritage.
“Yesterday, 12 April 2013, she was in Maadi at 16:00 inspecting renovation work at the Maadi Synagogue annex,” the statement said.
