The World's Egyptian law
dean plans suit against When, after the
Ten Plagues, Pharaoh finally let Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, says
the book of Exodus, the former slaves "plundered the Egyptians." Now, more than
three millennia later, Egypt wants its stuff back. Nabil Hilmi, dean
of the law school at Egypt's University of Al-Zaqaziq, is suing "all the
Jews of the world" for stealing "from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold,
jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt
in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is
priceless," according to the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (translated
by the Middle East Media Research Institute). "If we assume
that the weight of what was stolen was one ton, [its worth] doubled every 20
years, even if the annual interest is only 5 percent," Hilmi told the
paper. In one ton of gold
is 700 kg of pure gold—and we must remember that what was stolen was jewelry,
that is, alloyed with copper. Hence, after 1,000 years, it would be worth
1,125,898,240 million tons, which equals 1,125,898 billion tons for 1,000
years. In other words, 1,125 trillion tons of gold, that is, a million
multiplied by a million tons of gold. This is for one stolen ton. The stolen
gold is estimated at 300 tons, and it was not stolen for 1,000 years, but for
5,758 years, by the Jewish reckoning. Therefore, the debt is very large … The
value must be calculated precisely in accordance with the information
collected, and afterward a lawsuit must be filed against all the Jews of the
world, and against the Jews of Israel in particular, so they will repay the
Egyptians the debt that appears in the Torah. Hilmi says he got
the statistics from Exodus 35:12-36, which details the gold and other materials
needed for the Tabernacle. "This is the
Middle East, and it's no joke. Nor is Hilmi a crackpot:" Yossi Klein
Halevi writes in The Jerusalem Post. "The surrealistic suit says much
about the quality of moral discourse in the Arab world today. … In the culture
of self-pity that has gripped the Arab world, justice and grievance belongs to
its side alone. Still, there is, potentially, good news in this deeply
depressing story. By intending to sue 'every Jew in the world' for the theft of
Pharaoh's gold, Hilmi is acknowledging that Jews are the legitimate descendants
of the children of Israel." Beth Goodtree is
similarly excited in an article for the Israel Insider. "Now that Dr.
Hilmi has recognized the Bible as historical fact, we Jews should comb the
Bible for historical references to Jewish ownership of other lands and sites
that are rightfully Jewish," she writes. "We should then sue all the
interlopers and usurpers to get back that which is ours. And our chief witness
can be Dr. Hilmi, G-d bless his hateful little heart." Still, Hilmi
should catch up on his history, explains Rabbi Avi Shafran of Aish.com: The Talmud tells
of precisely such a claim lodged over 2000 years ago in a world court of sorts
presided over by none other than Alexander the Great. The story is
recounted in Sanhedrin 91a, where it is recorded that one Geviha ben Pesisa
responded on the Jews' behalf. A paraphrase of the excerpt follows: "What is your
source?" Geviha asked the Egyptian representatives. "The
Torah," they replied. "Very
well," said Geviha, "I too will invoke the Torah, which says that the
Jews spent 430 years laboring in Egypt. Please compensate us for 600,000 men's
work for that period of time." The Egyptians, the
Talmud continues, then asked Alexander for three days during which to formulate
a response. The recess was granted but the representatives, finding no
counter-argument, never returned. Ted Olsen Christianity
Today, Week of September 1, 2003 |