Chaim Nahum

He was sent by his parents to a yeshiva in Tiberias, after which he studied at a French lycée for his secondary education and obtained a degree in Islamic law Istanbul.

He found a fervent advocate in the person of David Fresko, the editor of El Tiempo," a Ladino newspaper who politically supported the positions of Turkish reformers.

In 1923 he received an invitation from Moise Cattaoui Pasha, head of the Jewish community of Cairo, to become chief rabbi of Egypt.

He was appointed a Senator of Egypt's Legislative Assembly and was a founding member of the Royal Academy of the Arabic Language.

In 1944 he helped to reconstitute the Société d'études historiques juives d'Égypte (Society for the Historical Study of the Jews of Egypt) and served as its honorary head.

"Nahum was a supporter of Ottomanization and thus opposed Zionism, though he was willing to assist some of their goals: allowing Jewish emigration to and settlement in Palestine and purchase by land there by non-citizens[3]".

He continued to officiate at the Shaar Ha Shamayim synagogue, and could give long quotations from the Hebrew Bible and rabbinical texts from memory.