Youssef Darwish

Karaite Jews were simultaneously multilingual and highly integrated in the Egyptian community at that time; most families spoke French and Arabic at home and sent their children to bilingual schools.

Darwish graduated from a prestigious French high school in Cairo, l'École des frères, in 1929 and received his degree in law from the University of Toulouse in 1932.

WCNL was an anti-imperialistic movement that demanded ending the British occupation of Egypt, liberation of the Egyptian economy from foreign influence, development of the Egyptian economy, nationalization of all monopolies including the nationalization of Suez Canal and other health, educational and political reforms such as voting rights for women and expansion of civil liberties.

He was rearrested again in 1973 during President Sadat's regime: imprisoned for 3 months for communist agitation, he subsequently left Egypt for 13 years to live in Algeria and Czechoslovakia.

In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly two years before his death, he told the reporter, "We denounced the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine but the government closed us down while Zionist organisations continued to function freely".