JERUSALEM (JTA) — Neither Israeli leaders nor the head of the dwindling Jewish community in Egypt were invited to the inauguration of President Abdel Fattah Sisi.
President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Sisi over the weekend to offer their congratulations, but they were not among the dozens of heads of state to attend Sunday’s ceremony in Cairo. Israel sent a diplomat in Egypt to the ceremony.
Similarly, Egyptian Jewish leader Magda Haroun said the community congratulates Sisi but that no representative was invited to the inauguration.
“We wish him success in his mission, uniting Egyptian people and pushing it forward, so Egypt will restore entrepreneurship and become tolerant as it used to be and as he promised,” she told the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Her small community decided to vote for Sisi, Haroun told the newspaper, after hearing him speak about growing up in the Gammaliya district, where Egyptian Jews used to live.
Sisi won the May 26-28 vote with nearly 97 percent of the vote.
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