Tuesday 15 November 2022, 7:30 pm UK time. In the 1930s and 40s Egypt was the Hollywood of the Middle East, and Jews were prominent  actors and directors. Professor Deborah A Starr of Cornell University will focus on the film careers of three Egyptian Jews: Leon Angel, a comic actor who performed under the name Chalom (pictured) ; Layla Murad, the musical film star known as “Cinderella of the Egyptian Screen”; and Togo Mizrahi, Egypt’s most prolific filmmaker of the 1930s and 40s. Mizrahi, a screenwriter, director, and producer, made many popular comedies and musicals, including films starring Angel and Murad. The diversity of cast and crew at Mizrahi’s Egyptian Films Company, and in the film industry at large, reflected the diversity of Egyptian society—diversity that ended with the migration of Jews and ‘foreign’  minorities in the 1950s and 60s. Recording here.