Mentors Collective
Q & A with Jay Feldman
Why is this subject important in the world?
Few issues are as important to the world as peace in Israel-Palestine, and this book, Goodbye, Tahrir Square, offers insights into the origins of the conflict.
What is the pressing issue right now, and how are you addressing it?
See the above response.
What is your background in this subject?
The book is about my direct experience of growing up as a Jew in an Arab land.
What is something that most people don’t know about you?
Before writing Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile, I was a film director and screenwriter, a publisher, an editor, and a translator. My company, Gelula & Co., Inc., has provided translations of film subtitles and dubbing scripts in 28 languages to the major Hollywood motion picture studios.
What are your passions outside of your career?
Freedom, peace, and health in the world. Creativity in all its forms and an active interest in literature and cinema.
Tell me about your book.
Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile is a first-person memoir written from the standpoint of a Jewish boy growing up in Egypt during the watershed years that shaped the Middle East into the powder keg it is today. Described as the “Holden Caulfield of the Nile” for his rebellious attitude, the boy witnessed—between the ages of seven to fourteen—the 1952 revolution that overthrew King Farouk and gave rise to the dictatorship of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the 1956 Suez War that marked the end of the British empire; and in its wake, the destruction of the Jewish community that had lived in Egypt since Biblical times.
Though set in times of revolution and war, Goodbye, Tahrir Square is not a political book. It is the story of a boy whose close-knit extended Sephardic family, full of rich traditions and colorful characters, is suddenly torn asunder by the forces of revolution and war. A man-child coming of age like a wild cactus in the rubble of the past, overcoming a hostile environment, forging friendships that transcend ethnic and religious animus, and finding his own identity as he awakens to literature, history, art, archaeology, and the magic of love and sex.
Are there any social causes that you believe in and support?
I support organizations advancing peace in the Middle East and in Ukraine-Russia, as well as health advocacy with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Literacy in the world is also one of my strong causes.
What is next for you?
Another book is about individuals whose lives have been changed by major world conflicts.
published in 
