SUAREZ

SUAREZ, family of Egyptian bankers of Spanish descent, settled in egypt during the 19th century. About 1875 EDOUARD SUAREZ together with his brothers FELIX and RAPHAEL formed the Maison Suarez & Cie. which, after various reorganizations, carried on until its nationalization in 1956. During the 1880s, in cooperation with others of the family, he established the Crédit Foncier Egyptien, the leading mortgage lending institution, the Helwan and other railway constructions, the Cairo Omnibus Company, and the Tanta Water Supply. The Suarez family together with the cattaui family established Egypt's first successful sugar refineries and contributed to the country's agricultural development. They also took part   in, and supplied managers to, important projects such as the Wadi Kom-Ombo Scheme and other industrial undertakings. LEON SUAREZ, son of Felix Suarez, entered his father's business in 1895. In 1903 he became administrator of two other Suarez business interests, the Société Cheikh Fadl and Société Wadi Kom-Ombo. He left the firm of Maison Suarez & Cie. on his father's death in 1906 to take the latter's place as administrator of the National Bank of Egypt and of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien. EDOUARD (EDGAR) SUAREZ, grandson of the firm's founder, served during 1914–17 as president of the alexandria Jewish community. Edgar had a great estate and was one of Egypt's great industrialists; he was president of the Eliyahu ha-Navi Lodge of B'nai B'rith in the years 1899–1903. EDMOND was the president of the Alexandria community; EMILE was the president of the tanta community in 1938; JOSEPH was a member of the school committee of Alexandria in 1854; CARLO was an author. His wife, NADIN TILCHE, was in 1913 the first woman to pass the matriculation exams and in 1921 the first woman physician in Egypt. MENACHEM was one of the wealthy Jews of 19th-century in Egypt. -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.M. Landau, The Jews in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (1969), index; S. Raafat, in: Egyptian Mail (Nov. 16, 1996), 1–4; M. Fargeon, Les Juifs en Egypte depuis l'origine jusqu'à ce jour, (1938); Z. Zohar, Masoret u-Temurah, 12, 252; S. Stambouli, in: J.M. Landau (ed.), Toledot ha-Yehudim be-Miẓraim ba-Tekufah ha-Otmanit (1988), 117–23; J. Hassoun, in: ibid., 564–70; L. Bornstein-Makovetsky, in: ibid., 208. (Joachim O. Ronall / Leah Bornstein-Makovetsky (2nd ed.)