BRIEFLY / THE ECONOMY

Chehata Haroun, 82, Egyptian Jewish politician who refused to let mounting prejudice oust him from his homeland. Haroun, also a lawyer and author, was born in Egypt as was his father. Thousands of Egyptian Jews once formed a vibrant community, mainly in Cairo and the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. But many left as anti-Jewish sentiment grew after the founding of Israel in 1948 and nationalization programs of the 1950s and 1960s, which stripped them of their businesses. Others were expelled during the 1956 Suez crisis and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The community now numbers 200 to 300. Egypt became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. In the 1940s, Haroun was a founding member of the Egyptian Communist Party, which in 1976 became the leftist National Progressive Unionist Party, known in Arabic as Tagamua, or “unionist.” He was repeatedly arrested and detained with other leftists, who were viewed with suspicion by both British colonial authorities and the Egyptian government. On Wednesday in Cairo of a pulmonary embolism.