Gaston Zananiri ( ar, جاستون زنانيري, 1904 – 1996) was an eminent scholar, historian, and poet of

Alexandria, Egypt Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

Life

Gaston Zananiri was born in 1904 in the city of

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

in Egypt. His father Georges Zananiri Pasha (1863–1956) was Secretary General of the Sanitary Maritime and Quarantine Board of Egypt. He belonged to a

Syrian Syrians ( ar, سُورِيُّون, ''Sūriyyīn'') are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indi ...

Melkite The term Melkite (), also written Melchite, refers to various Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian churches of the Byzantine Rite and their members originating in the Middle East. The term comes from the common Central Semitic Semitic root, ro ...

family which had migrated to Egypt from Syria centuries earlier. Gaston's mother was Marie Ines Bauer, of Hungarian

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

extraction on her father's side and Italian on her mother's side. She converted to Christianity and moved in

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

circles in Egypt and

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

in the early 20th century, Gaston would also follow in his mothers footsteps and associate himself with Zionist movements in Palestine. In his youth Gaston attended Victoria College, Alexandria, where he received his education. Gaston worked for the Egyptian Foreign Office from 1940 to 1950. In 1948 Gaston founded the Alexandrian center of studies'' and in 1951 he moved to Paris in France and became a Dominican priest.

Works

In 1939 Gaston published L'Esprit Méditerranéen dans le Proche Orient. Gaston's life work was entitled Dictionnaire général de la francophonie. He completed his memoirs in 1982.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zananiri, Gaston 1904 births 1996 deaths Writers from Alexandria 20th-century Egyptian poets Egyptian journalists Egyptian male poets Egyptian Melkite Greek Catholics Egyptian people of Syrian descent Syrian poets Syrian Christians Levantine-Egyptians 20th-century male writers 20th-century journalists