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The Jamal Twins

The Jamal Twins were Egyptian belly dancers active in Cairo in the 1950s and 1960s. Born Helena and Berta Alpert, the sisters worked at the Helmieh Palace on the outskirts of Cairo, under the stage names Leila and Lamia Jamal, or "the Jamal Twins".

Early life
Helena and Berta Alpert were the daughters of Fishel Alpert, a violinist from Czernowitz, and Jini, an opera singer born in Egypt to Ashkenazi Jewish parents. daughters of musicians and had learned to play instruments from early childhood. Fishel had once played professionally in the Vienna symphony orchestra, but immigrated to Egypt in the 1920s for reasons which remain unclear. Fishel and Jenny met in Alexandria, and later moved to Cairo, where Helena and Berta were born.

The two girls were raised in a musical home, and were sent to ballet lessons as children. They also began to study Mediterranean dance as well, and before long received offers to perform in public. While their parents had some concerns about this, the family were experiencing financial difficulty and the additional income of the girls' performance was ultimately necessary.

Dance career
Helena and Berta experienced near-overnight success as professional belly dancers, under the stage names Leila and Lamia (or, occasionally, Lyn and Liz). As a promotional tool, they also selected a surname, Jamal, and presented themselves as twins instead of sisters two years apart in age. They performed primarily at the Helmieh Palace nightclub, described as "the Diamond Horseshoe of Cairo," and soon began appearing in Egyptian movies. Initially brief cameos, the Jamal Twins' appearances became more and more central to the films due to audience demand.

Helena and Berta also performed internationally, and were especially popular in Singapore and India. A dance routine in one of the Indian films they starred in was censored in Egypt due to “immodesty,” however, and Egyptian military authorities became suspicious of the Jamal sisters’ frequent travel, possibly in part because of their knowledge of the sisters' Jewish origins - Helena and Berta did not go to any great lengths to hide their Jewish origins, but neither did they advertise that they were not Arabs.

In 1957, while they were on tour in India, the Egyptian police issued an order for their arrest – they were wanted on suspicion of espionage. Fishel sent them an urgent telegram telling them not to return to Egypt, and they instead found passage to the United States by appealing to a delegation of Americans who happened to be in attendance at the nightclub in Bombay (Mumbai) where they were performing that evening. The Jamal Twins thus secured visas to enter the US.

Once in America, the sisters continued performing in NYC's Latin Quarter as Lyn and Liz, but before too long retired from performing in order to marry. However, they each continued to teach belly dance through the 1960s and 1970s.

Legacy
Lyn died in Long Island in 1992. Liz passed away in 2016.

https://blog.nli.org.il/en/jamal_sisters/ https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/egypt/2018-07-14/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-secret-identity-of-the-egyptian-twin-belly-dancing-stars/0000017f-e167-d75c-a7ff-fdef51780000 https://www.jewishinsandiego.org/jewish-community-news/the-egyptian-belly-dancing-sisters-with-a-secret-jewish-identity

Category:Egyptian Ashkenazi Jews