Sudan, formerly Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Republic of the Sudan) (Arabic: السودان As Sūdān) in NE Africa was the largest country in Africa until South Sudan broke away in July 2011 and is now the third largest African country. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the South, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west and Libya to the northwest. The world's longest river, the Nile, bisects the country from south to north. The people of Sudan have history intertwined with Egypt. Sudan's modern history has been plagued by civil wars (ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur) stemming from ethnic, religious, and economic conflict between the Muslim Northern Sudanese (with Arab and Nubian roots), and the Christian and animist Nilotes in the south (including the now independent South Sudan).THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
BOOK: Malka, Eli S. Jacob's Children in the Land of the Mahdi: Jews of the Sudan. Malka, born in the Sudan in 1910, is the son of Sudan's chief rabbi from 1906 to 1949. Malka details Sudan's Sephardic Jewish history from its beginning in 1885 (eight families) to the late 1960s when the Jews left Sudan. Malka writes about the building of Khartoum's lavish synagogue and the community's growtth that peaked in the 1940s. Jews of Ethiopia, Aden, Yemen, and Eritrea are mentioned briefly. 50 illustrations. ISBN-10: 0815681224 and ISBN-13: 978-0815681229 [August 2009]