Founded in New York City in 1843, B’nai B’rith, the first Jewish grass-roots membership organization, established a presence in the Balkans and lands under Ottoman Rule in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Egypt’s first lodge, Maimonides Lodge No. 366, was established in 1887. Its first members were Ashkenazi Jews, and minutes and records were kept in Yiddish. The B’nai B’rith magazine, The Menorah (March 1887), noted the founding of the Cairo lodge with a feature article entitled “A Lodge in the Land of the Pharaohs.” Simon Wolf, a longtime leader of B’nai B’rith in the…