Yūsuf Darwīsh (b. 1910), a prominent Egyptian labor lawyer and Communist leader from the 1930s to the 1960s, was a Karaite Jew of middle-class origins. As a student at the University of Toulouse, Darwīsh founded the Association of Arab Students and was active in anti-Fascist and pro-Arab Palestinian organizations. Returning to Egypt, Darwīsh was a member of the Cairo branch of Paul Jacquot Descombes’s group, Peace Partisans, and became involved in Egyptian Communist organizations. 

In 1946, Darwīsh founded the New Dawn (Ar. al-Fajr al-Jadīd) Communist group with Aḥmad Ṣādiq Saʿd a…