Joseph Rosenthal (1867–1927) was born in Beirut to an immigrant family of Russian Ashkenazi origin. Early in his youth Rosenthal moved to Alexandria, and by the late 1890s he was active in socialist study groups and workers’ organizations. A jeweler by profession, Rosenthal was a charter member of the first socialist group in Egypt, the Groupe d’Etudes Sociales. In 1921, together with Salāma Mūsā, Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh ‘Inān, and Maḥmūd Ḥusnī al-‘Arabī, he helped found the Egyptian Socialist Party, which the next year changed its name to the Communist Party of Egypt (CPE). The Britis…