Maurice Shammās, also known as Abū Farīd, is an Arabic poet, journalist, and dramatist who began his career in Egypt before settling in Israel. Shammās was born in 1930 to a Karaite family (see Karaism) in Cairo and was raised in the city’s old Jewish quarter, the Ḥārat al-Yahūd. His family spoke Arabic, as was common among members of the Karaite community of the ḥāra, and he was educated in Arabic-speaking schools. As a young man, he worked as a journalist for al-Shams, an Arabic Jewish weekly, and for al-Kalīm,the biweekly Arabic newspaper of the Karaite community. As he describe…