On The Passing Of Victor D. Sanua

By David Sanua - 8 Av 5769 – July 29, 2009

Victor D. Sanua, Ph.D., z”l, a pioneer in cross-cultural studies of mental illness, was also known for his studies on American Jewish communities and the Jews of Egypt, passed awayJuly 12, at the age of 88 in Brooklyn, New York.

At the time of his death Dr. Sanua was research professor in psychology at St. John’s Universityin Queens, from which he had officially retiredin 1990. However, he continued publishing papers in psychology and conducting research onthe history of the Jewish community of Egyptuntil recently.

During his career, he published hundreds ofarticles, often focusing on familial and cultural factors in mental illness, particularly indepression, schizophrenia, and autism, and in the measurement of intelligence. He led and was active in many professional organizations.

However, a significant portion of his papersdealt with topics related to Jews. Most prominently, as director of research at the Associated YM-YWHA’s of Greater New York from 1960-1965, he conducted studies that ledhim to predict correctly that the Jewish intermarriage rate, then no more than six percent,would skyrocket in succeeding generations.

Dr. Sanua was born to a prominent Sephardic Jewish family of Turkish origin in Cairo, Egypt. One cousin, Jacob Sanua (Ya’qub Sanu’) was aprominent literary man and Egyptian nationalist; another, Moise, served as secretary to the chief rabbi of Egypt, Rabbi Nahum Effendi; and Edmund, Moise’s brother, was active in the Lehi (Stern Group) and fought in Israel’s War of Independence.

As did most such families in Cairo, the family spoke French, the language of commerce, and the Judeo-Spanish dialect known as Ladino. Dr.Sanua also spoke Italian, the language of his citizenship. He learned English as a teenager and obtained two undergraduate degrees from the American University of Cairo in 1945 and 1949, where he developed his interest in psychology.

Dr. Sanua immigrated to the United States in1950, and received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1956, where he wrote his dissertation on differences of personality adjustment among different generations ofAmerican Jews and non-Jews.

His first faculty appointment, in 1960, was atYeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School ofSocial Work, followed by stints at CCNY, Adelphi University and finally St. John’s. He spent his sabbatical year from 1973-1974 in Israel at Tel Aviv University and Tel Hashomer Hospital, where he treated initial psychiatric casualties during and after the Yom Kippur War, and produced studies on war, bereavement, andpost-traumatic stress disorder.

In retirement, Dr. Sanua focused on retrievingthe heritage of the Jewish community of Egypt,which reached 80,000 in the early years of thepast century and then was dispersed in the wake of the Arab-Israeli wars in the 1940s and 1950s. In publishing a series of newsletters devoted tothe historical legacy of this community, heestablished a worldwide network of correspondents who contributed to this publication.

The newsletters, along with other publicationsby Dr. Sanua on the history of Sephardic Jewry, were collected in his book, Egyptian Jewry: A Guide to Egyptian Jewry in the Mid-Twentieth Century. The newsletter was greatly enriched by Dr. Sanua’s unique trove of photographs of the Egyptian Jewish community he had smuggled out upon leaving Egypt in 1950.

He was married for over 50 years to Stella Sardell Sanua, who passed away in 2006. He is survived by his sister Odette Benjamin, his children David and Marianne, and two grandchildren. The shloshim in honor of his memory will be held at his house at 2416 Quentin Road, Brooklyn, NY on Sunday, August9 at 5:30 p.m.

May his memory be for a blessing.

insert: Dr. Victor D. Sanua is a co-founder of the Historical Society of Jews From Egypt (HSJE) and served as vice-president.