Esther Moyal

Esther Moyal (née Lazari or al-Azharī; 1874, Beirut – 1948, Jaffa) was a Lebanese Jewish journalist, writer and women's rights activist. She has been described as a key intellectual in the 20th century Nahda, or Arab Renaissance.

Biography Raised in a middle-class Sephardic family originally from Syria, Moyal was fluent in Arabic, French, and English and was tutored by Arabic writer Muḥammad al-Bakr. She graduated with a degree in 1890, either from the American College for Girls in Beirut or the Syrian Protestant College. Moyal taught at Christian and Jewish schools and translated novels and novellas into Arabic, including the novels of Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola.

In 1894, she married medical student, activist and journalist Shimon Moyal (Shim‘on Yosef Moyal) and the couple settled in Cairo.

After Simon's death in 1913, Moyal lived with relatives in Marseilles; she returned to Jaffa in the early 1940s. Her son ʽAbdallāh (‘Ovadia) Nadīm became a poet.

Moyal's life and work presents a vision of a pluralistic Middle East dependent on free and open discourse. In her introduction to a set of biographies of Arabic women, Moyal wrote that she was thankful to live in an era "in which a large arena has been opened for the sages to disseminate their truths among peoples; for this has been the biggest ally in the advancement of knowledge and the greatest aid to its promulgation."