With scenes of religious coexistence and vintage elegance in a more cosmopolitan era, an Egyptian soap opera aims to dispel prejudice toward the country's long-vilified and nearly extinct Jewish community.

"The Jewish Quarter" shows life inside Cairo's Haret al-Yahud district during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, depicting an almost idyllic portrait of a society where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side.

With the many wars waged between Egypt and the Jewish state and the anti-Semitism they generated, Jews were either expelled or pressured to leave the Arab world's most populous country.

The plot revolves around the love story of Aly, a Muslim officer in the Egyptian army fighting in the 1948 war, and his Jewish neighbor Leila, an elegant francophone saleswoman working in one of Cairo's upscale department stores, which were owned by influential Jewish businessmen.

The show highlights the upheavals that shook the flourishing Jewish community, particularly bombings targeting Jewish businesses which it blames on the Muslim Brotherhood.

The television series has however faced criticism from Egyptian Jews.

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