The Baghdadi Jews in India

Mavi Boncuk | 

The Baghdadi Jews in India 

Source

Extracts from a dissertation by: Alex Roy Hayim 

The terms Baghdadi came to include all the Jews from Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, Aden, Yemen and even Jews from Persia and Afghanistan. Baghdad though was always seen as their spiritual centre, and when Jews came to India, the customs of which they were so proud, remained intact. Bombay began to enter into Jewish history after the cession of the city to the Portuguese in the mid-sixteenth century, when it was a mere fishing village. It was in the town of Surat, then a successful and important trading post, North of Bombay, where a number of wealthy Portuguese merchants came to do business and eventually dwell. A colony was first established there under the leadership of Shalom Obadiah Ha-Kohen, a businessman from Aleppo. By the time he moved to Calcutta in 1797, there were around ninety five Jewish merchants in Surat with a synagogue and a cemetery. 

One of the first Baghdadis to move from Surat to Bombay making his name there, was the rich merchant Soliman ben Yaakob Soliman. As Surat lost its dominant position as a port, Jewish merchants eventually began leaving for Bombay and Calcutta. In Calcutta, the Baghdadis found themselves the only settled Jews in the city and so had to set-up all Jewish institutions, starting as in Surat with a synagogue and cemetery. Those Baghdadis who eventually decided to settle into Bombay though - a city of some 200,000 inhabitants in 1832 - found the Bene Israel already settled with functioning Jewish establishments. One can imagine the shock these Baghdadis must have had in witnessing for the first time Indian-Jews, with their Indian dress and customs, worshipping in a synagogue. 

It was not until the arrival in 1832 of David Sassoon of Baghdad, a wealthy and celebrated merchant, who spoke Arabic, Persian, Amrani (Jewish-Arabic), Turkish and Hindustani, that the Bombay community really began to flourish. By then, Bombay was under British rule and the freedom of worship and expanding opportunities for trade, no doubt appealed to him. Like the Jews in Calcutta, the initial activities of the Baghdadis of Bombay were in the import and export trade with the Persian Gull In 1855 a religious confraternity bearing his name, Hebrath Beth David - the Brotherhood of the House of David, was established. This constituted a nucleus around which a new model organisation of Baghdadi Jews were formed, equipped with all the requircments of a traditional Jewish Congregation increasing with notable rapidity. In 1861 he built the beautiful Maghen David Synagogue in the then fashionable Byculla district, set in a spacious compound with a clocktower. On the side he erected a hospice for travellers, a ritual bath and a Talmud Torah for the education of Jewish youth. After the end of the war and India's Independence in 1947, most of the community emigrated to Israel and the West. 

As an illustration of Jewish adherence to their traditions, marriage into other Jewish communities was frowned upon. My father who was born in Bombay was told that he was marrying out, when he announced his engagement to an Ashkenazi. Indeed there were a few eyebrows raised on my mother's side, when it was disclosed that she was marrying an lndiant 

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Note: About 210 years ago in Baghdad, Iraq, there were two brothers, Heskel Ha Nasi and Ezra Ha Nasi Gabbay (mother's name Rachel of Constantinople). In 1810, Heskel assisted Khaled Effendi, a special envoy of Sultan Mahmood II (1808- 1839) to organise a plot against Suleiman Pasha, the Governor of Baghdad. As a consideration for his assistance, Heskel was appointed as Sarraf Bashl (treasurer) in tstanbul, the capital c ity of the Ottoman Empire. Heskel utilised his influence in the Ottoman Empire and he succeeded to expel Saeed Pasha, Governor of Baghdad (1813-1817). He then appointed Dahoud Pasha as the Governor of Baghdad ( 1817-1831). For 36 years, Sheikh Sasson was the President of the Jewish community and the Sarraf Bashi. He was replaced by Ezra, brother of Heskel, as Sarraf Bashi from 1817-1824. Heskel's grandson, Heskel was editor of the Istanbul Jewish Journal L'Israelite.