The founder of the Bagdadi Jewish community in India, Shalome Obadiah Ha Cohen, arrived in Calcutta on August 4, 1798, via Surat. He came from Aleppo and traded in gems, rosewater, Arabian horses, spices, silk and indigo. As his business prospered, he called his family to join him. Other Jews from the Middle East including Yemen, Iraq and Iran soon followed to make their fortunes.
From Calcutta, this trading community expanded their trade to Bombay, Rangoon, Singapore, Djakarta, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Prominent business houses like the Sassoon family of Bombay, also known as the Rothschilds of the East, and the Ezra family of Calcutta, also business tycoons, would have family members run their enterprises in these various port cities of Jewish Asia where they made an indelible mark. Across Asia, Bagdadi Jews were a religiously conservative community Judaeo-Arabic in their orientation. They spoke Arabic and wrote in the Hebrew script. During the nineteenth century they became Anglicised to succeed in colonial India. Thus the gowans and yasmas (head scarves) gave way to dresses and the dagla and oriental slippers to the suit and button-up shoes. The community shifted from its Judaeo-Arabic identity to a Judaeo-British one.
The Bagdadi Jews were integrated into the life of the port cities. They built synagogues and mansions in Calcutta, Bombay and Poona and made a name for themselves in many professions. Most well-known among them were Sir David Sassoon, Sir David Ezra—both businessmen and philanthropists, Ezra Mir (Edwyn Myers) one of India’s most prolific documentary film-makers, Florence Ezekiel, Nadira, one of the earliest Indian film stars, Esther Victoria Abraham, known as Pramila (the first Miss India, 1947) and the late General J.F.R. Jacob, who served as Governor of Goa and the Punjab.
By the mid-twentieth century, there were about 8,000 Bagdadi Jews in India. After 1947, Bagdadi Jews were not sure of their futures and many opted to emigrate. Once a few started leaving, others quickly followed. This rapid movement during the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s unsettled the community. By the sixties it was hard to sustain community life. Today there are barely twenty Jews left in Calcutta and about as many in Bombay. But Bagdadi Jews continue to thrive in their new homelands. Among the most well-known are Gerry Judah, an artist and sculptor who has built a formidable reputation for innovative design and worked in film, television, theatre, museums and public spaces (UK). Sir Anish Kapoor’s mother is a Bagdadi Jew. Manny Elias was drummer for the English pop band Tears for Fears. Also count Justice Phillip Hallen, of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia.
(Jael Silliman is an independent scholar, a former tenured professor at the University of Iowa, an author and the curator of www.jewishcalcutta.in)
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