page_title: Baghdadi Jews
section_title: Postcolonial decline
hierarchical_section_title: Baghdadi Jews / Postcolonial decline
caption_attribution_description: English: A Baghdadi Jewish man in Calcutta contemplates his heritage. Late Twentieth Century.
context_page_description: The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Indo-Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
  Beginning under the Mughal Empire in the 18th century, merchant traders from Baghdad and Aleppo established originally Judeo-Arabic speaking Jewish communities in India, then in a trading network across Asia, following Mizrahi Jewish customs. These flourished under the British Empire in the 19th century, growing to be English-speaking and British oriented.
  These grew into a tight trading and kinship network across Asia with smaller Baghdadi communities being established beyond India in the mid-nineteenth century in Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Baghdadi trading outposts were established across colonial Asia with families settling in Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Australia. Until the Second World War, these communities attracted a modest flow of Jewish emigrants from Iraq, with smaller numbers hailing from Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Iran, and Turkey.
context_section_description: As the Second World War saw most of the Baghdadi Jews of Burma, as well as individual families from across Asia, flee from the Japanese Occupation of Burma the Jewish population of Calcutta, the heart of the Baghdadi network, swelled with refugees to over 5,000 strong. A small number of Jews fled the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad for Bombay. Even some of the leading Baghdadi Jewish families who had settled in Britain, chose to return to India as the Nazi Holocaust began the slaughter of European Jews. Despite India offering this place of refuge, the Second World War was the beginning of the end for old Baghdadi world.
  The Japanese occupation of Burma, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia saw much of the Baghdadi community interned by the Japanese army. As the war ended, it was miraculously revealed to the rest of the Baghdadi world that in Japan itself, Rahmo Sassoon, leader of the tiny Baghdadi Jewish community of Kobe, had skillfully negotiated with Japanese authorities to ensure no Jews were harmed during World War II. Despite this, the one Baghdadi synagogue of Japan, in Kobe was burnt down during an American air raid.
  At the heart of the Baghdadi world, in India, the end of the war ushered in the implosion of the old order. At this point, ethnic strife, political violence and fear of civil war were widespread in India on the eve of Indian Independence. The violent explosion of killings and refugees following the Partition of India exacerbated the Baghdadi fears for the future. Dislocated by war, with many fearing India and Burma would become communist or hostile to business not in Indian hands or Burmese hands once the British left, the Baghdadi community began to leave Asia. Meanwhile, in the Middle East the establishment of the state of Israel and the outbreak of the Arab–Israeli conflict saw the start of the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim lands. In Iraq, pushed by official intimidation persecution, almost the entirety of the ancient Iraqi Jewish community had left for Israel by 1950.
  First the leading families, then the rest of the community began to emigrate on mass. This began a continuous exodus from Bombay and Calcutta. The wealthier followed the path of the Sassoon family to Britain, whilst the poorer were drawn to the new state of Israel or the easing of immigration restrictions in Australia. Bombay and Calcutta were the heart of the Baghdadi world, the centers of trade, culture and communal life. Once these had fallen into decline, the outlying communities followed.
  Postwar the imperial system and open borders that had made the transnational Baghdadi world possible disappeared. In Shanghai, communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 closed the trading links community depended upon. Those that has fled the Japanese occupation chose not to return. By 1950, the community had all but vanished. Meanwhile, In Hong Kong, despite the benign conditions of British rule, emigration saw Baghdadi Jewish numbers fall to less than 70 by the 1960s.
  In Burma, independence in 1947 similarly imposed trade barrier and a nationalistic regime in which the Baghdadi Jews felt they had little place.  In Singapore, with trade to China, India and Burma blocked, and the Jewish community had shrunk to as low as 180 by the 1960s.
  A final wave of emigration, pushing the much reduced communities in India and Burma to virtual extinction, was triggered by a wave of post-colonial nationalizations and trade restrictions in India and Burma in the 1960s. Elections in West Bengal saw a government dominated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) take power in Calcutta in 1967. Nationalizations of legacy firms from British rule and currency restrictions saw a choking of economic life and the Baghdadi community shrink from 500 to under 100 by the 1970s. Meanwhile, nationalizations in Burma the 1960s saw the closing of synagogues and the last Rabbi leaving the country in 1969.
  Despite this precipitous decline and dispersal of the Baghdadi Jewish communities, a handful of individual Baghdadi Jews would play pivotal roles in As
caption: A Baghdadi Jewish man in Calcutta contemplates his heritage. Late Twentieth Century.
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Photos 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2020:01:07 06:45:38", "Image ExifOffset": "134", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:01:07 06:45:38", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:01:07 06:45:38", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1093", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "760"}