Zionism and Asia’s Baghdadi Jews
This is an excerpt of the introduction to my dissertation at Oxford (MPhil, Modern Middle Eastern Studies). It tells the lesser-known story of the Baghdadi Jewish merchant diaspora in Asia during the colonial era and their involvement in the Zionist movement.
On the early morning of November 2, 1922, the Japanese steamship Kitano Maru docked in the harbor of the British colony of Singapore. Albert Einstein (1879–1955), the world-renowned physicist, and his wife Elsa disembarked from the steamer and was met by an enthusiastic crowd of six hundred people — the entire Jewish community of the island, who flocked to the dock to greet the arrival of the great scientist. The couple did not come for vacation — in fact, they stayed on this tropical island for a little less than forty-eight hours. However, their brief visit had a specific and important mission: to urge the wealthiest members of Singapore’s small Jewish community to contribute funds for the nascent Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Their stop in Singapore had been prearranged by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Zionist Organization based in London. Two days prior to their arrival, Weizmann had cabled Sir Manasseh Meyer, a wealthy Baghdadi merchant and head of Singapore’s Zionist Society, and asked the latter to extend hospitality to the Einsteins and host a fundraising event with the island’s prominent Jewry in attendance. On the evening of their arrival, Meyer’s daughter, Mozelle Nissim, arranged a lavish three-hundred-guest banquet for the Einsteins at Meyer’s palatial residence.[1]
Ten days later, the Einsteins arrived in Shanghai on another fundraising mission for the Hebrew University. Like in Singapore, the great scientist was received by leading members of the local Jewish community, whose leaders had been informed by Weizmann to prepare for a fundraiser. Two Baghdadi Jews, N.E.B. Ezra, honorary secretary of the Shanghai Zionist Association (SZA), and Sir Elly Kadoorie, chairman and president of the SZA, led the fundraising committee for the scientist couple’s visit. Another Baghdadi Jew, Jacob.E. Salmon, an Oxford-educated lawyer who served as the honorary secretary of the Shanghai Jewish Communal Association (SJCA) and board member of the SZA, hosted the reception at his mansion and led an enthusiastic communal welcome to the Einsteins.[2] These fundraising events were a great success and left a deep impression on Einstein, who told his enthusiastic audience: “I am eagerly surprised to find here in the Far East such a happy unity among our brethren.”[3]
Einstein’s trips to Singapore and Shanghai were little known and had long been forgotten. However, less is known about the communities that received him — the Jews of Singapore and Shanghai during the colonial era, most of whom were of Baghdadi origin — and the Zionist fundraising mission he represented, in which many leading Baghdadi Jews in these two communities played instrumental roles.
When and how did these Jews arrive in Shanghai and Singapore from the Middle East? Which shared identities did they develop in this process of eastward migration, as Jews of Baghdadi origin living under British colonialism in East Asia? How did the interactions of these identities contribute to their attitude towards and mode of participation in the Zionist movement, the modern political project of establishing a Jewish National Home in Palestine? Furthermore, how do the answers to these questions enrich our understanding of Zionism among the Jews of Iraqi origin?
The first step to answering these questions is to understand the history and formation of the Baghdadi Jewish network in Asia. The Baghdadi Jewish diaspora (or “Eastern Baghdadis”)[4] was a former community of Jewish merchant traders and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in Ottoman Empire, who settled along the trade routes from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. Beginning in the late 18th-century, these Jewish merchants developed tight-knit, kinship-based (and, in the early days, Arabic-speaking) trading networks across Asia. They established trading outposts in major Asian port cities, first in Bombay and Calcutta, and then in Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, all of which later grew into vibrant Jewish communities.
Wherever they settled in Asia, the Baghdadi Jews shared a strong sense of unity and viewed themselves as a single community that transcended locational distance. They showed remarkable similarities and exhibited a high degree of interconnectivity. In the words of Israel Cohen, a former secretary of the Zionist Organization who paid a year-long visit to Asia in a fundraising trip, the interactions between members of these Baghdadi communities were so frequent that the Jews of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai were “almost as familiar with one another as Jews of Manchester with those of Liverpool.”
The Baghdadi Jews in the diaspora, especially its pioneers, maintained a vigorous personal commitment to the upkeep of Jewish institutions in the Old Yishuv.[5] This form of spiritual devotion to the Land of Israel is distinct from and predates the political Zionism of Theodor Herzl. However, they both emphasize a commitment to the upbuilding of Jewish institutions in Palestine. For Eastern Baghdadis, this strong personal commitment to Jewish communities in Palestine was a foundation to their Jewish identity, regardless of their stance on political Zionism. Many skeptical of the Zionist or critical of its authorities in Jerusalem nevertheless did not hesitate to make financial contributions to the religious, educational, and charitable institutions in Palestine when these places needed their support. Others sympathetic to the Zionists and gave financial support to the New Yishuv[6] derived at least part of their sympathy from this form of spiritual devotion. According to Elizabeth Imber, this latter group exhibited a “duality of commitment” — both political and religious, which differentiated them from the secular Labor and Revisionist Zionists.[7]
The Eastern Baghdadis prospered under British colonial rule from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and their fortunes became closely intertwined with colonialism. The first Baghdadi Jews settled in Shanghai in the mid-1840s after China opened doors to Britain’s opium trade in the aftermaths of the First Opium War. Most of them had come from Bombay, where the Eastern Baghdadis acted as private traders of British protection, dealing in the transregional export and import of opium, textile, and other Indian-produced goods. By the 1860s, the expanding opium trade had brought the Baghdadi Jews (most of whom from Calcutta) to the British colony of Singapore. As a result of their extensive involvement in the British colonial enterprise, the Eastern Baghdadis, especially the affluent among them, became increasingly associated with Britain in language, culture, and lifestyle and considered themselves as loyal and acculturated British colonial subjects.
The colonial experience and the cosmopolitan nature of Shanghai and Singapore exposed the Eastern Baghdadis to an increasingly globalized world, where intellectual and political currents flew from one location to another. Zionism, a political ideology that evolved from the European Jewish intellectual circles, reached the Baghdadi community in Shanghai shortly after Theodor Herzl founded the Zionist Organization in Switzerland in 1897. In 1903, Elly Kadoorie, N.E.B. Ezra, and a few other prominent Baghdadi businessmen founded the Shanghai Zionist Association (SZA), the first organized Zionist group in Asia. Its establishment predates the first Zionist group in Iraq, which was founded in 1913 in Basra. The SZA’s most extensive fundraising activities and achievements occurred in the decade after the Balfour Declaration of 1917. In the following decade, the organization remitted substantial donations (mostly coming from a few enthusiastic individuals) to the Jewish National Fund (JNF)[8] and Keren Hayesod (KH)[9] and secured diplomatic recognition of the Balfour Declaration from three Asian governments. In addition to fundraising and lobbying, the SZA also published a monthly newspaper Israel’s Messenger under the stewardship of Ezra, which became the most read and influential Jewish periodical in the Baghdadi diaspora.
Shortly after Britain accepted the Palestine mandate at the 1920 San Remo Conference, Singapore’s Eastern Baghdadis established the Zionist Society, led by Sir Manasseh Meyer, patriarch of the island’s Jewish community. The Singapore Zionist Society (SZS) was the initiative of a small group of the city’s anglophile, upper-class Eastern Baghdadis. Despite not garnering broad and consistent support from the Baghdadi community, the Zionist movement in Singapore was still able to raise substantial donations to the JNF and KH from a few wealthy Jews, both Baghdadi and Ashkenazi. Throughout the 1920s, the SZS maintained strong momentum and received a succession of high-profile Zionist envoys such as Israel Cohen and Albert Einstein.
The Zionist movements among the Baghdadi Jews in Singapore and Shanghai bear close resemblance in several features. Firstly, they were the two largest organized Zionist groups in the Baghdadi diaspora. Its vitality and accomplishment far exceeded the Bombay Zionist Association and the Calcutta Zionist Association, both founded by Baghdadi Jews. Such a difference is remarkable considering that these two communities in East Asia were much smaller than their counterparts in British India.
Secondly, the Baghdadi Jews in these two cities who contributed to the Zionist movement shared the same mode of participation. They supported Zionism primarily by making donations to Zionist funds and not by contributing manpower. They enjoyed prosperity in their current societies and did not consider emigration to Palestine as desirable or pertinent to their own lives. Such was also the goal of the Zionist authorities, whose principal objective in Asia was to persuade the Jewish communities, especially their wealthiest members, to make financial contributions to Zionist funds such as KH and JNF.
Thirdly, these two Zionist organizations were both founded and carried ahead by a few highly enthusiastic, wealthy, well-connected individuals who belonged to the upper class in their community. Elly Kadoorie and N.E.B. Ezra formed the backbone of the Zionist movement in Shanghai, while their counterparts Manasseh Meyer and his daughter Mozelle played seminal roles in leading the Zionist activities in Singapore. These individuals contributed the most funds and spearheaded most of the local fundraising campaigns. Their leadership was indispensable. In comparison, most Baghdadi Jews in these two communities were more detached from involvement in Zionism. Those who showed sympathy to the movement were willing to make occasional donations so long as their participation did not conflict with their other priorities. However, they were not the main driving force of Zionist fundraising. The existence and growth of the Baghdadi Zionist enterprise in these two East Asian cities were primarily the results of the indefatigable efforts of its leading figures.
Lastly, those who supported or sympathized with Zionism in these two communities preferred to envision Zionism as one potential option for a shared Jewish political future within the framework of British imperialism. Both the SZA and SZS were founded by wealthy Baghdadi Jews of British citizenship. The two Zionist groups’ main contributors were also from the same socioeconomic class of Jews who showed a strong affinity with British colonial rule. These Eastern Baghdadis saw their Zionism as working in alliance with British imperialism and cherished the prospect of a Jewish National Home under the protection of the British Empire. The ebbs and flows of their Zionist activities were closely intertwined with official British policies towards the Zionist project.
Conclusion
The Baghdadi Jews in Singapore and Shanghai during the colonial era considered themselves as simultaneously possessing three distinct but mutually inclusive identities: loyal and acculturated British colonial subjects, Jews devoted to their spiritual heritage, and members of the eastern diaspora. The Baghdadi Jews in these two cities who supported or showed sympathy to Zionism were both drawn from the upper class of their respective communities who identified closely with British rule. They considered their Zionism as working in conjunction with British imperialism and preferred to envision the movement as one potential option for a shared Jewish political future within the framework of the British Empire. They were most enthusiastic during the 1920s, when there was a prospect of establishing a Jewish National Home under the protection of the British mandate. After Britain reversed her position in the 1930s, most of the Baghdadi Jews in Shanghai and Singapore subsequently withdrew support to the Zionists and no longer consider their objectives as a desirable solution to the pressing issues confronting world Jewry.
[1] Israel’s Messenger (hereafter IM). 1 December 1922, p. 17; The Straits Times, 31 October, 3 November 1922: The reception took place at 5 p.m. at Belle Vue, Oxley Rise. Attendees included leading members of the Jewish community and the Anglican bishop of Singapore.
[2] IM, 5 January 1923–1–5, p. 16–17.
[3] IM, I December 1922, p. 18.
[4] For the purpose of this dissertation, I adopt the term “Baghdadi Jews” or “Eastern Baghdadis” (rather than Babylonian, Iraqi, or Sephardi) when referring to the diaspora. For discussion on the terminology, see S. R. Goldstein, “Baghdadi Jewish Networks in Hashemite Iraq: Jewish Transnationalism in the Age of Nationalism” (PhD diss., Leiden University, 2019), 69.
[5] Yishuv is the Hebrew word for the collective of Jewish residents living in Palestine before May of 1948. The Old Yishuv refers to the community of religious Jews who had continuously resided in the Holy Land and depended on external donations for support.
[6] The New Yishuv refers to the community of Zionist settlers who came to the Land of Israel after the First Aliah of 1882.
[7] Elizabeth E. Imber, “A Late Imperial Elite Jewish Politics: Baghdadi Jews in British India and the Political Horizons of Empire and Nation,” Jewish Social Studies 23, no. 2 (2018): 71, https://doi.org/10.2979/jewisocistud.23.2.03.
[8] Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeYisrael) was established in 1901 by Theodor Herzl to purchase and develop land in Palestine for Jewish settlements.
[9] Keren Hayesod was founded at the World Zionist Congress in London in 1920 in response to the Balfour Declaration. Its aim was to provide the Zionist movement with financial resources to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
