Jael Silliman

03 Notable members of and from the community

ABOUT

This exhibit represents those who were leaders in the Jewish community

These include the founders, the members who were active in Jewish community affairs, civic leaders, philanthropists, well known personalities, as well as religious leaders. Jews also served in the military and other state institutions. For example General JFR Jacob rose to be Lieutenant General of the Indian Army. Josh Solomon served in the police for many years and was in charge of police force in Darjeeling. Among the personalities represented are those who left Calcutta, and settled down in other countries.
Among remarkable persons are artists such as Gerry Judah and Eddie Joseph rose to be the best in the world in their respective fields: sculpture & design and magic. Businessmen such as BN Elias and Emmanuel Belilios built vast trading and industrial empires and amassed great wealth.

To sum up, Calcutta’s Jewish community gave the world plenty of exceptionally talented and hard-working people who left many marks around the world. It is important to preserve the memory about them and display their stories.

There were also many women pioneers who have been represented in another section, as are those who were in the media.

Shalome Aaron Cohen

Emanuel Belilios

David Joseph Ezra

Aaron Curlender

Yusef Shalome

David Haskell Cohen

Ramah Luddy

The Rev. David Hai Jacob Cohen

B. N. Elias

David Mordecai

D. J. Cohen

Emmanuel Elias

Josh Joshua

E. M. D. Cohen

Rachel Ezra

Bernard Jacob

Gerry Judah

J F R Jacob

Eddie Joseph

Rabbi Ezekiel Nissim Musleah

Hacham Twena

Maurice Shellim

Shalom Aaron Cohen

“…I would like to imagine my great-great-great grandfather arriving in a city where he was to leave his indelible marK on history. In his own words, however, the event could not have been recorded more plainly:

‘5^th August 1798: Last night I arrived in Calcutta.’

For Shalom Aaron Cohen of Aleppo the journey was not in itself unusual, being one of many in the course of his working life as a jeweler and highly successful trader on routes around the Middle East and India: but the end of this particular seven-month voyage from Surat, via Bombay and Madras, turned out to be the beginning of his destiny as founder of the Jewish community of Calcutta. On this voyage, Shalom brought his most essential retainers, a cook and a shohet (ritual slaughterer); he also brought a wealth of professional experience and a reputation of “Jewish Chief Merchant,” a title by which he was widely nown in Surat, a key trading center of the East India company. He was thirty-five years old.

A dwelling place rented from an Armenian in the Native town was Shalome’s first home; a year later, he was installed in Aloo gudam, Potato Godown, a roomy building which became a family residence for hiself, his wife and two daughters. Other Jews from Surat, and also from Aleppo, were lured to join the little immigrant band with jobs and good precious stones being just a few of the desirable commodities. They came; and by the end of a decade, the community had increased to about thirty people, held together by their common experience in a foreign land, but even more so by religious observance conducted by their leader under his own roof. In this way did the first synagogue of Calcutta come into being.

Shalome’s shoulders were more than capable of bearing the responsibility of communal worship, his confidence no doubt bolstered by a background of respect and recognition given to Jews by their Turkish overlords. According to Alex Russell, Physician to the British Factory in Eighteenth century Aleppo, “the established banker of the Seraglio is a Jew and the private bankers of most of the Grandees are Jews…” Further reading gives us the impression than when their feasts and festivals came around, the commercial world was driven practically to a standstill; departures of caravans were delayed and postponements were not unusual; nothing could interfere with the Jewish holidays.

Shalome followed the spirit of the law learned in his birthplace, to which he never returned, ending his days in Calcutta in 1836 at the age of seventy-three. His legacy survives till today in the Jewish cemetery where he lies (a plot, for which we are told, he presented his Muslim friend with the token payment of a ruby ring), and in the Calcutta Jewish Community, which continues to survive one hundred and sixty years after his death.”

From Hooghly Tales, by Sally Solomon, p 57 – 58, David Ashley Publishing, 1998, London.

David Mordecai

A Brief Biography by Anita Blackman (née Mordecai)

1909 – 1973

David Mordecai (or “D. Mordecai”, as he chose to copyright his photographs) was born in Calcutta, India in 1909, to Isaac and Esther Mordecai, also born in India, but of Bagdadi (and possibly Portuguese) ancestry. Although the family business was the flourishing line of condiments under the name of Daw Sen & Company, David’s interests were to lie elsewhere.

At the age of 13, he contracted a life-threatening malarial virus, which necessitated his going to Java for treatment. (One of his brothers had succumbed to the disease, and his father contracted it as well, though he recovered.) David, too, recovered and his trip home through the Far East and Burma seemed to have spurred his interest in photography. David’s mother presented him with his first camera – a Kodak box – and it was then that his family discovered the irrepressible photography streak in their youngest member. He clicked away constantly – at classmates, family gatherings and birthdays – and paid scant attention to his studies. By the time he dropped out of the Intermediate Arts course at St. Xavier’s College, he had begun accepting small assignments from friends and relatives for festive occasions and gatherings, voraciously reading photographic journals and following international developments in the field.

Though his family did not take his photography very seriously, when he was inducted into the pickle business, he requested and received a “sophisticated” camera from his older brothers – an 800-rupee Rolleiflex. However, he felt cramped in the family business and in 1935 he broke away and established the Deluxe Art Studio with a couple of friends to finance it. In an age when most studio proprietors stuck to passport pictures, David’s interest lay in portraits. His efforts attracted notice, and the business thrived. However, by then David had his wife Trixie and child (Esthére) to support, and due to a disagreement with his partners over profit-sharing, he withdrew from the studio.

Seeing his despair over these developments, the family allowed him space for his own studio on the premises of the condiment factory. With meager funds and his faithful Rolleiflex, David started out anew on the lonely road of a man with unconventional ideas. However, his portrait clients remembered him and a glazing machine and enlarger soon found their place in his studio. He was a perfectionist, and acquired the expertise for developing negatives himself, also using the services of Kodak’s processing department in Calcutta.

Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, he won his first major assignment: a large portrait of Thomas Bata (of the Bata Shoe Company), who was travelling through Calcutta at the time. In addition, there was an order for 400 enlargements which were circulated to all the Bata Shoe outlets worldwide. However, as the war broke out, David fell critically ill again, with a liver abscess.

Ironically, this misfortune was again a turning point in David’s life. The German doctor, Hans Handel, who successfully treated his near-fatal condition, was very impressed by his photographic talents, and had developed a parental affection for David. Handel introduced him to a close friend, John Clark of the Bengal Nagpur Railways. At that time, railway posters were mainly hand-drawn prints. David mentioned his rate for a set of 10 pictures, and ended up with a commission for a thousand! By the time the Americans landed in Calcutta in 1942, David had plunged into his countrywide photographic expeditions. He had not only secured the Bengal Nagpur Railways’ entire network, but had given the railways some of their early photo-imprinted posters.

Around 1942 to 1945, by which time he had a second daughter (Anita), David’s life took a new turn: he began to shoot India in all her multiple aspects. The Americans were insatiable in their appetite for photographic impressions of the Indian people and culture. The studio (named “The Anna Art Press”) was flooded with orders and he and his brothers-in-law (not to mention his wife Trixie who contributed as well) worked 20 hours a day, every day, to meet the demand. David would return to hand over the exposed rolls of film, leaving explicit instructions before he was off again to an unexplored destination.

With his beloved wife as his constant travel companion and patient assistant, a camera kit consisting of two Rolleiflexes, a Hasselblad and a Speed Graphic, David tirelessly criss-crossed the country, memorializing on film the myriad faces and fantastic range of Indian temple carvings and architecture, and landscapes both urban and rural. Little escaped his lens – the Khyber Pass, the Himalayas, a street in Peshawar, the lined face of a pipe-smoking Bhutia and other wildly exotic and colorful tribespeople, a Mizo tribal dance, Khajurao, or fisherman on the shimmering Hooghly river. It was a daunting prospect, and Trixie and David sometimes spent nights on trolley cars at obscure railway stations.

David was Calcutta’s only still photographer to be awarded an official accreditation to the American Departmental Exchange, then housed in Calcutta. Around this time, he published his travel memoirs, a 52-print album titled, “India Through the Camera’s Eye”.

The Americans left, and activities waned at the studio. But David’s creative instincts were not to be dampened. Adding a printing press to the laboratory, and tying up with the National Tobacco Company’s photo offset wing, he reached into his treasure trove of 5,000 negatives and started producing Calcutta’s first photographic corporate calendars and wall posters, catering to major corporations such as Karamchand Thapar, Titagurh Paper Mills, India Paper & Pulp, Dunlop, Chloride, India Foils, and numerous others. In the mid-1940s, David covered Martin Burn’s World Bank projects, and Sir Biren Mukherjee personally thanked him at a company dinner in honor of Eugene Black, World Bank president.

Eventually, seven automatic printing machines and 100 employees serviced David’s designing, retouching, hand-tinting (black-and-white then being in vogue), line-drawing and lettering departments, and he had a clientele of 62 companies. One of his successful creative experiments during this phase was to impress photographic images on bone china crockery.

He shot for posterity the Nehrus and Tenzing Norgay (who became a personal friend) at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling in the wake of the Everest triumph, Sir Edmund Hillary, the official portrait of King Mahendra and Queen Ratna of Nepal (these portraits graced their palace), and many prominent Indian film stars. David and Trixie moved gracefully and without affectation in all circles – from royalty and celebrity to the common people. He contributed either by compiling, printing, publishing, editorially, or photographically to such books as “The Jews of Calcutta” by Flower Elias and Judith Elias Cooper, The Himalayas: An Illustrated Summary of the World’s Highest Mountain Ranges (1966); (even I, as Mrs. M. Morris, receive an acknowledgement in that one, for my assistance!), “King Mahendra, The Poet” by Y.G. Krishnamurti, and Rebel, King & Statesman – King Mahendra of Nepal, also by Y.G. Krishnamurti (in which the author gives David and Trixie too, a most generous acknowledgement).

However, the traveler in him persisted, and in 1957-58 while his children were in school, (including his third daughter, Cheryl, born in 1947), he and Trixie sailed out on their last marathon journey to the Far East, North America, Europe and Scandinavia, and into distant Lapland. He kept shooting – the surging Niagara Falls, an isolated church in the Swiss Alps, the Matterhorn looming over a gushing stream, a serene Japanese pagoda, desolate Grecian ruins, a Belgian home reflected in a town canal, and countless other images. Some, though unfortunately not all, of David’s photographs and negatives, have been saved and are stored by his daughters in London and Los Angeles; others – particularly those of Europe – had to be left behind in India and are no longer available.

After that memorable and productive trip, David was struck down with spondilitis and other spinal problems, which sadly proved to be the beginning of the end, and until his passing in 1973, he suffered greatly – a sad contrast to the “Superman” photography award he won from London as a 19-year-old for his frames on physical culture.

So, here ends a tale of perseverance and determination and great talent. He leaves a legacy of important photographs and personal relationships, and his name will be remembered with respect and admiration for his achievements and the man he was . . . all having started with a kid and a box camera.

A selection of his photographs, portraits and landmarks, may be seen in http://www.jewishcalcutta.in/exhibits/show/business/david-mordecai–a-selection-of and http://www.jewishcalcutta.in/exhibits/show/business/david-mordecai–photographs-of . The photo collection is courtesy Anita Blackman.

Gerry Judah

Gerry Judah’s maternal and paternal grandparents came from Baghdad to settle in the already established Baghdadi Jewish community in India and Burma. His mother was born in Calcutta and his father in Rangoon. Gerry Judah was born in 1951 in Calcutta and grew up in West Bengal before his family moved to London when he was ten years old.

As a boy, the dramatic landscapes of India and the ornate architecture of its temples, mosques and synagogues with their theatrical rituals had a profound effect on Judah’s developing psyche. These theatrical elements were to resurface in his own later work. Austere London, still in its post-war drab, was a shock to the young boy, and he chose to spend as much time as possible in his bedroom conjuring up with pencils and paper imaginary landscapes, architectural fantasies and futuristic cars, leading him to want to become an artist.

Judah left Whitefield Secondary Modern School, London in 1969 and worked in a number of jobs: from kitchen porter (Blooms Restaurant, Golders Green, London) to architectural draughtsman (T.P Bennett and Son – London, Richard Seifert and Partners – London and Douglas Scott, the designer of the Routemaster bus). After this he went on to study Foundation Art and Design at Barnet College of Art (1970–1972) before obtaining a degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London (1972–1975) and studying sculpture as a postgraduate at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (1975–1977).   After college, Judah set up his studio in Shaftesbury Avenue, the theatre centre in the West End of London. There, he began to work on large sculptures. Needing still to earn his keep and finance his work, he took casual work round the corner in many theatres as a stage hand and scenic artist. This included work at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Royal Festival Ballet, London Contemporary Dance, Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet, Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre.

Taken with the public nature of this work Judah decided to find settings for his own art in more public arenas than the rarefied spaces of conventional galleries. He began to build a reputation for innovative design, working in film, television, theatre, museums and public spaces. He created settings for the BBC, British Museum, Museum of Mankind, Natural History Museum, Imperial War Museum, Museum of Tolerance, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, The Who and many other performers. He has also created sculptures for Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Ford, Rolls-Royce, Honda, Toyota, Land Rover, Alfa Romeo and Lotus at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed and bridges in London and Cambridge.   Amongst a number of commissions from public museums and institutions, Judah was asked by the Imperial War Museum in London to create a large model of the selection ramp in Auschwitz-Birkenau for the Holocaust Exhibition opened by Queen Elizabeth II. Extensive research and numerous visits to Auschwitz led him to produce work that encouraged his art into yet a new direction. Returning to his fine art beginnings he began to make art born of his reflections on historical and contemporary events creating a body of large three-dimensional paintings exploring the devastations of war and the ravages man has made upon the environment caused by recent conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East with solo exhibitions: FRONTIERS at the Timber Yard – London in 2005, ANGELS at the Royal Institute of British Architects – London in 2006 and the British High Commission – Delhi in 2007, MOTHERLANDS at the Louise T Blouin Foundation – London in 2007, COUNTRY at Wolverhampton Art Gallery – Wolverhampton 2009, BABYLON at Flowers East Gallery – London in 2009, COUNTRY at the Fitzroy Gallery – New York in 2010, THE CRUSADER at the Imperial War Museum North – Manchester in 2011, BENGAL as part of TIPPING POINT at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery – Wolverhampton in 2013 and two sculptures in St Paul’s Cathedral – London commemorating 100 years since the beginning of World War 1.

Rabbi Ezekiel Nissim Musleah

Rabbi Ezekiel N. Musleah was born in Calcutta, India, into a family that emigrated there from Baghdad in 1820. From the time he was a young man he wished to serve the community as a rabbi and went to train in America for this purpose. After he graduated from the University of Calcutta with a degree in philosophy, he traveled across continents to study at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1952 and immediately returned to India, where he served as religious leader of his native community for twelve years.

Rabbi Musleah improved religious instruction in Calcutta, guided many members of the community to make aliyah to Israel, opened interfaith dialogue, and represented the community with excellence. But the community was dwindling, as Jews left Calcutta to immigrate to other parts of the world, making it increasingly difficult to maintain a community with all its necessary institutions. He, too, decided to pursue a more vibrant Jewish life in the United States, and emigrated with his family in 1964.

He served as rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, the second oldest functioning Jewish congregation in the U.S., and later became chairman of the Beth Din, or Jewish religious court, based in Philadelphia. He received his doctorate in Hebrew Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary, culminating in the publication of his research in a book called On the Banks of The Ganga: The Sojourn of Jews in Calcutta, a foundational and scholarly work. He continued to research and write about the Calcutta Jewish community in four other publications: Kol Zimra: a Hebrew-English volume of religious songs sung in Jewish India; Kirú Aharai: a manual for mourners; No Shortcuts to Far Horizons, his autobiography, and Bits and Pieces, a memoir.

Rabbi Musleah and his wife Margaret have three daughters, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. His daughter Rahel, a journalist, singer and speaker, has recorded the music of the community in Jewish Rhythms from Baghdad to India, and in B’Kol Arev: Songs of the Jews of Calcutta. She writes and speaks extensively on the Jewish community of Calcutta, its stories, customs, history and music.

Rabbi Musleah has adapted a quote from Harry Emerson Fosdick, an American pastor, to reflect his insight on the continuity of his family:

“The Musleah Tree – Baghdad, Calcutta, United States of America.”

“We ask the leaf – Are you complete in yourself?”

And the leaf answered ‘No, my life is in the branches.’ ”

“We ask the branches, and the branches answer: ‘No, my life is in the root.’”

“We ask the root, and the root answers: ‘”No, my life is in the trunk.’”

“We ask the trunk, the root, the branches and the leaves. Keep the branches stripped of leaves and I shall die.”

Rabbi Musleah comments: “I am the leaf. I have had my fill of chlorophyll – color, warmth and anchor – but I have never felt complete in myself. My life is in my roots – the source, kernel and anchorage of my forbears. But roots are not sufficient for survival. We need a sturdy trunk and branches to attain stability. My wife, Margaret, of Baghdadi rabbinic stock, adds stamina and continuance to the health of our tree. In no small measure she exemplifies “the woman of valor” and sound motherhood to our children, who represent endurance by transmitting to their children what we have taught them. Each part of the tree must play its role in the survival process.

“I as leaf will cease to exist. The life I have lived; the pioneering path I have traversed; the color, warmth and ardor that I have tried to exhibit—all have come to naught but for the hope that come next spring, a fresh set of leaves will appear and the tree will continue to thrive.

“This is the tenor of Etz Musleah – the Musleah tree. It is the story of a tree rooted in Baghdad, Iraq, regenerated and blossomed in Calcutta, India, and matured in America. It has had vicissitudes, been hit by storms, struck by high winds and reinforced. After all, the name of the tree is Musleah [Hebrew, matzliah, successful]– it is destined to renew itself and flourish!”

Maurice Shellim

Nicola Jennings and Valerie Collis (nieces)

Maurice Arthur Shellim was born on 12 February, 1915 in Shanghai of Iraqi Jewish origin. He spent most of his childhood and working life in Calcutta; he was a scion of both the British and the Sephardic Jewish communities, a frequent figure at the races, Bengal Club and other local haunts. After school, he was sent to England to train as a doctor at Guy’s Hospital in London after which he returned to Calcutta and worked as a GP. He moved to England for the latter part of his long life.

Maurice went to boarding school in Darjeeling and in the 30s was sent to London where he trained as a doctor at Guys Hospital but along with his peer group they were never given a graduation ceremony due to the war. In the second world war he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, keeping an extensive diary which tells of his experiences in Italy after the Allied Landing. After he was demobbed he returned to Calcutta setting up in general medical practice, and was the doctor for the crew of BOAC (now British Airways); he was also President of the Geographical Association. But in the meantime, he had fallen in love with Italy and on his many visits there he became a self taught artist developing a distinctive style; he went on to exhibit in many London galleries, and five hundred or so of his paintings have found their way into private homes all over the world.

In the late 1960s he bought a painting by the 19th century British painter Thomas Daniell and this led to a life-long passion for paintings by a number of other British painters living in India, but in particular Thomas Daniell and his nephew William. He wrote a book on their works and travels in Papanasum in southern India, and is celebrated for having compiled the catalogues of both father and nephew as well that of another artist, John D’Oyly. He was also called upon by Christie’s in London to authenticate many new found paintings.

Maurice’s most important contribution to Calcutta was his involvement in the Park Street Cemetery. Opened in 1767 it is where many British families were buried. He organised the cleaning of it and raised funds by giving donors a lane named after themselves. In 1986 he published, for the British Association for Cemeteries of South Asia, “On progress in restoring ‘The Great Cemetery’”, a project to which he devoted a considerable amount of time; and he wrote a booklet giving the names and dates and map detailing the many who were buried there. Another of his passions was music: he was an accomplished pianist, and composed a song deeply evocative of the inter-war period.

Maurice eventually settled in London as did the rest of his immediate family, but on his frequent visits to Calcutta he worked as a locum in the practice he had set up. He was a true gentleman, wonderful raconteur, full of wit and humour; he was invariably invited to dinner when an important dignitary was visiting: Prince Charles later with Mrs Parker Bowles, the Maharaja of Burdwan, the Queen…. He died in London in 2009 at the age of 94 but his heart and soul was always in Calcutta.