In Memory of Renée Dangoor, A”H and her husband, Sir Naim Dangoor, OBE, A”H, who founded (with Ahmed Safwat) Coca-Cola in Iraq, published The Scribe – Journal of Babylonian Jewry (read the 50th Anniversary issue here), and established The Exilarch’s Foundation, an exceptional educational philanthropy
Click here to dedicate a future issue in honor or memory of a loved one
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The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi Ideas Monthly (SIM) is a continuing series of essays and interviews from the rich, multi-dimensional world of Sephardi thought and culture that is delivered to your inbox every month.
Following October 7th, SIM focused its attention on Israel’s war with Hamas, from the the streets of Ofakim to the ideological war that is splitting the Islamic world from Morocco to Iran.
For this month, SIM is redirecting its attention to the series that we originally launched in January, 2023, “Jews in Asia: From the Baghdadis to Ben Gurion & Beyond.” While keeping an eye on the situation, upcoming issues of SIM will explore the fascinating but little-known history of Jews across South and East Asia. However, before we return to investigating different perspectives on Jewish life from within this multi-cultural Asian matrix, it would be amiss if we didn’t note how, by following its own course, SIM’s inquiry into Jewish history in Asia recently shed light on a small, largely overlooked but significant episode in the global response to Israel’s fight with Islamist forces.
Three of SIM’s pieces last year treated Jewish life in Singapore, including a conversation about “the Singapore-Israel Connection” with Bilahari Kausikan, doyen of Singapore’s diplomatic corps. Kausikan noted that his city-state is “profoundly grateful for the central role that Israel played in establishing our armed forces” and that, like Israel, Singapore considers Islamism to be a threat. As such, SIM’s readers weren’t surprised when, on 19 December, a little over two months after Hamas’ attack, Singapore sent the country’s first ambassador, Ian Mak, to publicly present his credentials to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog. In our time of fake news and bad faith actors, it is important to remember that tough-minded, clear thinking about political things remains alive, and that the pint-sized, global financial power in southeast Asia, Singapore, proudly stands as a friend of the Jewish state.
Turning out attention north of Singapore, during last year’s travels SIM explored “Jazz-Age Shanghai’s Surprising Sephardi Significance.” This month we return to the cosmopolitan port-city with a fascinating and largely forgotten mini-history offered by a thoughtful insider, Renée Rebecca Dangoor’s “The Jews of Shanghai.”
(Photo courtesy of Dangoor.com)
Renée Dangoor was born in Shanghai in 1925 to Baghdadi Jewish parents who had relocated to China’s east coast for business. Her family moved back to Baghdad when Renée was a child, and at twenty-one the intelligent and beautiful young woman was crowned the first Miss Baghdad and then the first Miss Iraq. But Baghdad didn’t capture Dangoor’s imagination as much as the city of her birth, Shanghai:
Scattered far and wide throughout the world today are the remnants of what was once a community entitled by every known definition to be called “unique”.
It will never reassemble. There will never be another like it. It took a hundred years to come into being, less than five to break it up. Shanghai used to be called “Paris of the Orient”. For a city of its size and importance, Shanghai had the most alluring small-town atmosphere, friendly and intimate. It was an example to the world of how people of sixty-three nations, of diverse colour and creed, could live and do business together.
Dangoor begins her narrative in the 1840s with the arrival from Baghdad of “David Sassoon and Sons Limited” and concludes with her family’s visit to the Middle Kingdom in 1989. Aside from her inclusive view that begins with the Baghdadis but also traces the life of Russian, German, Austrian and Polish Jewish communities in Shanghai, Dangoor’s presentation is also remarkable for its graceful delicacy. Her narration seems to be governed by the rule that if one must pass a judgment, it should be a favorable judgment. What’s more, some things are better left unsaid, or at least better said by others. Thus Silas Hardoon, the wealthy and influential businessman from the Baghdadi Jewish community, is celebrated by Dangoor for “the unique distinction of being appointed to both governing councils – the international and French – at the same time.” The controversies over Hardoon’s assimilation to Buddhist culture and the distribution of his estate after Hardoon’s passing, issues that arouse the interest of historians of Shanghai Jewry, fall outside of Dangoor’s concerns. And so on.
(Photo courtesy of her son, David Dangoor, CBE)
Dangoor dedicates a large portion of her history to the Nazis’ attempt to induce the occupation Japanese authorities to round up Shanghai’s German and Austrian Jews as part of the German final solution. The Japanese refused to participate in the diabolical plan, and Dangoor concludes with a thought-provoking story that involves her influential father, Mr. Maurice Dangoor, who served as President of the Sephardi Community during the war and was compelled to provide the Japanese with monthly statements of income and expenditure:
A Japanese officer asked my father, “Tell me please, why do the Germans hate the Jews so much?” My father replied, “because we are of Asian origin.” That remark wasn’t lost on the officer.
An almost identical exchange, it should be noted, is recorded in the name of another prominent Jew living in Shanghai during WWII, Shimon Sholom Kalish, “the Amshinover Rebbe,” who instead of referring to “Asian origin” is reported to have explained to a high-ranking Japanese military official, “They hate us because we are Orientals. They believe that all Orientals, including the Japanese, are inferior to them.”
The history of this very interesting anecdote and the multiplicity of meanings implied in its telling wait to be unpacked by scholars. For now, however, it is worthwhile comparing the versions and noting two points in Dangoor’s pithy narration: the fact that Maurice Dangoor doesn’t feel the need to spell out all of the details illustrates the family’s characteristic restraint, and the room left for the Japanese officer to understand the implications for himself echoes the hints, thick and thin, by which communication sometimes proceeds in East and South Asian culture. Seen from this angle, Maurice Dangoor’s remark that “we are of Asian origin” assumes a cultural resonance beyond the story’s immediate political import.
Sephardi Ideas Monthly is happy to relaunch our exploration of Jewish life in Asia with Renée Dangoor’s insider’s portrait of “The Jews of Shanghai,” and we look forward to continuing our journey through Asia in the months ahead.
Read Renée Rebecca Dangoor’s “The Jews of Shanghai.”
Additional Viewing:
The World Jewish Congress remembers and celebrates Renée Dangoor. Note: since this video was made, research has revealed the much deadlier toll taken by the Nazi-inspired Islamist mob during the Farhud.
A Photo Tribute to Renée Dangoor
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2008, Aluminum Cast
Sculpted by renowned Baghdad-born artist Oded Halahmy
The Wolf of Baghdad (Memoir of a lost homeland)
By Carol Isaacs
In the 1940s a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. Within a decade nearly all 150,000 had been expelled, killed or had escaped. This graphic memoir of a lost homeland is a wordless narrative by an author homesick for a home she has never visited.
Transported by the power of music to her ancestral home in the old Jewish quarter of Baghdad, the author encounters its ghost-like inhabitants who are revealed as long-gone family members. As she explores the city, journeying through their memories and her imagination, she at first sees successful integration, and cultural and social cohesion. Then the mood turns darker with the fading of this ancient community’s fortunes.
This beautiful wordless narrative is illuminated by the words and portraits of her family, a brief history of Baghdadi Jews and of the making of this work. Says Isaacs: ‘The Finns have a word, kaukokaipuu, which means a feeling of homesickness for a place you’ve never been to. I’ve been living in two places all my life; the England I was born in, and the lost world of my Iraqi-Jewish family’s roots.’
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Upcoming Event
Iraqi Jewish playwright and former ASF Board Member Anwar Suliman’s Village Theatre Production LLC presents:
Café Munich
A gritty, cerebral drama about the far flung consequences of WWII in 1992 Germany
10, 11, 18 February at 7:00PM EST
Upper Westside in The Center at West Park
165 West 86th Street, New York, NY 10024
Sign-up Now!
Tickets: General Admission $18
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The American Sephardi Federation is proud to co-present:
JewCE!
The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience
The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience is a three-part exhibit introducing the public to the vast and rich world of Jewish comics.
This dynamic exhibition is a joint effort by all Partners at the Center for Jewish History, which includes the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the Center for Jewish History itself. Together, we aim to bring to life the fascinating world of Jewish comics, showcasing the powerful fusion of Jewish culture, history, and artistic expression.
JewCE! The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience brings together an impressive collection of original artworks, historical artifacts, and interactive installations. These exhibits celebrate the rich tapestry of Jewish narratives depicted through the lens of comics and graphic storytelling. Visitors will have the unique opportunity to witness the evolution of Jewish themes in comics over time, from classic newspaper comic strips to contemporary graphic novels.
The exhibit also provides visitors access to the Jewish Comics Experience Reading Library, where they can relax, browse, and read Jewish comics from the last hundred years.
The ASF’s section features four works: Carol Isaac’s Wolf of Baghdad, Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat, Aomar Boum’s Undesirables, & Asaf Hanuka’s Le Juif Arabe
On View in the Rosenberg and Winnick Galleries, Mezzanine
through 18 February 2024
@The Center for Jewish History
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The American Sephardi Federation presents:
Convergence: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian Calligraphy in Conversation
Featuring the multilingual art of Ruben Shimonov Convergence creates a visual world where Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian languages interact with, and speak to, one another; a world where stylized letters and words dance together on the page; a world where cultures, religions, communities, and philosophies intersect.
Juxtaposing cognates from these ancient West Asian languages, artist Ruben Shimonov encourages the viewer to explore the deep-rooted connections between these tongues, as well as the multilayered and transnational identity of the artist himself.
On View in the Leon Levy Gallery
through 31 May 2024
@ the Center for Jewish History
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The American Sephardi Federation and Mimouna Association’s Rebuilding Our Homes Project present:
Re-Creation: Judaica by Moroccan Muslim Artisans
Explore the exhibition of Judeo-Moroccan art, Moroccan Judaica, cultural and religious objects, including Menorot, Mezuzot, Yads, Shabbat Candleholders, Seder Plates, Hallah Covers, and much more.
On View through 31 May 2024
@ the Center for Jewish History
As Moroccan Jewish populations largely left the mellahs (Jewish quarters) in the latter half of the 20th century, there was a danger that not only designs but even the traditional artisanal techniques needed to create them would be lost. Passed down from one artisan to another and perfected over time, these designs and techniques. ranging from vibrant patterns to intricate metalwork and soulful wood carvings, are expressions of Moroccanity and reflect the individual character of each city. The materials and craftsmanship of Rabat are different than Fez, and Essaouira is distinct from both.
Mimouna Association and the American Sephardi Federation’s Rebuilding Our Homes Project, a multi-year USAID-supported New Partnerships Initiative, brought three notable experts-Ms. Zhor Rehihil, Ms. Deborah Koenigsberger Gutierrez, and Ms. Meryem Ghandi to train Moroccan Muslim artisans in the history of Judeo-Moroccan art and guided them in re-creating Moroccan Judaica, which encompasses a diverse array of cultural and religious objects, including Menorot, Mezuzot, Yads, Shabbat Candleholders, Seder Plates, Hallah Covers, and much more.