Page 6 - Boca ViewPointe - September '20

Page 6, Viewpointe September 2020
Book Review

Jewish Wanderers, Moguls, Then there was Victor Sassoon, scion, playboy, breeder
Merchants, Book Dealers, of horses, complete English gentleman, educated at Harrow
and Cambridge, candidate for London city Council. When
Exiles defeated in the election by forty votes, he followed his
grandfather’s career path, immigrating to Bombay, building
Jonathan Kaufman. The Last Kings of Shanghai. The Rival an industrial empire and incidentally advising the statesman
Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China. New Winston Churchill to pay heed and cultivate the rising star,
York: Viking, 2020. Mahatma Gandhi. Advice that was ignored. Thence he moved
Françoise Frenkel. A Bookshop in Berlin, trans. Stephanie to Shanghai, built up his holding including the iconic Cathay
Smee. New York: Atria Books, 2017. hotel. Victor was an assimilated Englishman, not identified with
My father was a wanderer from Aram (i.e. Mesopotamia) the faith of his ancestry. Nevertheless he worked along with
Passover Haggadah his cousins, the Kadoories, to provide a refuge in Shanghai
for Jews fleeing from Nazi dominated Europe in the nineteen
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers thirties. Later he would deal with the Japanese who extended
community in Baghdad forced by the shift in political winds to their dominance to Shanghai during Second World War, though
The Jewish people perhaps flee imprisonment, picked up and settled in India, where he was he, unlike his cousins, managed to escape imprisonment by the
have rightly been identified able to undertake businesses in cotton and finance becoming Japanese. At sixty five, he established himself in the Bahamas,
as a nation of wanderers. in a decade one of the richest men in India, also becoming a followed by a first marriage to an American nurse from Dallas;
From the Patriarchs, naturalized British citizen. He sent his son Elias to Shanghai at the end of his life, he still was intent and planning to extend
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, where the Sassoons again would extend their empire in Banking, his empire to Texas. The disabled grandson of the patriarch,
each of whom was driven Real estate, Rubber, and the burgeoning power industry. The crippled in an airplane crash, easily achieved the heights of
by a mixture of ambition, women were no less distinguished; Elly’s wife, a British heiress social climbing, of whom, Will Rogers quipped, “the J.P.
practical and commercial in her own right, brought her husband into the right circles, so Morgan of China and India,” matched the success of his
considerations, and divine that a man without a country, not only became a British citizen, grandfather, grand-uncles, uncles, cousins, and perhaps even
calling. Two traumatic events but was knighted by King George V. Flora Sassoon becoming a surpassed them.
in our history were the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C.E. which widow upon the death of her husband Solomon who also was her Mr. Kaufman’s book will further enlighten you about the
sent some 10,000 Jews of Canaan to Mesopotamia, and the uncle (thus claiming Sassoon ancestry on both sides), challenged history of the Far East, particularly the transition in China from
Roman conquest in 70 A.D. which brought about the scattering her brothers-in-law over control of her husband’s empire and imperial monarchy, to Republic, to rule by the Generals, to the
of the Jewish nation literally to the corners of the earth. ruled it for awhile. Rachel Sassoon, David’s daughter, converted Japanese occupation, and finally to the Communist dictatorship.
A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter with a specialization in to Christianity and then married the German tycoon, Frederick Mao Zedong, himself almost slain, expelled from Shanghai in
the Far East, Jonathan Smart begins his account of the Baghdad Beer, also a convert from Judaism; yet she became a journalist the nineteen twenties during the time that the Kadoories and
branch of the Jewish nation by underlining the critical results and activist for the cause of righting the injustice against Captain
of the Babylonian exile. A little known fact among laymen Alfred Dreyfus in 1894. Book Review on page 7
and even scholars is that while history records the return of
many at the behest of Cyrus, King of Persia, other Jews chose
to remain in Mesopotamia and make a life for themselves Boca Pointe Community Association, Inc.
in the Arabian diaspora. Mr. Smart’s book identifies this 6909 SW 18th St., Suite A120
remnant which remained for more than two millennia. The Boca Raton, FL 33433 A special Thank You to our monthly volunteer contributing writers
Babylonian Jews while acknowledging their preference for Office (561) 395-7551 Fax (561) 395-5936
their Arabian domicile, they neither renounced their faith Email: info@bocapointe.com Steve Handwerker Harold Katz Frank Weinstock
Bob Kronish
Harriet Rubin
Lin Schader
nor their commitment to their homeland (not dissimilar to Website: www.bocapointe.com Mort Mazor Jack Kulick Justin Mocha
American Jews today who comfortably fit into American life Access Control Judith Levy Elaine Rubinson Barry J. Haberman
without renouncing their ties to their history and past). In the Operator: (561) 395-3392 Dr. Ronald J. Meyers Anne Gannon Peter Sachs
other book under review with a similar theme, a memoir by Voice mail system: (561) 395-3369 Lisa Sileo Elyse Weintraub Brown Steven L. Abrams
Françoise Frenkel, she describes her journey from Poland to Website: www.gateaccess.net Rayna Becker Helen Karpel Rochelle Wilensky
Lori Deibel
Hillary Reynolds
Arthur Dermer
France to Berlin to originate a most notable French bookshop Staff George Steinman Oris Martin Tina Fernandez
in Berlin Germany until she was forced to leave--due to her Kathleen O’Donovan, General Manager Halli Moore Robert Weinroth
national origin. Lisa Cammaleri, Assistant Manager
Unbeknownst to me was how thriving was Jewish life in Yvonne Rivera, Administrative Assistant The views of the writers of the various articles in this newspaper do not
Justin Mocha, Director of Security
the Arabian diaspora had been. Also unbeknownst to me were necessarily reflect the views of the Boca Pointe Community Association.
the personages in Kaufman’s telling, extraordinarily rich and Viewpointe of Boca Pointe is the newspaper The Association nor the individual writers are not responsible for claims
influential the Kadoories and the Sassoons, cousins, supreme of Boca Pointe Community Association, Inc. or promises contained in any advertising material appearing in the
businessmen, and rivals. Both families followed similar Please direct all questions, comments or Viewpointe. Such claims and promises are the sole responsibility of the
articles for Viewpointe to lisa.cammaleri@
individual advertiser.
trajectories; after creating a family of notable wealth, they fsresidential.com.
bragged that they were richer than the upstart Rothschilds, they
were forced into exile from their home country, and sought other
commercial opportunities; both families gravitated to India and Want Results Now?
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