Ezra Dangoor

Hakham Ezra Reuben Dangoor (1848–1930) was the Chief Rabbi of Baghdad from 1923 to 1926, and the founder of the first publishing company in Baghdad.

Ezra Dangoor
Born	1848 Baghdad, Iraq
Died	1930
Occupation	Rabbi
Children	Eliahou Dangoor
Relatives	Sir Naim Eliahou Dangoor (grandson)

Ezra Dangoor and family, Baghdad, 1910

Early life

Ezra Sasson ben Reuven Dangoor was born in 1848 in Baghdad, Iraq. He was educated in Baghdad, where he studied under Rabbi Abdallah Somekh.

Career

Dangoor worked as a ritual slaughterer and ritual circumciser, before from 1880 to 1886 working as the scribe in charge of writing documents issued by the Baghdad's Bet Din.[1]

Dangoor was the Chief Rabbi of Rangoon, Burma from 1893 or 1894, but had to return to Baghdad in 1895 due to ill health.[1][2]

In 1904, Dangoor opened the first printing press in Baghdad, which printed Arabic textbooks as well as books in Hebrew.[3][4] Dangoor was the author of several books and commentaries on the Torah.[2]

From 1923 to 1926, Dangoor was Chief Rabbi of Baghdad.[2]

Personal life

Dangoor had five children: Sion, Abdulla Joseph, Farha (who married Shaul Basri), Eliahou and Moshe.

Death and legacy

Dangoor died in 1930. He was the grandfather of Sir Naim Eliahou Dangoor (1914–2015), and of the wife of the latter and Iraq's first beauty queen, Renée Dangor, and also the great-grandfather of the philanthropist David Dangoor.

References

1. "Dangoor, Ezra Sasson ben Reuven". Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
2. Basri, Meer (June 2003). "Prominent Iraqi Jews of recent times". The Scribe (76). Retrieved 12 January 2016.
3. Khabbaza, Albert (1 April 2010). The Last Tango in Baghdad. AuthorHouse. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-4490-8830-9. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
4. "Ecclesiastes with a new Judaeo-Arabic translation and two commentaries by the Late Hakham Ezra Reuben Dangoor Chief Rabbi of Baghdad". dangoor. Retrieved 22 November 2015.