Though their most famous member was a WWI poet, the Sassoon family is primarily known for its banking and other business activities going back almost six centuries.
Originally based in Spain, the family has worked out of numerous countries, including the now-defunct Ottoman Empire, India, the UK, Singapore, Iran and the US, to name but a few.
Indeed, they were so rich at one point that their wealth not only rivalled, but ultimately exceeded that of the Rothschilds‘, gaining the nickname of the “Rothschilds of the East” due to their vast wealth, Jewish religion and intermarriage between the two families!
Origins
Although there is some debate as to the exact origins of the Sassoon family, the modern family can trace their origins back to the Spanish city of Toledo in the early 11th century.
Known as the “Ibn Shoshan” family, the Sassoons were a noted Jewish family of scholars, philosophers, physicians, rabbis and court ministers, who lived in the Upper Quarter of Toledo’s Jewish quarter – then the place where the city’s leading Jews lived.
Several members of the family were even close to Samuel ibn Naghrillah, better known as Samuel HaNagid in English. Indeed, they were so close that several members of the family were addressed in some of his poems!
Primarily a scholastic family, the Ibn Shoshan family began to transition to becoming a family of Jewish money changers (a precursor to today’s bankers) establishing a finance and trading house in the 12th century.
By the end of the century, the Ibn Shoshan family (sometimes referred to as the “Sassoon family”) were one of the richest Jewish families in Toledo and the family even became the personal bankers to Alfonso X of Castile!
Yet this prosperity wouldn’t last. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued the Alhambra Decree, expelling the Jews from Spain. With this, the once united Ibn Shoshan family fractured and fled to wherever would take them in: Avignon, Constantinople, Tunis, Thessaloniki and Jerusalem.
Though they were fractured and scattered across the Mediterranean, several branches of the family achieved prominence in their new home countries, namely in Constantinople, where Moshe Sassoon established Sassoon Frères & Co in 1523.
Baghdad
For the branch of the family that moved to Jerusalem, they slowly made their way further into the Ottoman Empire and into Mesopotamia, eventually arriving in Baghdad, ingratiating themselves with the local Iraqi Jews.
Through strategic marriages with leading local Iraqi Jewish families and a keen business sense, the Sassoon family quickly became pillars of their community.
In 1750, Sassoon ben Salih was born in Baghdad and grew up to become a wealthy businessman in Baghdad and the president (Nasi) of the city’s Jewish community.
Even by the age of 31, Sassoon had become so successful he’d caught the attention of the Pashas (Ottoman regional governors) of Baghdad and Southern Iraq approached Sassoon, but not in a bad way.
They were so impressed with his skills with money that they offered to make him their chief treasurer. And Sassoon took them up on their offer. From 1781 until 1817, Sassoon served as the chief treasurer to dozens of Pashas across modern-day Iraq.
Aside from being a pillar of his community, a wealthy businessman and the chief treasurer to regional governors, Sassoon also made time for a family, marrying Amam Gabbai (sometimes Gabbay) in 1776 and having seven children together.
Though each of their seven children were destined for greatness, it was their third and fifth children, David (born 1792) and Joseph (born 1795), that truly achieved greatness.
Foundation
In 1816, a new ruler came to power in Iraq. Known as Dawud Pasha, he ruled with an iron fist and his reign was marked with record levels of antisemitism and
