As Jews, primarily from
Baghdad,
Basra and
Aleppo came to India as traders in the wake of the Portuguese, Dutch and British what became known as the Baghdadi communities grew fast. By the middle of the 19th century, trade between
Baghdad and
India was said to be entirely in Jewish hands. Within a generation Baghdadi Jews had established manufacturing and commercial houses of fabulous wealth, most notably the Sassoon, Ezra, Elias, Belilios, Judah and Meyer families. With the rise of British power in
India, Surat declined in importance as British-controlled
Calcutta and
Bombay became more important in trade. Spurred by the immigration of some the leading Jewish families of Baghdad fleeing the persecution of
Dawud Pasha, the first synagogue, replacing a small prayer room, was opened in 1823, and with the community expanding quickly a second followed in 1856. By the end of the 19th century, more than 1,800 Baghdadi Jews were living in
Calcutta. Baghdadi Jews were also living and trading in
Chinsura and
Chandernagore outside Calcutta. Baghdadi Jewish merchants dominated the opium trade with a majority of opium chests auctioned from the colonial authorities being exported to
China by Baghdadi Jewish merchants, who competed with
Marwari and
Parsee merchants for the trade. Sponsored by the
Sassoon family, the first synagogue opened in 1861 and the second in 1888. Distinct from
Calcutta, whose settlement was principally
Iraqi Jews and
Syrian Jews, the Baghdadi Jewish community in
Bombay drew significant Jewish immigration from Persian-speaking communities in
Afghanistan,
Bukhara and
Iran as well Jewish families from
Yemen. Jewish migrant were attracted from across the
Middle East to work in the factories and business concerns of the
Sassoon family. In
Singapore the elders of the community were initially the sons of Ezekiel Judah of
Calcutta. Meanwhile, the earliest
Baghdadi Jew to settle in
Burma was Azariah Samuel who arrived in the port of Sittwe on the
Bay of Bengal in 1841. Around the same time two brothers Judah and Abraham Raphael Ezekiel settled in
Mandalay and worked as bookkeepers for the Burmese royal court. At their heights, the communities of
Bombay and
Calcutta were at the heart of a communal kinship network linked by the ports of the
Indian Ocean and
South China Sea. One observer described the Baghdadi Jews communities as being "almost as familiar with each other as the Jews of Manchester are with Liverpool." The engines of the Baghdadi Jewish trading network were tightly knit family firms such as
David Sassoon and Co or the Meyer Brothers, founded by
Sir Manasseh Meyer, with offices and agents established by family members in the each port of the network. On the eve of war the Baghdadi population in
Calcutta had reached 3500 and in
Bombay 3000. Across the
Bay of Bengal in
Burma, both
Rangoon and
Pathein elected Baghdadi Jewish mayors and the Baghdadi Jewish population peaked at 2500 Jews in the 1930s. On the route between
India and
Singapore, a tiny Baghdadi community was in
Penang, with a synagogue and Jewish cemetery, was established in the 1870s, but for most of its history never exceeded 50 families. Further south from
Singapore, in
Indonesia, then the
Dutch East Indies, a tiny Baghdadi community of spice merchants was established in
Surabaya in
Java in the 1880s. The most far flung Baghdadi outposts, never numbering more than fifty families, were established in
Japan at the furthest reaches of the opium route. Baghdadi Jews from
Iraq,
Syria and
Egypt, initially drawn to man the concessions of
David Sassoon established tiny footholds in
Nagasaki,
Yokohama and
Kobe. Initially established in
Nagasaki and
Yokohama, the Baghdadi traders relocated to
Kobe, which became its focal point, after an earthquake in 1923. As imperial jurisdictions consolidated, the Baghdadi Jews found themselves in a liminal situation in colonial
Asia. They were considered neither Indian nor Western, Asian nor European and partnered with both Western and Indian interests. Legally they lived in limbo, their citizenship often unclear, having inherited what was an early modern political order. Prior to the
First World War the Baghdadi Jews were for the most part notionally subjects of the
Ottoman Empire. Starting from 1870 the communal leaders began aggressive lobbying with British colonial authorities to registered as European. This was never granted to them. Nor was admittance, with few exceptions, to the European-only clubs that were the center of life in the European colonial societies throughout Asia. Baghdadi Jews were denied access to European electoral rolls in India. Outsiders, and insiders, they clung fiercely to their Jewish identity. ==Baghdadi culture==