With thanks to Stella Joory, whose mother Rachel Darwish (nee Elia) studied at the Alliance teacher-training school in France
A grainy, three-minute silent clip records the inauguration of the Versailles Alliance teacher-training school 100 years ago. The graduates of this school would be dispersed into the 200 schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, which educated the Jewish communities of the Muslim world. The millionaire who funded the new building was a Baghdad-born Jew of French nationality, Ezekiel Shahmoon, now barely remembered. At the ceremony, Shahmoon is presented with the Legion d’Honneur. He was the first Iraqi Jew to be granted such an honour. But who was Ezekiel Shahmoon?
Born in 1890, Ezekiel Elia Shahmoon came from a large Baghdadi family and had four sisters and three brothers. He made his money out of trading gold and silver. He never married, and was an avid collector of china.
In 1907 Ezekiel (17) and his brother Salomon ‘Charlie’ (14) left Baghdad and went to Bombay. After a short time in India, the two brothers moved on to Shanghai, China, where they lived with their uncle, Sassoon Somekh (their mother’s brother) and their aunt Rebecca. Ezekiel’s father also had business interests in Shanghai where there was a large Jewish community.
According to Dick Hogbin of the Stansted and Fairseat History Society, Ezekiel Shahmoon started his career as an office boy in China and he and his brother became wealthy after WW1 started in 1914, through selling food to Europe and other business deals (including interests in rubber) and through trading gold and silver on the stock market. By this time they had been joined by their brother, Ezra. One newspaper report said that in 1917 he had put through a £4m deal with the British government.
Very sadly, his sister Rahel became ill at her wedding a short time after the photograph was taken and died within a week. As a lasting tribute, her father raised money and added it to her dowry to rebuild a property (formerly the Taawen School) in the centre of the Jewish quarter of Baghdad, with modern classrooms, science lab, gymnasium, a stage and a beautiful synagogue. It was called the Rahel Shahmoon school and was inaugurated in 1924 by Chief Rabbi Hakham Ezra Dangoor.
Two years earlier, the Versailles Alliance teacher-training school was inaugurated. Ezekiel Shahmoon, the benefactor, was lauded at the inauguration ceremony as ‘a man with a big heart and magnificently generous’.
He was described in various travel documents as a French citizen and his race and religion as ‘Hebrew’.
Early in 1934, Ezekiel Shahmoon was included on a US list of ‘Hoarders of Silver’ as he owned more than 50,000 oz of silver. In 1934, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that all privately owned silver (not coins) in the US should be surrendered to the Treasury in return for a payment of 50¢ per troy ounce. A major intent of the 1934 silver nationalization was to call in idle silver bullion holdings in order to make more silver coins for monetary circulation. It is not known how this affected Shahmoon’s finances but it does show that he was a major player in silver trading. His address at the time was The Dorchester Hotel, London.
In 1937, the cigar-smoking batchelor walked into a Regent St showroom to buy a present for his sister. Shahmoon offered to put up the money for the two furniture salesmen who served him to start a business. Their business venture was a failure and cost Shahmoon money, but it was a sign of his generosity that he committed to helping them: ‘I gave them a chance because I know what it’s like to struggle for success,’ he said.
In 1935 Ezekiel Shahmoon bought Trosley Towers near Vigo in Kent, its woodlands and some of its properties. The previous owner of the estate was Sir Philip Waterlow. Some of the houses were bought by tenants; Shahmoon told a local resident that he had intended to live in Trosley Towers but had been away for a long time with an illness. On his return, he found that the property had been stripped of all its lead and was in such a poor state that the best course of action was for it to be demolished. It is believed that Shamoon’s plans were to build a new house on the site with a golf course but this never materialised. He did, however, create the Trosley Construction Company and built a large stable block at the rear of Hamilton Lodge. One story suggests that the stables were constructed to accommodate the Shah of Persia’s racehorses on his visits to England. The stables at Hamilton Lodge were still standing until about 1960 when they were demolished and the rest of the site cleared to make way for the development of Vigo Village.
Although Trosley Towers had been demolished, a number of discrete properties remained and these were occupied by Shahmoon and by members of his extended family in 1939. This was at a time of great threat to Jewish people in Europe and beyond and it is conceivable that many members of his family had fled their homes in Baghdad and Shanghai and come to join Shahmoon in England rather than be caught up in an impending catastrophe. Ezekiel Shahmoon’s business was badly damaged by the war and he was deeply in debt. He never did realise his grandiose dreams. in 1941, an order was made on Shahmoon for bankruptcy.
He never married and died in 1972 aged 81.
