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{{Short description|Founder of Jewish community in Calcutta}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2025}}
{{Use Indian English|date=July 2025}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Shalom Aaron Obadiah Cohen
| birth_date = 1762
| birth_place = [[Aleppo]]
| death_date = 13 February 1836
| death_place = [[Kolkata]]
| spouse =
| children = 10
| other_names = Shalom ben Aharon ben Obadiah ha-Cohen
| occupation = Jeweler
| known_for =
}}
'''Shalom Aaron Obadiah Cohen''' (1762–1836) was a Jewish jeweler, merchant, and community leader known for founding the [[History of the Jews in Kolkata|Jewish community]] in [[Kolkata]].

==Life and career==
===Early life===
{{Expand section|date=September 2023}}
Shalom Aaron Obadiah Cohen was born in [[Aleppo]] in 1762 to Aaron Obadiah Cohen and Chana Dayan. Much of what is known about his early life originates from his diary, spanning from 1789 to 1834. The manuscript was written in [[Judeo-Arabic]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ezra |first=Esmond David |title=Turning Back the Pages: A chronicle of Calcutta Jewry |publisher=Brookside Press |year=1986 |isbn=9780851730073 |pages=75 |language=English}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=ספר הנוורוז : במכונת כתיבה יומן {{!}} Manuscript NNL_ALEPH990001346530205171 {{!}} The National Library of Israel |url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/manuscripts/NNL_ALEPH990001346530205171/NLI |access-date=2023-01-21 |website=www.nli.org.il |language=en}}</ref>

===First journey to India===
Cohen traveled to India in 1789 via [[Baghdad]], [[Hillah]], and [[Basra]]. From Basra, at the time an important port for merchants, he embarked on a six-week voyage on a British ship heading to [[Bombay|Mumbai]].<ref name="auto" /> He first arrived in [[Surat]] for a five-month stay between September 1790 and April 1791. While some scholars have speculated that he left due to the increasingly perilous position of Jews in Aleppo and Baghdad, the main reason for his journey was likely to gauge the potential for growing his business in India.<ref name="auto17">{{cite book |last1=Roland|first1=Joan |title=Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century |chapter=The Baghdadi Jews of India: Perspectives on the Study and Portrayal of a Community |date=2007 |pages=158–180 |publisher = Palgrave Macmillan, New York|doi=10.1057/9780230603622_10 |isbn=978-1-349-53700-6 }}</ref>

===Surat===
Cohen returned to India on a more permanent basis in April 1792, bringing a cook and servant and buying a house from an Armenian merchant. However, when he sent for his wife Seti Duek Cohen and daughter Rebecca to join him in India, his father-in-law responded that they would not be coming "even if the entire distance from Aleppo to Surat were paved in jewels."<ref name="auto"/>

In Surat, he organized a petition for lower taxes from the British, which was signed by 65 Jewish merchants in 1795.<ref name="auto1">{{cite journal |last1=Fischel |first1=Walter |date=1965 |title=The immigration of" Arabian" Jews to India in the eighteenth century. |journal=Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research |volume=33 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.2307/3622407 |jstor=3622407}}</ref> His trade consisted mainly of diamonds, indigo, [[Dacca]] cloth, and silk. At one point he had a conflict with [[Samuel Guise-Moores]], who was then acting as his private physician. In a letter to John Griffin, the head of the [[East India Company]] in Surat, Cohen demanded that he reprimand Guise-Moores.<ref name="auto1"/>

While waiting for his wife and daughter to join him, Cohen married the daughter of his business partner, Jacob ben Semah Nissim, Najima. Cohen had nine children with Najima. Apart from a handful of business trips to Baghdad and Basra, Cohen lived in Surat through the end of 1797, when he left for Kolkata via Mumbai, [[Cochin]], [[Madras]], and [[Hooghly district|Hooghly]].<ref name=":0" />

===Kolkata===
Cohen arrived in [[Kolkata]] on 5 August 1798.<ref>{{cite web |title=Oy! Calcutta |url=https://segulamag.com/en/today_event/%D7%99%D7%94%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%94%D7%95%D7%93%D7%95/ |website=Segula: The Jewish History Magazine |access-date=22 February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Abraham|first1=Isaac |title=The Origina and History of the Calcutta Jews |date=1969 |publisher=Daw Sen and Co. }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Elias|first1=Flower | last2 = Cooper | first2 = J.E. |title=The Jews of Calcutta: An Autobiography of a Community, 1798-1972 |date=1974 |publisher= Jewish Association of Calcutta}}</ref> Soon after he settled there, he was joined by other Jewish merchants from Aleppo and Baghdad, including his brother Abraham.<ref name=":0" /> Though he is often recognized as the [[History of the Jews in Kolkata|first Jew in Kolkata]], this claim is refuted by records of other Jewish merchants living in Kolkata for shorter periods before his arrival. The first Jew to reside in the city was likely [[Lyon Prager]], a Jewish merchant from London, who came to Kolkata in 1786 to work for Israel Levin Solomons. Cohen was, however, the founder of the community, and the first to establish a [[Baghdadi Jews|Baghdadi Jewish]] trading firm in Kolkata.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Goldstein |first1=Jonathan |title=Jewish Identities in East and Southeast Asia. |journal=In Jewish Identities in East and Southeast Asia |date=2015 |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenberg}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Judah |first1=Ben |title=The last of our synagogues |date=3 January 2017 |url=https://www.thejc.com/comment/columnists/ben-judah-the-last-of-our-synagogues-1.429978 |publisher=The Jewish Chronicle |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref>

By 1806, as evidenced by a letter to Thomas Brown, then acting Chief Secretary of the British Government in India, Cohen requested British protection as he closed his businesses in Aleppo, Baghdad, Bushehr, and Basra. Cohen decided to settle in India instead of returning to the Middle East.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Abhilekh Patal |url=https://www.abhilekh-patal.in/jspui/handle/123456789/1647909?searchWord=shalom&backquery=%5Blocation=123456789/1&query=shalom%20cohen&filtername=dateIssued&filtertype=equals&filterquery=%5B1800-01-01%20TO%201810-01-01%5D&filtername_1=dateIssuedTo&filtertype_1=equals&filterquery_1=%5B1800-01-01%20TO%201810-01-01%5D&rpp=20&sort_by=dc.date.accessioned_dt&order=desc&originalquery=%5D |access-date=2023-05-03 |website=www.abhilekh-patal.in}}</ref>

In May 1811, he purchased a home in Kolkata, which also served as the prayer hall for the growing local Jewish community, that still lacked a synagogue.<ref name="auto" /> A feud with his business partner and father-in-law Jacob Semah in 1812 led to Semah's imprisonment. Around the same time as the feud, Cohen moved his family to [[Chinsura]], a day's journey from Kolkata. He maintained his property in Kolkata as a place of worship for the Jewish community.<ref name="auto" /> Semah returned to Baghdad, where he financed synagogues and Jewish schools.<ref>{{Cite book| last1= A. Ben-Jacob | first1= Yehudei Bavel| title= History of the Jews in Baghdad | date=1965 }}</ref>

===Court jeweller in Lucknow===
Having become particularly well known as an expert in the jewelry trade, he moved to Lucknow as the court jeweler for the [[Ghazi-ud-Din Haidar Shah|Nawab Wazir Ghazi ad-Din Haidar]] and his son in 1816. In [[Lucknow]], the Nawab granted him a "Robe of Honor" and he was given the distinction of riding with the Nawab on his elephant.<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last1=Musleah |first1=E.M. |title=On the banks of the Ganga: The sojourn of Jews in India |date=1975}}</ref><ref name="encyc">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U7s5AQAAMAAJ|title=The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day|last1=Singer|first1=Isidore|last2=Adler|first2=Cyrus |date=1916|publisher=Funk and Wagnalls}}</ref> His monthly salary in this period was around 2,000 rupees.

===Later life===
After a three-year stay as the court jeweler, Cohen left Lucknow with a group of more than one hundred people who were employed by him. In 1828, he had an audience with the Governor General of India, [[Lord William Bentinck|Lord William Cavendish Bentinck]].<ref name="auto" />

Towards the end of his life, Cohen traveled to the court of Maharaja [[Ranjit Singh]] in Punjab and was asked to appraise the [[Koh-i-Noor|Kohinoor]] diamond. According to legend, he responded by saying the diamond had no value at all – for it could only be given in love or captured by war.<ref>{{cite news |date=2021 |title=Jews of Kolkata: A slice of history |work=The Times of India |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/jews-of-kolkata-a-slice-of-history/articleshow/87886913.cms |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref>

==Legacy==
[[File:Grave of Shalom Aaron Obadiah Cohen EF 191.jpg|thumb|Shalom Cohen's grave in the Jewish Cemetery of Beleghata]]

Cohen and his son-in-law Moses Duek were two of the founders of Kolkata's first synagogue, [[Magen David Synagogue (Kolkata)|Neveh Shalome]], in 1831.<ref name="auto" />

He also provided land to establish the first Jewish cemetery on Narkeldanga Road. He is said to have been offered this land as a gift from a Bengali friend when he inquired about land for a Jewish cemetery. His friend refused to accept payment, but Cohen, unwilling to receive the land for free, gave him a golden ring as payment.<ref name="auto" /> The cemetery is still in use by the few remaining members of the [[History of the Jews in Kolkata|Kolkata Jewish community]] today, and Cohen is buried there.

Shalom is featured in the children's book ''Shalome Rides a Royal Elephant.'' It was written by his descendant, [[Jael Silliman]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Banerjee Mehta |first1=Julie |title=Author Jael Silliman talks about her charming and whimsical new fable Shalome Rides a Royal Elephant - The Story of the First Jews of Calcutta |url=https://t2online.in/goodlife/books/author-jael-silliman-talks-about-her-charming-and-whimsical-new-fable-shalome-rides-a-royal-elephant-the-story-of-the-first-jews-of-calcutta/686407 |publisher=T2 Online |access-date=27 November 2024 |date=14 December 2023}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[History of the Jews in India]]

== References ==

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Baghdadi Jews]]
[[Category:Indian Jews]]
[[Category:Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:Immigrants to British India]]
[[Category:People from the Bengal Presidency]]
[[Category:Indian people of Iraqi-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:People from Kolkata]]
[[Category:Religious leaders from Aleppo]]
[[Category:1762 births]]
[[Category:1836 deaths]]

Shalom Obadiah Cohen - Revision history

JaniePan0653361: made new post initial version