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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
HAIL DAVID
On 12 March, 1908, a baby boy was born to Saul and Flora Mashal at their home on the island of Singapore. They named him David, after the biblical king of the Jews. Unbeknownst to them, his life would parallel and resonate with that of the legendary king in many ways in the years to come. The Mashals lived on the second storey of a small shophouse at 81, Selegie Road, at the junction of Selegie Road and Sophia Road, in the middle of Singapore's Jewish quarter, referred to as the mahallah by the Arabspeaking Jews. Below them was a shop selling Chinese coffins. The Mashals celebrated the arrival of their first-born son. Flora was especially pleased. The year before, she had given birth to their first child, a daughter named Rachel. Saul and Flora had been in the British colony of Singapore for just eight years and things were looking up for them.
Saul had arrived in Singapore in 1900. Unlike so many of his fellow sojourners, Saul was not in Singapore to seek his fortune but to recover his health, having been diagnosed with jaundice. Two years previously, in 1898, he had married Flora — born Mariam Farha Khan — only child of Khan and Ha'cohen. The young Saul arrived in Singapore during Ramadan — the holy Muslim month of fasting — and noticed that local Muslims did not have any dates with which to break their fast, as was the tradition in Baghdad. Born into a family of traders and dyers, Saul smelt an opportunity here and began importing dried dates from the Middle East. Soon he set up an office in Change Alley, leading off Singapore's business centre, Raffles Place. Business was good and Saul decided to settle in Singapore. Once settled in, he sent for his young bride in Baghdad.
FROM BAGHDAD TO SINGAPORE
Today, the Jews constitute the smallest ethnic community in Singapore. Even at its height, just before the onset of World War II in Europe, the total number of Jews in Singapore numbered no more than 2,000. Most Jews in Singapore came from Baghdad, in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Jews had lived in Mesopotamia for close to 3,000 years and Baghdad had long been one of the most important centres of Jewry in the Middle East.5 In 1910, Baghdad had a huge Jewish population.
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