Sir Eleazer "Elly" Silas Kadoorie (1867 – February 8, 1944) was a Baghdadi-born
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
businessman and philanthropist active in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
. He was a member of the wealthy
Kadoorie family
The Kadoorie family or "Khedouri" ( he, כדורי, ar, خضوري) are a wealthy Hong Kong-based family, originally Mizrahi Jews from Baghdad, Iraq. From the mid-18th century they were established in Mumbai, British Raj India becoming one of t ...
that had large business interests in the Far East.
Biography
His family were originally
Iraqi Jews
The history of the Jews in Iraq ( he, יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים, ', ; ar, اليهود العراقيون, ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and mos ...
from
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
who later migrated to
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
(
British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
), in the mid-nineteenth century. His brother was Sir
Ellis Kadoorie
Sir Ellis Kadoorie CBE (1865–1922) was a Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was a member of the wealthy Baghdadian Kadoorie family that had large business interests in the Far East. His brother was Sir Elly Kadoorie, and his nephew wa ...
, and his sons were Sir
Lawrence Kadoorie and Sir
Horace Kadoorie
Sir Horace Kadoorie, CBE (28 September 1902 – 22 April 1995) was an industrialist, hotelier, and philanthropist.
Early life and education
In 1913–14, he spent a year at Clifton College and was a member of Polacks House; a boarding house so ...
.
Elly Kadoorie arrived in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
from Bombay in 1880 as an employee of the
Baghdadi Jewish
The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian ...
firm
David Sassoon & Sons.
[Haaretz: "This Day in Jewish History: A WWII Survivor Who Built Hong Kong Dies – Lawrence Kadoorie rose from a Japanese prison camp to restore his family’s fortunes and help forge Hong Kong’s future with China" by David B. Green]
25 August 2014 Within a few years he had accumulated large sums of money and had gone into business on his own account, with companies in both Shanghai and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
. He became the largest shareholder when
China Light & Power was restructured in early 20th century. Over the next two decades, the Kadoorie brothers made their fortunes, achieving success in banking, rubber plantations, electric power utilities and real estate and gaining a major shareholding in Hong Kong Hotels Limited.
Kadoorie was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
in the
1926 Birthday Honours. He was given the Order of the Brilliant Jade by the Chinese government.
He became a naturalised British citizen the following year.
In 1942, Kadoorie was taken from his home in Shanghai and interned in a Japanese prison camp for foreign civilians. He died in prison on February 8, 1944.
Sir Elly Kadoorie's grave and that of his wife Laura, Lady Kadoorie, are located in the Song Qingling Memorial Park near Hongqiao Road, Shanghai, and are accessible to visitors. Theirs are amongst only four Jewish tombstones in Shanghai which remained intact and were not destroyed during the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kadoorie, Elly
1867 births
1944 deaths
Hong Kong philanthropists
Hong Kong Jews
Hong Kong people of Iraqi-Jewish descent
Baghdadi Jews
Elly
Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Jews and Judaism in Shanghai
Jewish philanthropists
Businesspeople from Mumbai
British people who died in Japanese internment camps
Businesspeople from Shanghai
Chinese Zionists
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom