Ben-sion Somekh

Little is known of Ben-sion Somekh beyond a correspondence he had with the British colonial government. Somekh was born in Baghdad while it was part of the Ottoman Empire and moved to Bombay at the age of fourteen. There, he joined a British firm, and in 1891, he moved to Shanghai, joining a large community of Iraqi Jewish merchants. In 1903, Somekh began doing business independently. He married in 1910 and had three sons. In 1922, Somekh petitioned the British government—now in control of Iraq—for protected status for himself and his sons. His petition was denied on the grounds that he did not intend to return to Iraq.