Naim Dangoor

Naim Dangoor was an Iraqi Jewish businessman and philanthropist who fled to Britain in the 1960s and built a substantial property empire. He was the grandson of the Chief Rabbi of Baghdad, Ezra Dangoor, and the son of the world's largest printer of Arabic books. He studied engineering at the University of London in the 1930s and returned to Iraq to join the army and later run a successful business with his Muslim partner. He married Renée Dangoor, the first Miss Baghdad, in 1947 and had four sons. He also secured the first contract to bottle Coca-Cola in Iraq. In 1963, he left Iraq with his family after the Ba'ath party took control and enacted harsh decrees against Jews. He settled in London and established a property development business. He also founded a community centre for new Iraqi Jewish immigrants and a journal, The Scribe, to preserve the heritage of the Babylonian Jewry. He was a generous donor to various health, educational and religious charities in the UK and Israel. He supported cancer research, scholarships, interfaith dialogue, and Jewish education. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bar-Ilan University and was appointed a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 2015. He died at the age of 101.