Taxes and Anarchy

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Baghdad community did not yet have an organized system of direct taxation. Rather, the community’s main income came from the indirect tax levied upon the sale of meat—the gabilah. This funded everything: the salaries of the chief rabbi, the rabbinic judges, and the ritual slaughterers; payment of several Torah scholars; the philanthropic societies such as bikur ḥolim; and the meals fed to the students in the talmudei torah. In the absence of other income, in order to cover all these expenses the gabilah had to be set at a very high level, and in practice control of the gabilah ensured almost total control over the communal budget. This being so, disputes were prone to break out regarding the level of the gabilah and the proper allocation of the sums it generated. In view of shortcomings in the system of leadership and governance within the community, and the recurrent internal disputes that characterized it, on 24 January 1905 the ruling council of the Baghdad district ordered the abolition of the gabilah. This step placed the survival of the community, whose income was very low and whose institutions were fragile, in real danger. This section of the chapter will review the developments that led up to the council's decision.

At the time, the chief rabbi of the Baghdad community was Rabbi Yitshak Abraham Solomon, who had served in this position for some twelve years and was known by the nickname Almujalid (‘the Binder’). Born in 1835 and educated in the rabbinic school Midrash Beit Zilkhah, he was a weak, rather colourless person, hesitant and lacking in both the energy and the wisdom needed to lead the community through the transformations to come with the change of century. His own education was exclusively religious. He was not fluent in Turkish, and so was unable to cultivate direct relations with government officials.