Bombay Reminiscences

by Percy S Gourgey MBE

I appreciate the reference to my dear late Mother, Hannah, as being a founder-member of the League of Jewish Women (and WIZO) in Bombay before the War, in an article by Sarah Manasseh in the recent issue of The Scribe.

While her late Father, Albert, founded Habonim in Bombay in 1935, together with Solomon Ezra, still happily with us and living in Jerusalem with his family, others involved in that early period were my elder Sisters, now in London, Sara’s Mother, Rachel, now living in Israel and other members of the Ani family, and Jack Japeth now living in Israel after retiring from the Indian Navy with the rank of Commander. As a very young boy, together with my dear late twin Brother, Archie, I was among the first group of six young boys to have started Habonim in Bombay.

In 1943, as Captain of the then Zionist Water-Polo team, I helped to form the Maccabi Sports Club in Bombay of which the founder was the late Mr Gershon Starosta, from Russia, who settled in Tel Aviv after the War. Following my service in the Royal Indian Naval Volunteer Reserve as an Officer in the War, I became Honorary Secretary of the Central Jewish Board of Bombay, in 1950, and Associate Editor of The Jewish Advocate, the journal of the Bombay Zionist Association.

There were many others of the Baghdadian/Babylonian Jewish community in Bombay, now settled in Israel and elsewhere who, together with their Bene-Israel fellow Jews, played an active part in the affairs of the vibrant Bombay Jewish community and, indeed, in public affairs generally.