The story of the first Miss Iraq 1947, who was Jewish

Albawaba shares a colorized photo of Renée Rebecca Dangoor, the first Miss Iraq in 1947 - and a Jew.

Dangoor was born in Shanghai where her father was doing business but she came from an illustrious Jewish family in Iraq; her grandfather was chief rabbi of Baghdad.

She won the very first Miss Iraq competition, and it does not appear that there were any more competitions until 1962.

She married her cousin, Dr. Naim Dangoor, who became a successful businessman in Iraq, first making windows and then becoming the first Coca Cola bottler in Iraq, as well as other industries.

But Iraq started to oppress its Jews, forcing the family to leave in 1959 to England, where Naim had studied engineering. He kept trying to keep his businesses in Iraq afloat but by 1963 the nation seized all his companies.

Naim rebuilt his life in England, becoming a very successful businessman and philanthropist. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2015.

The Albawaba article claims that the Dangoors "refused" to move to Israel, but they clearly felt close to the Jewish state. Naim founded the  The Sir Naim Dangoor Centre for Universal monotheism at Bar Ilan University.

(After I wrote this, I found out that the first Miss India was also a Baghdadi Jew!)

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